How tweet it is Developers discovering social media marketing is great way to get tenants

Joshua Burd//November 30, 2015//

How tweet it is Developers discovering social media marketing is great way to get tenants

Joshua Burd//November 30, 2015//

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The amenity-rich, 36-story apartment tower known as The One had been open in Jersey City for barely a month when one prospective tenant chimed in on the building’s Twitter account.

would like to stop by see a 1 br today– do I need an appt?” she wrote on July 20.

Within about 10 minutes she had her reply:

walk-ins are welcome, but we’ll let our team know to expect you.

Within three hours, The One had a new tenant.

“You have to be active in social media in order to better connect with your residents — and with your potential residents,” said Mickey Napolitano, vice president and real estate director with BLDG Management, which developed the 439-unit high-rise. She later added: “I think this is the type of tenancy that we thought was active — it’s a technological age — and I think that’s why we’ve done well with social media.”

It’s one way in which developers and building owners in New Jersey are using social media to both market and manage their properties.

In an industry that is notoriously slow to embrace technology, experts say platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and others have emerged as a complement to traditional forms of marketing and programming — es-pecially for those focused on attracting millennials and other tech-savvy tenants.

At The One, tweets and Instagram posts have helped showcase the building’s amenities and lifestyle, from its pool deck and game room to its twice-weekly yoga classes and summer barbecues. But rather than inundating tenants with postings, Napolitano said management has encouraged them to share their own experiences, in part by using the hashtag #IFoundTheOneNJ.

“A lot of times, when you’re looking at an apartment, you’re just looking at floorplans and pictures, or you take a tour, but you’re not really able to get a sense of the community and a sense of what happens at the building,” said Napolitano, whose building was 92 percent leased through mid-November. “And by using social media, we were able to convey this to potential residents.

“Seeing the tenants tweet some of their experiences … has been a success story for us because it actually conveys that there’s an authentic community at The One. It’s not forced, and that transparency comes across.”

Residential developers aren’t the only ones using social media. It’s a major part of the marketing effort at the former Bell Labs building in Holmdel, now known as Bell Works, where Somerset Development is transforming the 2 million-square-foot vacant office building into a mixed-use, walkable destination.

Food for thought
For tenants at The Modern in Fort Lee, social media goes hand in hand with food.
Look no further than the high-end food trucks that the building hosts every Tuesday, which have become a hit with tenants who enjoy their offerings — anything from lobster rolls to Mexican food to burgers — and then share their experiences on social media.
“It’s just another example of how we’ve used social media to expand our horizons and expand our market,” said Allen Goldman of SJP Properties, which developed the 47-story tower. “It has really been something that has resonated with people who live in the building, and we encourage people to bring their friends.”

Jeff Garibaldi, a broker who leads the marketing effort there, said the iconic, all-glass property is a natural fit for social platforms because of its high profile and its appeal to many different audiences. That includes history buffs who appreciate its legacy of innovation — it has housed seven Nobel Prize winners responsible for cellular technology, the transistor and other innovations — and for architecture enthusiasts who have fought to see it be preserved.

Through last week, Bell Works had nearly 2,200 Facebook followers and 760 Twitter followers, plus 324 Instagram followers.

“Between the history and the legacy and the architecture, this building is on everyone’s radar screen,” said Garibaldi, president of Garibaldi Group.

Working with Beckerman, a Hackensack-based public relations firm, Somerset has captured that following through events such as Instagram meetups. One such event was hosted by the Jersey Collective, a photography group with nearly 7,000 followers, many of whom turned out to take pictures at the historic building in early August.

Garibaldi also noted that using those platforms will help speak to a younger workforce, as Somerset works to repopulate the commercial space inside. When it comes to the new generation — the kind that office preferences are now catering to — “they’re all tech-savvy and they’re all social media gurus.”

Not to mention that Somerset hopes to anchor the space with one industry in particular: technology.

“You can identify any one of these tech sectors and it’s all young minds coming out of some great schools, and that’s where all this new technology is coming from,” Garibaldi said. “So we’re trying to reach them.”

In Fort Lee, developer SJP Residential has used social media to help bring a broad demographic profile to its sleek all-glass residential tower known as The Modern. Last spring, the building drew about 100 people to a private event for Yelp Elite, an exclusive group associated with the user-generated review website, generating considerable buzz for the 450-unit property.

“We certainly realize that in the last 10 years there’s been a huge sea change in how we appeal to certain segments of the population,” said Allen Goldman, president of SJP Properties. “(We realized) that social media needed to be a key element in our program in order to be able to reach such a large group of prospective renters.”

In fact, marketing the building has gone so well that SJP and its partners — Prudential Real Estate Investors and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. — are preparing to break ground early next year on a second 47-story tower next door. The new building will have every feature enjoyed by tenants in the first phase, from high-end finishes and striking views to amenities such as a golf simulator.

But the second tower will also have one additional perk, thanks to feedback from social media.

“We’ve had a number of people who said, ‘Do you have bowling lanes?’” Goldman said. “No, we do not, but guess what? In our second building, we will have bowling lanes.”

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