At different points in my life, as I’ve begun to work through a problem that I find particularly engaging and energizing, I’ve been fortunate to stumble across people who have by-passed confusion and moved straight to the actions that create the new and exciting thing that I’m only beginning to see.
The most recent time this has happened was late last year, as I began to explore how social media tools could be used to create effective and measurable marketing programs.
My starting point was trying to understand how real estate agents were leveraging social media to help drive their market footprint; this inquiry took me to the multi-family space. And exploring the multi-family space, I found the most practical and effective solution I could imagine, implemented by a property owner in Royal Oak, Michigan — Eric Brown.
I went to school on Eric’s approach, from his foundation premise of building value around customer experience to his marketing strategy of driving community and connection using social media tools in order to build search traffic and drive referrals. Finally, I reached out to Eric and flew out to Michigan to visit with him. I wanted to learn more about the process he had gone through to arrive at a solution that I admired as elegant and practical.
We had just launched the first of our DigitalSherpa line of products at NCI, the CommunitySherpa service for the multi-family industry, and Eric and I talked a lot about the further extensions of the social media marketing service that we were developing at our company.
That conversation sparked a series of discussions that made it clear that our organization would be enriched by Eric’s enthusiasm, experience and effectiveness.
I’m excited by the relationship we’ve structured. Eric has joined NCI as our chief Social Media Strategist. You can see the announcement here. Eric writes about his enthusiasm for the new opportunity here.
The Social Media Space is changing and evolving, and the floor has started to shift. More and more folks are further understanding the potential of Self Publishing and Shared Content. We have been yapping about the benefit of blogging and Social Media Marketing, and the effect that the Urbane Life Blog has had on our numbers at Urbane Apartments for some time now. The Direction of Marketing Has Changed
We’ve attracted more than 600 clients to our DigitalSherpa offerings since first launching CommunitySherpa in July. The process has been exciting and challenging and the amount of learning that we are accumulating every day is impossible to measure. To continue to respond, to chart a path that is flexible and adaptive, you need to have smart people with a practical disposition challenging each other and connecting with the customers. Eric is that kind of person. I’m really looking forward to working with him.
