It only takes 15 minutes or less per day to engage in social media! Has your retirement community entered the twenty first century with social media yet?
Some of the larger senior housing organizations have wonderful social media programs. Sunrise Senior Living posts great blog content multiple times a week. Emeritus sends out engaging monthly email blasts. Other organizations with a nationwide presence have a staff who are dedicated to social media.
What do you do if you are a stand along retirement community or only have a handful of senior living communities in your portfolio? You can still do social media for 15 minutes a day. Seriously – I am doing it at two Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) in Southern California.
First, you can either set up some social media yourself or have it professionally done for about $1000 per community. I had mine set up professionally. Then I trained one person at each CCRC to add content. At first it took them some time to get into the swing of it, but now they can create three or four posts at time and then schedule one post to be released online at a time – one per day using Hootsuite.
We post – fun stuff the residents are going to do, show pictures of what the residents or employees have done and repost interesting articles that seniors would like. The 15 minutes timeframe per day includes taking pictures of some of the resident activities, a plate of food or searching for a image on line to share. And yes, we have signed photo releases… Post your upcoming marketing events and engage with prospective residents.
You can pay extra money for followers, but we have let it grow organically. Employees, residents and family members are getting engaged and we even do the Fan of the Week on Facebook. Freedom Village and The Village each have Facebook accounts, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.
As local seniors pick one of our CCRCs, the Boomer children that live out of state can see and connect with their parent’s selection through social media – this has had a positive impact on sales. Our most popular posts are residents and employees pictures that go viral.
How is your social media going and has it created or confirmed any move-ins for you yet?
Please comment to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. Masson’s book will be required reading at George Mason University in the Fall as part of the marketing curriculum. She is currently consulting with Seniors For Living and two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Connection and partnership opportunities: Email: diane@marketing2seniors.net
Would you be willing to share your photo release form?
Hi Jaclyn, There are too many legal ramifications, so I am not comfortable doing that.
Diane
Agree wholeheartedly. It also helps extend your marketing reach – those friends of friends who see the happy faces will remember that or look up that photo album when its time to think about where they might want to move or do a tour. Word of mouth (via social tools) is still the best marketing tool out there!
LinkedIn Boomers: Aging Beats The Alternative
Good social media tips for any business.
By Lorie Eber
LinkedIn SENIOR LIVING CONNECTION
Watching our individual retirement community facebook pages growing organically over the last few months has been quite exciting. As you said Diane, it’s a great go-to place for residents, their family, staff and friends.
And now that one in three seniors has a tablet or e-reader, there are no more excuses for not having a social media presence !
By Elisa Prashad
LinkedIn Mature Market Experts
Diane – you are so right. Social media is oftentimes today’s word of mouth.
By Chris Bradshaw
LinkedIn CCRC’s – Continuing Care Retirement Communities
Thank you for the pep talk! We started engaging in social media recently with our new website, FB business page, Linkedin groups, and Constant Contact and what a difference it makes! It’s amazing how our business has grown in such a short time. After reading your article, we’re signing up for Twitter next. Thank you again for your encouraging words.
Mary Spann
LinkedIn CCRC’s – Continuing Care Retirement Communities
Diane this is great and I agree with you professional collaboration in order to get things set up and in motion is a great idea. There are also groups like my group that can manage content as well since we get to know community as if it were our own. It is also an excellent idea to tie in your Search Engine Marketing with your Social Media Program. Searchers are usually seeking information to take an action such as calling, visiting or buying and the social media side builds the reputation to bolster that decision. SEM is a bit more time consuming and specialized so we recommend collaboration with a professional in that area. Excellent post.
By George Karakatsanis