Does your community have a social media presence?  Are you active on Facebook or Twitter or blog regularly about happenings at your community?  If so, you are continually looking for good content to keep your posts interesting and keep the subscribers coming back.

One good source is living all around you!  Your residents have stories to tell and many are more than happy to tell them.  They may want to share tales of their lives, how they made the decision to live there or discuss great activities or outings at the community.

Getting the residents involved in a community’s social media adds the human touch to the property, tells the story of their past and promotes many of the positives at a community.  It is a great way to stimulate the creativity of residents and promote a community, all at the same time.  If you have a social media program, discuss it with your residents and see how many volunteers come forward.

If the residents at your community are involved in social media, tell us about it here.  Has it been a positive for them and the property?  Has there been any downside?  Please share your experiences!

Thanks, Doug

Is your community green?

There are so many options out there for those considering senior communities, and so many considerations. For those who feeling particular environmentally friendly, there is a new movement spreading through senior living facilities to cut back on environmental impact.

Green senior living facilities can do a number of things to help the environment. From regulating the quality of indoor air to using green building materials (recycled or locally produce), green senior living can really make a change for the world. Other steps green retirement communities have taken include reducing carbon emissions, implementing a water conservation plan and following EPA Energy Star standards.

An invaluable tool for discovering green senior facilities in your area is GrayIsGreen.org. A unique resource, GrayIsGreen.org offers tips to better green senior living as well as helping greenies find a retirement community that fits their lifestyle. The group also has helped set the standard for green senior living, creating a number of guidelines and auditing tools to really help determine the effects of environmentally friendly actions.

Consider implementing some of the tips to make your community a choice for those going green and gray.

We are continually looking for great places to distribute the FREE New LifeStyles guide to senior living and care.  As always, we need your help!  If you come across a location where our guides could be picked up by those that can use them, snap a picture.  We will grade the pictures on benefit to our demographic, as well as originality, humor and artistic quality.  If you can’t snap a picture, send us your suggestion, those will be eligible, too!  We will post the best pictures on our Facebook and Twitter pages!  Top three suggestions will win $25 gift certicates to Starbucks or Target. 

E-mail the pictures, telling us the location, to newlife@newlifestyles.com

(make sure New LifeStyles is available in your area, for a complete list of our areas of coverage, log on to www.newlifestyles.com )

Contest ends February 15, 2012.  Thanks and have fun!

Expectations: Do You Have Them?

The Pulse of Your Community

How Do You Get Your Message Out – Content Marketing – Part 5: Broadcasting Your Content

Do you discuss T.E.A.M. with your senior living team?

Jan/Feb edition of Leading Age Magazine

With capital at a premium and financial stress prevalent throughout the industry, acquisitions continue to increase in the senior living industry.  Large companies with decent balance sheets continue to look for ways to expand and spread their infrastructure across more revenue producing units.  This can have both positive and negative effects on the communities that are being acquired.

On the positive sign, communities struggling to provide quality care and services receive a boost in support, often times receiving facelifts and updates to the property.  New programs brought in by the acquiring company may add to the quality of life where the previous owner had been forced to reduce or eliminate expenditures that weren’t considered vital to the health and well-being of the residents.  This could include activities and outings that while not vital to residents’ health, are vital to quality of life.  There also may be improvements in dining options or quality.

On the other side, corporations may send down new policies and procedures to the acquired communities that may hurt the personality or culture of a property.  Staff may be reduced and corporate may look to share staff between properties in the area.  These factors can lead to a complete change in the personality of your community, as the staff and activities can shape the culture.  This type of scenario has lead to residents leaving a local property that I am familiar with and made it more difficult to sell the lifestyles to perspective residents.

If you are involved with a community that is being acquired, talk to the acquiring company as soon as possible.  Show them what makes your community unique and fight to maintain the culture that has made your community’s lifestyle so popular amongst current and perspective residents!

January/February Edition of Senior Living Executive

Thank you for your positive feedback on our free client webinars in 2011!  To continue on that path, we will continue to offer quarterly educational webinars to our clients, starting this month with:  “Opening Relationships” with your prospects vs. “Closing Sales”- Your new approach to successful new client development

New LifeStyles clients are invited to participate in this free marketing webinar presented by Rick Hunsicker, a nationally recognized expert in senior living sales and marketing, about a new approach to sales in senior living.

You will gain insight into a different approach with your prospective new clients, family members and professional referral sources, that moves you away from closing sales, and leads you and your customer toward building strong, long term business relationships.

Rick will present examples of what you should say in the early and later stages of your presentations to your prospects and referral sources to help you gain more and stronger relationships that ultimately results in more sales and referrals. 

Join us on January 26

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/529526334

Title: “Opening Relationships” with your prospects vs. “Closing Sales”- Your new approach to successful new client development Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012 Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Central Time After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server   Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

We will continue the webinars in April with “How to Stop the #1 Leak in Your Sales and Marketing this Year” with Mona Hilton. In July, Reece Franklin will present “The Perfect Pitch Piece” and in October Patty Cisco will cover the current state of affairs and how to market despite them.

If you have missed any of the webinars in 2011, you can watch them on your schedule at http://www.newlifestyles.com/clients/webinars

As always, thank you to our clients! we hope you find these webinars helpful. Please send us your feedback on other topics you would like to see covered.

Welcome to 2012!  From all of us at New LifeStyles, we wish you a healthy and prosperous New Year!  Hopefully, this will be a great year for your community or business and the senior living and care industry as a whole.  There are plenty of challenges to be faced, but also plenty of great people to face them.

The New Year is a great time for companies to take inventory of their operations and see what changes need to be made in 2012.  Here are a few suggestions from a marketing perspective:

-          Are your marketing materials up to date and “fresh”?   Take a look at your brochures, ad materials, etc. and see if they represent your message.

-          Is your web site still current?  Is it inviting to visitors and showing off your assets in a clear, easy to find manner.  Are you using a company to optimize your site’s search engine results and linking with companies that can bring you better traffic.

-          Is your marketing team united in their approach?  Are they armed with the needed knowledge and materials?   Are they getting across the key selling points of your community or service in a succinct, clear manner?

-          Is the drive-up appeal of your community still appealing?  Is some fresh paint and new flowers or plants needed?

New LifeStyles can help you by redesigning materials for our publications, reviewing your web site, providing cost effective SEO services and many other ways, just give us a call!

January is the space reservation deadline for the following markets:

• Fresno/Bakersfield – one of our fastest growing guides.
• Arizona – many quality assisted living and independent living choices in both the Phoenix area and in Tucson, already a number of new advertisers for 2012!
• Denver – demand is high in Denver for all levels of care including dementia care and home care
• Maryland/DC/No. Virginia – Distribution and online traffic is extremely high in this population dense market

New copies of our guide should be arriving for the following markets:

-          Houston

-          Fort Worth/Tarrant County

-          San Diego

-          Central and Eastern Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)

For more information, contact us immediately!

To get the latest information on our web design division, friend New LifeStyles on Facebook , connect with us on LinkedIn, or follow us on Twitter.

Thanks for spending some time with our blog.  Call us!  We will be an effective part of your marketing campaign.

 Doug

On-page and Off-Page SEO: Is Searchability on Your Radar?

10 Powerful Senior Living Statistics

Who Should Be on Your Social Media Team?

10 Digital Trends to Look for in 2012

We will start blogging again on Jan.4  Until then, Happy Holidays!

I recently completed a week of visits to current & potential clients. This included brand new beautiful multi-story health care communities, renovated retirement residences and more. But the one that sticks out in my mind is an old nursing home, convalescent center for that matter… It’s not pretty, and honestly didn’t smell that great, but the interaction I saw from the staff and residents was inspiring!

As I waited for my appointment, every single staff member spoke to me, wishing me a good day, asking if I needed help, or simply paid me a compliment (how nice)! They spoke to each other just as nicely, like they truly liked each other. And they treated the residents the same. They weren’t overly sweet and fake, but simply communicating and spreading joy. There was on gentleman in a wheelchair that spoke to me as I waited and as the nurses walked by him, she gave his shoulder a little squeeze. You could tell he appreciated it. She didn’t talk to him like a kid, but simply acknowledged him.

Other residents were in the cafeteria having what sounded like an ice cream social. They were laughing and dancing & I got a couple waves when I looked in.

This community may not be the nicest, but the residents and caretakers seemed happy, which says a lot to me!

Does your community convey this message? Remember that it can’t be fake or forced. That is obvious! But maybe you can start a heartfelt trend this holiday season by spreading some joy to your staff and residents. Hopefully they will pass it on!