Instagram: Grabbing Students' Attention

Don’t know what Instagram is? (It's not a door-to-door telegram service.) It's a popular photo-sharing social media app with more than 75 million users daily. Of these 75 million, 44% are within the Millennial generation and probably right in your wheelhouse for potential tenants, says Serendipit Consulting partner Alexis Krisay. (The other 56% are hip hop artists.) Instagram allows users to customize each photo and share it from the app directly to Facebook or Twitter, so for many college students, it’s the first place they go when posting a new photos, Alexis says.

Having a successful Instagram strategy is crucial for identifying with the Millennials and gaining new prospects for your community, she says. To engage potential tenants, Alexis suggests hosting an Instagram contest encouraging students to post a photo at your leasing office to their Instagram account and geotagging your community, or to post a photo using a unique community hashtag. (We had an easier time learning Latin than these social media words.) The idea is to drive engagement and increase buzz about your community. Reward followers that consistently like your photos or comment on your images by giving them the opportunity to win something. An example of this would be to post a branded graphic on Instagram and have the first person that “regrams” the photo win a gift card.