High Production Video Ads vs. Slideshow Video Ads

YouTube Ad Video Production Quality

YouTube has over 1 billion monthly viewers (Google) and is used by over 70% of U.S. adults (Pew Research Center). It’s no secret that YouTube is an incredibly popular marketing channel. So why aren’t more marketers incorporating YouTube into their marketing strategy?

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Four Apartment Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2020

At one point, ideas like conversion software, analytics-driven marketing, and dynamic video advertisements were innovations that apartment marketers saw coming on the horizon. Headed into 2020, these ideas and others have established themselves as necessities for those in the apartment marketing space. So which trends do you need to know about in 2020?

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5 Things Apartment Communities Need to Know About Stories Ads

Instagram Stories was introduced back in 2016 and since then it has taken off to become one of the most used features on Instagram. The Facebook-owned, 15-second format has allowed businesses to create engrossing and powerful advertising for a wide audience. Before jumping straight into brainstorming your quarter-minute masterpiece, let’s go over the 5 things you need to know about creating Stories ads for your apartment community.

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How to Increase Student Housing Leases Through Your Website

Student sitting on a box after move-in

Every generation brings a new challenge to marketers and Generation Z is no different. How do you reach them both as a group and as individuals? With Gen Z reaching college-age, student housing communities will need to start approaching their marketing a bit differently to make sure they aren’t left with vacant units. Check out these 6 tips to increase your student housing website lead conversions.

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How to Create and Market Video Content for Apartments

Video Marketing for apartments

“You have to make video content!”. You’ve been hearing this phrase and others like it for years now. They even have crazy statistics such as “50% of people watch a video about a product before they make a purchase” (Google). You already know you have to create video content to help showcase your community. That part goes without saying, the hard part is knowing where to begin, what type of videos to create, how much to budget for video content, and where to post it once you’ve made your masterpiece. Luckily, you made the wise choice of reading this article and in just a few minutes, you’ll be a video marketing whiz.

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5 Best Practices for YouTube Apartment Ads

YouTube Apartment Ads

Facebook and Instagram steal a lot of the spotlight in the advertising world. But they aren’t the only powerful players in the advertising game. Google’s social media frontrunner, YouTube is now the most used social media platform in the country. More U.S. adults use YouTube than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter.

They aren’t just watching cat videos all day either. American adults are watching thousands of years of apartment video content. In the past few years, YouTube viewers spent over 7,300 years of watch time on apartment and home tour videos (YouTube Advertising).

We know most U.S adults watch YouTube, and we know that they are watching apartment content, but are they watching ads?

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Social Video Marketing Strategies for Student Housing

Video Marketing Strategies for Student Housing

College-aged students live on their mobile devices. Most spend their time watching videos and using social networking sites. Student housing communities have a variety of choices when it comes to marketing on social media video sharing platforms. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat all have a share of this market’s attention.

Each of these platforms has its own purpose and communication style. In this blog post, we show you where your target market is engaging with video content, the opportunities, and limitations that these platforms provide student housing marketers, and strategies for getting the most out of these communication channels.

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YouTube Performance Study: Selecting the Right Video Content for Your Apartment Community

Youtube for Apartments

Over 70% of U.S. adults watch videos on YouTube, a greater percentage than any other social media networking site. Of those in the 18-24 age bracket, the number jumps up to 94%, and still holds a majority among those 50+, with 56% of these adults claiming to watch YouTube (Pew Research Center).

Despite the allure of a large audience, it’s not enough to just post up an ad and hope for the best. Certain types of ads work better than others, and the right video ad can improve your reach, and lower your cost-per-action on your campaign.

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Facebook Inserts Mid-Roll Ads into Videos

Facebook Video AdvertisingFacebook continues to evolve and develop new opportunities for advertisers and publishers. Most recently, Facebook started testing mid-roll ads in live-streaming and regular videos on its platform. This new feature aims to help media companies and the social network generate revenue from growing video audiences. How will this affect your video advertising efforts?

After a video of at least 90 seconds in length has played for at least 20 seconds, Facebook may insert a 15-second ad “break” during video content. Facebook will reportedly give publishers 55 percent of all ad sales, the same revenue split that YouTube offers. Facebook is rolling out these new ad slots to agencies.

The mid-roll ads will be enabled by default when you buy a video ad campaign on Facebook, but you do have some control. As advertisers, you can opt out if you don’t want your ads to run in the middle of publishers’ videos. You can also pick categories of videos (like DIY segments or sports clips) in which you want your ads to run. Conversely, you can avoid certain categories like, “live news,” controversial social issues,” and “political debates.”

These mid-roll ads are an effective way to reach a captive audience. Take advantage of these engaged audiences by sharing your message with consumers. How can you best utilize this 15-second video spot?

Tailor your story to your audience: People want to watch relevant, helpful ads catered to their interests. Customize your ad’s message to the people who see it.

Invest in production: Spend some time and resources to produce the best possible product within your allocated budget. Consumers will respond to well-crafted, professional video that renders properly on every size screen.

Get to the point: Bring your story to life quickly so you quickly grab consumers’ attention. Consider showing brand or product imagery in the first few seconds so it’s clear what you are promoting.

Focus on storytelling: Since you only have 15 seconds, you need to tell a clear and concise story. Use every second wisely to keep your audience engaged from beginning to end.

If you’re interested in learning more about Facebook advertising, or want to launch a Facebook video campaign, contact us today!


Snapchat Will Serve Targeted Ads Based on What People Buy

Snapchat AdvertisingThe more personalized an ad is to its audience, the greater chance it will drive a consumer to act. Snapchat will soon deliver more personalized and relevant ads to its users, improving the user experience and connecting buyers with brands.

Partnering with Oracle Data Cloud, owner of data collection firm Datalogix, Snapchat will start targeting and measuring ads on its platform based on what people buy outside of Snapchat. The list of approximately 100 categories takes Oracle’s data tracking people’s online and offline purchases and organizes them into un-branded segments including in-market shoppers in the automotive, retail, and service industries.

The focused targeting options apply to all ads bought directly from Snapchat or through a third-party API partner. Facebook and Google have successfully executed similar agreements with Oracle to use data to improve targeting. Using offline data to specifically target users will help you achieve even more effective campaigns. View Snapchat advertising success stories here.

Snapchat AdvertisingThese ads:

  • Targeting: You can target consumers based on their interests, shopping behavior, and past purchases. The ad-targeting options go beyond demographic information and help you accurately pinpoint your audience. People are more likely to respond to an ad based on a product they are interested in that a generic ad served to them because of their age, gender, or location.
  • Increase Relevance: Delivering ads of interest to consumers increases relevance because now they will view ads for things they already buy or might be in the market for. Deliver a more impactful ad that a user wants to see.
  • Maintain User Privacy: Snapchat will use anonymized email addresses and mobile IDs to match data with Snapchat users. The data remains encrypted so that Snapchat can’t see how individual users tie to Oracle’s purchase data and Oracle can’t see how its purchase data ties to Snapchat’s individual users.

Snapchat, which filed its IPO in November 2016, plans to go public this year. By offering enhanced targeting options, the social platform hopes to generate more customers for its advertisers in the same way that Google and Facebook have.

Do you advertise on Snapchat? Contact us today and we’ll help you develop a comprehensive social media marketing campaign that reaches your target audience.