Many content creators are only getting one use out of blog posts. You are missing out on countless opportunities to get noticed by potential renters! Get more from your blog with repurposed content. What Is Repurposed Content? When you repurpose content, you’re finding different ways to tell the same story. Each new way that you tell your story may appeal to a different group of people. For example, when you create a blog post, you tell the story to readers. You can tell that same story to visual learners using video on YouTube or pictures on Instagram. By appealing to different types of learners (or different types of entertainment) you reach a greater audience. A broader audience increases your prospect pool and your potential for leads. Below are a few ways that you can repurpose your blog content to reach new groups of prospects. Master Infographics Infographics are a great way to combine facts from your blog text with visual media. Infographics can be consumed anytime, anywhere because they are not hampered by audio access, buffering speeds, and data availability. Many content creators love infographics because they don’t require photography, video, or illustration skills. Many programs allow you to drag-and-drop into templates to create fantastic infographics. Try making your own free infographics using Venngage or Picktochart. Curate an Instagram Slideshow For a short blog post, you may only have one image. You can use that image to create an Instagram post, including a teaser excerpt for your blog post. (Unless you’re paying Instagram for clickable links within captions, be sure to put the link for your blog post in your bio.) For multiple images on a blog post, create a slide show. Rather than several posts on the same topic, a slideshow allows you...

In our previous post, we compared popular blogging platforms WordPress, Wix, and Blogger. After choosing a platform and theme, then it’s time to start writing! Create a Content Calendar Planning pays off. When you take a moment to create a content calendar, you won’t miss timely events or feel the pressure to brainstorm hours before a due date. You will already have a list of topics on hand. Prioritize timely content related to seasons, holidays, and events. For example, it makes the most sense to publish a post on pool safety right before your pool opens in the late spring. Use the blog to promote timely events weeks in advance rather than waiting until the last minute. Identify Your Audience Your topic should be of interest to your residents. Consider the broadest demographic at your property as the audience for most of your post. You may occasionally choose to write for niche groups. Once you identify your audience, consider its needs and interests. Blog post content can stem from renters’ frequently asked questions, updates on the property, apartment lifestyle, local events and more. The possibilities are endless! Choose a Blog Topic The best apartment blog posts are those that will add value to the renter experience. Let’s say you check your content calendar and see that you’re due for a post on taxes. The topic applies to most of your audience since everyone pays taxes, right? You consider writing the post on local tax filing services. How can you make the list of businesses more valuable to residents? Perhaps you contact the businesses and request a discount for your residents in exchange for the business referral. Such a post could build loyalty. It promotes the benefits of living at your property and living in...

From online applications to maintenance and business operations, property managers work hard to juggle competing priorities while still sustaining the profitability and integrity of their buildings. Whether it’s single-family homes, multifamily apartments or commercial properties, the challenges can be complicated. Thankfully, the solution doesn’t have to be. Meet Yardi Breeze, a refreshingly simple software platform built for property owners and operators with portfolios of 1,000 units or less. Yardi’s newest software solution provides everything small to mid-sized owners and managers need to succeed. This latest addition to the Yardi suite of products extends the company’s legacy of providing tailored software solutions for residential and commercial properties. “Yardi Breeze is the result of Yardi’s 30+ years of providing quality software with unwavering customer focus,” said Terri Dowen, senior vice president of sales at Yardi. “It was designed with the unique needs of smaller operators in mind.” Property management just got a whole lot easier. Yardi Breeze is simple but powerful. The interface may be fast and the framework intuitive, but don’t let that simplicity fool you. Breeze is still a robust, all-inclusive software suite that includes options for online marketing, applications and payments built right in. “We were able to set up our apartments in about 30 minutes,” explains Allan Shapiro, a principal at Castle Rock Real Estate. “The process was easy, straightforward and seamless.” With a transparent, affordable pricing model with monthly fees starting at $1 per unit, Yardi Breeze combines a wide array of tools into one streamlined, easy-to-use interface. Users can simultaneously manage a diverse property portfolio. In addition, the software also comes outfitted with RentCafe for effortless marketing and easy access to prospect and tenant portals. “From instant live chat support to automatic address completion and one-click data upload, everything is...

2017 – what a year! It was 12 months of milestones and accomplishments for us here at Yardi. We thought we’d take a look back at some of our most popular blog posts to give you a sense of what readers found most interesting in the last year. They included news about awards, product launches, acquisitions and working together to help those in need. The top 10 most-read blog posts of 2017 included: Yardi was been honored with a major award from Glassdoor as one of the top places to work in the U.S., a prestigious award that resulted from positive employee feedback. Earlier in the year, Anant Yardi, founder and CEO, was named to a prestigious list of the nation’s top corporate leaders by Glassdoor. Mr. Yardi received a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award recognizing the Highest Rated CEOs for 2017. Given the two honors above, it’s no wonder that internships at Yardi are a hot commodity. The Yardi internship program offers hands-on work experience, professional development and networking opportunities. On the product side, the amazing team behind Yardi Payment Processing has recently done some magic behind the scenes to add a great new feature to our payment platform. Bill paying was a popular topic in 2017. Another popular product article explained Yardi has developed new technology for vendors that makes processing invoices and payments, uploading insurance certificates and accessing statements, much easier. Team Yardi brought something different to the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) annual tradeshow and convention: Yardi Breeze, refreshingly simple software designed to make work easier for smaller owners, investors and managers. It was a big year for both of our YASC conferences in Washington D.C. and San Diego. The 2017 Spring Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference (YASC) in Washington,...

Happy birthday to us! Though it seems like just yesterday when we were brainstorming ideas for our first blog posts, The Balance Sheet celebrated its fifth birthday this month. Time flies when you’re creating great content. It is a great joy to be able to produce interesting real estate related posts for you week after week. In five years, we’ve published more than 1,400 articles by more than 50 contributors, touching every section of the real estate world – from people living in some of its tiniest apartments to the company supplying technology for property managers worldwide. Of course, we’re talking about Yardi, the inspiring homegrown company that powers this blog and much of the North American real estate rental market. We’re proud to tell the stories of the clients and employees who make up the broad and diverse Yardi universe. Take a quick trip down memory lane with us as we revisit some of the all time most popular posts on the Yardi corporate blog. Easy Yardi Training When our eLearning product launched in 2013, it quickly became popular with clients. Senior writer Joel Nelson spoke with Yardi client Simpson Housing to learn how the new platform revolutionized training on Yardi’s software offerings and much more. Four years later, eLearning is more robust than ever and offering even more advanced functionality. 5000 Strong Just last summer, Yardi marked a major milestone – hiring our 5000th employee! It was an exciting moment for the entire company and was celebrated at all of our offices around the world. We were excited to mark the occasion with a special blog post and incorporate photos from dozens of the office celebrations. Yardi Voyager 7S The much-anticipated launch of Yardi Voyager 7S was another milestone moment for Yardi....

This month, we celebrated the fourth  anniversary of our Yardi corporate blog. This special project, created for Yardi clients and employees, has now been ongoing since February 2012. To date, we have published more than 1,200 articles. Our readers are at the heart of our content decisions and we applaud and appreciate you. Thank you for your attention to our words and interest in the real estate technology industry. Our mission is to provide a broad focus on the many places where our built environment and technology intersect. They are all around us, and increasing in number at a rapid pace with innovations like connected homes, smart utility systems, and constantly improving cloud-based property management software. In the four years that we have been blogging, Yardi Systems has grown, expanding to a staff of over 4,700 employees in 37 offices around the world. Our ever-expanding global footprint and product platform are a constant source of inspiration for new articles. As we look forward, we intend to keep providing you with interesting and engaging content. We welcome your story ideas, and you can reach us by emailing [email protected]. On behalf of myself and the editorial team, thank you for your readership. Here’s to many great years to come. -Leah Etling Editor, The Balance...

A corporate blog, when done right, is an inbound marketing machine. In fact, one study by HubSpot discovered that businesses with blogs received 55% more visitors than businesses without blogs. A blog can help both search engines and potential clients get to know, like and trust you. Blog posts that are published get indexed. Indexed pages help your site get found in searches. Popular blog posts are shared, providing social proof and inbound links for your company. Inbound links boost your SEO. Any way you look at it, blogging is good for your business. But how do you go about the business of good blogging? It’s less complicated than you may think. Whether you’re starting from scratch or rebooting an existing blog, here are 4 easy steps that will get you going: Think Before you can set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, you need to brainstorm potential topics for your blog posts. Take 15 minutes to populate four simple lists: Questions clients frequently ask you Business topics you know a lot about Business topics that interest you, but you don’t know much about Current events in your industry or area Ta-da! You’ve just come up with piles of content for your corporate blog. Keep these lists handy so you can add to them anytime inspiration strikes. Schedule Creating a content schedule for your blog is critical to your success. Consistency is key when it comes to building an online community of readers. First decide how frequently you can realistically post. You should post often enough that your readers look forward to new content, but not so often that your posts become a lot of noise. Once a week is good. Twice a week is better. More or less depends on your business....