Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing For Apartments

Social media isn’t optional in multifamily marketing—it’s foundational. From Facebook and Instagram to Nextdoor and TikTok, platforms like these can dramatically boost your visibility, help you lease faster, and enhance resident satisfaction. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through essential strategies, best practices, and the types of content proven to drive results.

Why Social Media Matters for Apartments

Today’s renters rely heavily on digital platforms to discover and evaluate new places to live. Most apartment searches begin online, with social media playing a significant role in both discovery and decision-making. A strong social presence does more than drive awareness—it builds credibility, fosters community, and directly influences leasing decisions.

Facebook and Instagram: Essential Channels

Facebook and Instagram remain the cornerstones of apartment social media marketing due to their broad reach and visual appeal.

Facebook Best Practices

Community Building: Facebook is ideal for community-building. Share resident events, local news, and property updates to create engagement.

Resident Testimonials and Reviews: Most renters trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Encourage residents to leave positive reviews on your Facebook page and use Google reviews as content!

Facebook Groups: Establish private resident groups for announcements, event promotions, and community interactions. Join Facebook groups in your community to post move-in specials or open house events that will drive traffic to your property.

Instagram Best Practices

Visual Storytelling: Instagram thrives on compelling visuals—showcase your apartments with professional photos, virtual tours, and lifestyle imagery.

Instagram Stories: Share behind-the-scenes content, apartment tours, and resident testimonials to create urgency and excitement. Save some stories as highlights, like your floor plans and amenities, so visitors can view them again and again.

Instagram Reels: Short-form video content is highly engaging and is made to reach a broader audience than just your followers. Use Reels to highlight amenities, the surrounding neighborhood or community, and resident life.

Leveraging Nextdoor for Hyperlocal Marketing

Nextdoor is unique for its hyperlocal community focus, ideal for reaching residents in specific neighborhoods.

Business Profile Setup: Create a verified business profile. Include clear photos, your leasing office details, and a friendly, welcoming business description.

Community Engagement: Respond actively to local questions, participate respectfully in discussions, and provide valuable information to build trust.

Advertising Opportunities: Utilize Nextdoor's targeted advertising to specifically reach nearby communities, improving local visibility.

Facebook Marketplace: Maximizing Exposure

Facebook Marketplace is a useful (and FREE!) tool, but comes with some caveats, so use it wisely. Similar in it's basic functionality to Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace is a go-to for Gen-Z when looking for apartments, cars, furniture, and all sorts of other things. Meet them where they're at!

Listing Strategies: Ensure each listing includes high-quality images, detailed descriptions, accurate pricing, and other pertinent must-know leasing details such as income restrictions, pet policies, or parking policies.

Respond Quickly: Speed matters—respond to inquiries promptly to capture interest while prospects are actively searching.

Consistent Updates: Regularly refresh your listings to remain visible in search results.

Caveat: You must post the listing from a personal profile unless you create a commerce catalog & shop. Designate someone in the leasing office or your marketing team to manage the Facebook Marketplace listings and promptly remove the listings if there is a staffing change.

Types of Content That Drive Engagement

Social media is all about creating connections and providing information. Different types of content resonate uniquely with renters, creating varied engagement opportunities:

Lifestyle and Community Content: Share resident experiences, local business partnerships, community events, and testimonials.

Educational Posts: Helpful content such as moving tips, no-mess interior design ideas, pet-friendly living advice, and local guides builds authority and trust.

Interactive and User-Generated Content: Encourage residents to share their own photos and stories. Feature these in your posts to enhance authenticity and community spirit.

Paid Social Media: When to Invest

While organic social is powerful, paid social can be a solid source for increasing awareness and driving traffic.

Best Practices for Paid Social

Define Clear Goals: Know what you want—brand awareness, traffic to your website, or specific leasing outcomes.

Content Testing: Leverage eye-catching visuals and be sure to utilize A/B testing on your ad sets. This will allow you to finesse your ads every few months.

Mix Up Content: Use different ad sets to keep your content fresh. Create an ad set for amenities, and another for apartment features. Use still images and video for more placements.

Caveat: The setup and targeting capabilities for housing ads on Meta (Facebook & Instagram) is limited due to fair housing. The ad platform has unique safeguards for housing ads that limit your ability to narrowly target your audience. As such, these campaigns may not be the best place to allocate marketing dollars. Before you decide to spend, consult with a marketing professional versed specifically in social media advertising for multifamily. Otherwise you could be wasting your marketing budget on clicks that won't convert.

Measuring and Refining Your Strategy

Track your success consistently and refine your approach:

Engagement Metrics: Monitor likes, shares, saves, comments, and follower growth to gauge audience responsiveness.

Conversion Tracking: Track click-through rates, website visits, and inquiries resulting from social campaigns.

ROI Measurement: If you do run ads, regularly analyze your spending versus results to understand campaign effectiveness and adjust budgets accordingly.

Understand Your Goals: Engagement, conversions, and ROI are obviously important to track how well your content is resonating with your audience. But they may not be the best indicators of how much traffic your leasing office is getting or how many applications they're receiving. For some apartment property's, the importance of social media is to provide another channel for prospects to ask questions and get leasing information - especially for lease-ups. If your on-site team is active on social, responsive to DMs, and traffic is coming in the door (or through online apps), the number of followers or post likes may not be the best measuring stick to show their success.

Social media, when executed strategically, can significantly accelerate leasing, enhance resident experiences, and strengthen your overall marketing ecosystem. Whether through engaging organic content or paid ads, your social media presence is key to standing out in today's competitive multifamily market.

Ready to level up your apartment social media marketing strategy? Connect with Visceral Ore—we’ll help you get there.