Mobile Persuasion Innovation Project:
Working in teams, dream up a new application that could run on mobile phones of the future. You will create a prototype – probably a simple one – and test it with users.

That was the assignment handed out by BJ Fogg at the Stanford Persuasion Technology Lab during “How to Design the Future” week back in 2006, and students (including future Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger) busily got to work building their futuristic phone apps.

The germ of the Krieger team idea to build a photo-sharing application led to Instagram, which sold to Facebook on April 9 for $1 billion.

Are you looking for $1 billion dollar marketing ideas? Come see BJ Fogg keynote on mobile persuasion at AIM 2012, where he’ll show how mobile technology can influence the most wanted behaviors in apartment customers and residents. As a bonus, Fogg will analyze real-world mobile apps submitted for review (and we’re talking multifamily ones).

Don’t miss out on Fogg’s presentation: It’s the last week to register for AIM 2012.

Believe it or not, counterfeiters still fool their victims by doctoring currency with ingredients as simple as green glitter. This National Geographic video shows how the U.S. Secret Service keeps up with crooks trying to pass off bogus bills as the real McCoy.

As multifamily marketers have evolved into online arenas for communicating with both prospects and residents, it has become equally as important in the apartment biz to be able to tell which kinds of comments and reviews out on the net are authentic, and which ones are just BS.

“They’re out there,” says Korman Residential director of marketing Aaron Helfman of fly-by-night firms that will post bogus information to the Internet about a company, and then turn around and offer their services to improve your online reputation. Helfman, who will present alongside Jamie Gorski of the Bozzuto Group on Reputation Management at the 2012 AIM Conference, says smaller, unincorporated firms can be particularly susceptible to reputation management swindling.

“These firms will call up operators and purport to help you claim or re-claim your identity online and improve your online reputation,” Helfman says. “When in reality they may have played a direct role in posting negative information in the first place. That is going on. That’s happening.”

Also happening is a bit of poetic license on the part of apartment marketers themselves, who sometimes cannot resist posting their own “anonymous” positive reviews on Facebook or elsewhere online in order to boost their reputation, a strategy that Korman discourages.

“It’s pretty clear to [consumers] when a review has been written by the staff versus one that has been written by a current customer,” Helfman says. “If it is industry language with immaculate grammar and references to how wonderful the experience and interaction with leasing agents are its most likely not from a current resident and likely an inside job.”

Want to know more about next-generation tactics to better manage your company reputation online? There’s still time to register for AIM 2012 and let Helfman and Gorski get you beyond listening with proven strategies for reclaiming your online identity. For real.

Editor’s Note: Pro-active Reputation Management featuring Korman Residential director of marketing Aaron Helfman; Bozutto Group senior vice president, corporate marketing Jamie Gorski and moderated by Multifamily Solutions president Dennis Smiile is a day-one session at AIM 2012 scheduled for 4:30pm – 5:30pm on April 25.

Number 10: Wednesday February 29, is Leap Day, which only comes around once every four years. That’s an extra day of early registration discount at AIM. Until midnight tomorrow, register on the AIM site at the early bird rate and save $100.

Number 9: With the $100 you save, you’ll want to book a spa treatment right away, or get the best tickets available to the Diamondbacks Phillies game the night before the conference. That stuff goes fast when a kick-ass conference is in town.

Number 8: Three keynotes, 14 sessions and two-and-half days of unbeatable programming and networking.

Number 7:  Live Mobile App R&D. Keynote presenter Dr. BJ Fogg, director of the the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab plans to review and critique multifamily mobile apps to show how mobile can be used to influence positive user behaviors. Want your app reviewed? Email me.

Number 6: Because your peers can’t be wrong. Shamelessly we submit for your approval a testimonial pulled directly from last year’s attendee survey: “AIM is not to be missed if you are looking for a hyper intensive setting to sharpen your marketing knowledge. You are immersed in 3 days of innovation and surrounded by the most influential pace setters in multifamily.”

Number 5: Did we mention you’ll save $100 with early bird registration through the end of the day on February 29? Why don’t you splurge on some serious networking at the District America Kitchen & Wine Bar onsite?

Number 4: Because AIM is a 10. According to the 2011 attendee survey, most AIM attendees on a scale of one to 10 consider the value of AIM for the money paid to be (you guessed it) a 10.

Number 3: No, really, because your peers can’t be wrong. From last year’s attendee survey: “AIM is by far the most progressive and thought-provoking multifamily conference. It never fails to challenge conventional wisdom and there are always plenty of takeaways to put in play immediately. I mark this in my calendar every year!”

Number 2: Do you really want to risk being left behind? Over 38 percent of AIM attendees decide to attend at the conclusion of the previous year’s conference. Catch up, man.

Number 1: AIM 2012 – Customer First will challenge you to succeed by reinventing your approach to the customer experience. From social media to new construction to mobile and email marketing, ILSs, predictive analytics and more, we’re out to prove what counts to apartment residents and prospects.

Don’t be counted out. Register today for AIM 2012 – Customer First. Then kickback, relax, watch the top 10 Jordan dunks of all time, and be glad I didn’t embed the top 10 MMA takedowns.

With almost all of the programming for AIM 2012 – Customer First finalized, one trend has remained consistent across all of our educational sessions, presentations, and speaker selections: we’re making a huge attempt to eliminate the guesswork behind multifamily Internet marketing. Put more simply, we’ve asked all of our presenters this year for a prove-out, to show attendees how they know what they know.

From sessions on post-recession strategies for managing new construction lease-ups to how to judge the best ILS customer experience to tactics for influencing consumer behavior through compelling design in mobile technologies, we’re expecting presenters to check gut-metrics and anecdotal evidence at the door and come with the facts that have influenced real-life strategic and tactical business investments.

We’ll critique attendee mobile apps on stage, survey and crowd-source conference intelligence and group-think in real-time, and showcase innovative marketing campaigns that have launched to success in real-world markets, all with the intention of proving out all of the strategies and ideas you’ll hear this April 25-27 at AIM in Phoenix.

Because there’s really no reason to embark on an apartment Internet marketing platform just because you think it will work.

Don’t base your business on gut-check. Register to attend AIM 2012 – Customer First by March 1 and save $100. 

Ahead of its time. When I was a kid there was only one arcade game for me. Pocket-full of quarters I’d make straight for the nearest Atari Battlezone, which immersed players in a 3-dimensional hunter-killer virtual reality where tanks battled on a coordinate field peppered with polygon obstructions and distant erupting volcanoes. A totally revolutionary player experience—forget about every other kid in the neighborhood resting his nose on that periscope viewfinder.

With my affinity for ahead-of-its time technology innovation – you know you agree Atari was legit – it’s of little coincidence that I’ve always been impressed with UDR’s augmented reality (AR) apartment search for mobile devices. Yeah, it has its detractors, but the promise of using AR to deliver one of the richest multifamily customer experiences via mobile—think virtual tours, social media layered apartment search and interactive amenity areas—seems worth the investment. Of course, when it comes to investment into revolutionary multifamily mobile technology, its tough to outmatch UDR.

UDR isn’t the only firm breaking new ground with mobile, but they’re one of the best. Since 2000, the Highlands Ranch, Colo.-based REIT has regularly been first to market with mobile reservation tools, iPhone apps, apartment locators, and other advances in apartment mobile technology, including AR.

UDR vice president and director of sales and marketing Steve Taraborelli this year joins the prestigious list of speakers at AIM 2012-Customer First, where he’ll present a non-beginner, intermediate to advanced survey of the top considerations in creating a great mobile experience for renters—no viewfinders required.

If you’ve decided mobile is here to stay as a channel for delivering customer experience to prospects and residents, and you’re committed to making a strategic investment into mobile apartment marketing and technology, Taraborelli’s presentation is for you.

Graduate from mobile 101. Register for AIM 2012 – Customer First.

Graham Stanley Advertising CEO and President Larry Woodward offers a quick download on everything an apartment Internet marketer needs to take away from the cycle of some 70 commercials that blurred through the Super Bowl last weekend. Woodward’s bottom line: major advertisers are blending the online and offline customer experience, offering brand interactivity (like Coca-Cola, which pushed TV viewers to a site where they could ask questions of the iconic bears, and then send Coke coupons to friends) and advanced mobile platform functionality (like Chevy’s Game Time App).

Woodward says Coca-Cola marketing executives pegged a full 60 percent of the 100 million plus Super Bowl viewers as multi screeners, meaning they had a mobile, tablet, or laptop screen open and grabbing eyeball time away from the TV during the game. The subtle solution? Offer real-time interactivity with consumers after pointing them to online locations, enriching the brand and media experience even as customers switched between different devices and communication channels.

Super Bowl execs likewise got it right when it came to social media, setting up a crack unit of Facebook and Twitter strategists in the 2,800 square foot Super Bowl Command Center. Tweet something as simple as “Parking Sucks” and the command center would respond with directions to available parking nearby. Now that’s customer focus.

Want to push your marketing envelope and engage prospects and residents across the customer experience? Register to attend AIM 2012 – Customer First before February 29th and take advantage of the recently extended $595 early bird discount to save $100.

April 25-27, 2012

Sheraton Phoenix Downtown

15 Sessions, 2.5 days and lots and lots of parking… I mean networking.

AIM 2012 Registration: http://www.apartmentinternetmarketing.com/register/

Persuasive technology: systems and machines designed to influence human belief and behaviors, usually with the intent to bring about positive change.

Wow, when I first read that I thought I was reading the intro to an Aldous Huxley novel. Turns out, persuasive technologies are already all around us —from mobile phone apps to Facebook tags. So, if you think there’s a persuasive technology application to apartment marketing you’d be right on, and if you figured by now those applications would be featured at AIM 2012 you’d be right on again.

AIM conference producers are proud to welcome Stanford University professor and persuasive technology guru BJ Fogg as the AIM 2012 keynote speaker. As the director of research and design at Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, Fogg’s message of how to bring people into the mobile and online experience is sure to resonate with apartment marketers (see, for instance, the video on how Facebook uses persuasive technologies above). More importantly, Fogg’s focus and analysis on “looking at what works and expanding upon it” couldn’t be a better example of the AIM 2012 Customer First theme.

“Convenience and easy access to information on every device are what shoppers care about.  AIM 2012 will deliver best practices in making great online (and offline) renting experiences a reality,” says AIM producer Steve Lefkovits. “BJ Fogg is at the bleeding edge of how we create systems to change human behavior, and his AIM 2012 keynote on mobile persuasion technology couldn’t be better timed for multifamily marketers.”

During the 3 days at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown hotel, AIM 2012 attendees will navigate strategies within the online user experience and across topics including mobile marketing, social media — even ethnography. Challenge yourself to think Customer First at AIM 2012 and register today to access the best Internet marketing education value for multifamily executives.

Register today for AIM 2012 — $595 until February 17, $695 thereafter.

Save the date to learn about Customer First online marketing strategies across the apartment resident experience lifecycle.

Is your organization customer-centric?  Are you reaping the benefits of a “Customer First” strategy?  AIM 2012 features innovative and actionable information to deliver an unforgettable online experience for your prospects and residents. Forget about save the date: register today and start bridging the connection between customer experience and profitable rental revenue.

AIM Conference 2012

April 25–27, 2012

Phoenix, Arizona

Advance Registration

$595 until February 17, $695 after

Register at www.aimconf.com today!

Another big round of thanks to RealPage for their support of the post-conference video distribution from the 2010 AIM Conference. 

Next up is a video and presentation from Donald Davidoff from Archstone and Jane Griffith from Pinnacle.  Their task was to wrap up the AIM Conference 2010 and provide a simple framework for organizing all of the different exciting possibilities and create a workable, sustainable plan for any size of multifamily organization.  Please click on the photo or the link below for the video and presentation.

Cutting Through the Clutter: Creating a Simple Marketing Plan

Our editing is done and we're going to be rolling out the AIM 2010 videos fast and furious over the next few weeks so buckle up.  We appreciate the support of our video sponsor RealPage.  They are making it possible to help spread the expert knowledge delivered at AIM 2010.

We have two session videos relating to planning marketing.  The first up is a complete recap of the panel presentation featuring Julie Smith, President of Bozzuto Management; Doug Tulumaris, Vice President of Champion Window; and Deanna Kawasaki, Vice President of CallSource.  This panel discussed scenarios in which they used data to measure and respond to situations that weren't intuitive or necessarily solveable without marketing data.  They discuss how to use unexpected data findings in a series of scenarios:

Creating a Data-Driven Marketing Plan for a Hyper-Competitive Environment