If you are like me, when you first read the words paired together for the title of this blog, you probably did a double take as the word after “speed” was not “dating.”  Also if you are just like me, the combination of these two words paired together made you click on, in this case, the blog, while in my case, it was the Business Insider link on their page that caught my attention.  Speed roommating is a concept that I had only vaguely heard of, but upon reading the attached article, it definitely struck me as a potential win-win scenario from a marketing standpoint and from a resident event standpoint.

Every time we are requested to assist with leasing at a community, it is always due to an overabundance of vacant apartments with a majority of those apartments usually being one floor plan size.  More times than not the apartment floor plan that is usually the tougher sell are the two and three bedroom apartments.  Why is this?  Depending upon the community the main reason two and three bedroom apartments are typically harder to move is that they are always the most expensive.  Couples will be much more inclined to down size into a one bedroom apartment, because it is the more economical choice.  Those singles looking to move into an apartment usually have no need for all the additional space, but would probably love being able to find a great match to split living costs with.  Even at a student community it may be a challenge to fill up all two, or three bedroom floor plans, because there are guaranteed to be a large amount of people that come in just looking for one bedroom of an apartment and ultimately have to be roommate matched.

With these scenarios and many more, speed roommating could potentially be a huge boost in filling up those hard to lease extra bedrooms of a multi-bedroom apartment.  Speed roommating is quite similar to speed dating, except that it is somewhat more casual.  As opposed to a multi-stop table setup, speed roommating is more of a mingling environment where everyone is encouraged to meet with as many people as possible for as long a time as desired and each person has a name tag to designate if they ”have a room, or need a room.”

I feel that this could be a great idea to host at a community clubhouse, or at a local bar/restaurant in town, and would not only provide a great service to current residents, but would also be a great form of outreach for the community name.  The article lists the pros and cons of speed roommating and in my opinion, the pros surely outweigh the cons from a potential leasing opportunity standpoint.

With word of mouth always being a main source of traffic for apartment communities, as many venues as possible a community can utilize to spread the word of their community, the better.  Word of mouth from physical person to person tends to take the backseat nowadays to the word of mouth via social media networking.

Every apartment community needs to have a Facebook Page, which is the first thing most people think of when they do hear the term social media.  That’s a given.  This is just the beginning of the basics though, because there are a multitude of other social websites that apartment communities can utilize to expand their online presence.  In steps a revolutionary social expansion website, such as Social Twist, that can come in to ease the complexity of posting for the apartment community.

Social Twist is the ultimate word of mouth resource and looks to expand your potential crowd of followers and referrals exponentially through a conglomeration of social sites.  With the ability to shape your brand through Social Twist, the apartment community is not limited to just the normal local marketing and can also help to increase the SEO for the property name online.

Social Twist has only been around for a little over 3 years and they surpassed the 100,000 website mark in August!  Many major brands are already using this social media expansion site and I’d love to hear about an apartment community’s success from using this b