Craigslist, Yelp, and Facebook Marketplace have enabled small businesses to promote their latest offerings, communicate with customers, and sell their products online from a hyper-local standpoint for years. To assist small business owners further as States cautiously reopen, Nextdoor is entering the paid and free ad content space. The online platform and app allow local neighbors to share trusted information with one another - babysitters in the area, best local coffee shop, garage sales, etc. The development of a paid and non-paid ad platform for local businesses allows for local vendors to communicate their new business hours, delivery options, and lunch specials, for example. While many SMBs can benefit, the new ad platform could prove to be a viable option for apartment communities to promote their listings locally.
Onsite leasing teams have been posting floor plan specific listings to Craigslist for years. Zumper and other ILS vendors utilize Facebook Marketplace to broaden their reach, increase impressions, and generate more leads for the properties who advertise on their platform. Nextdoor's announcement is a welcome addition to hyper-local advertising options for apartment communities and multifamily marketers. Nextdoor's new "Business Post" feature allows leasing teams to post twice per month, for free, which will reach all Nextdoor users within a 2-mile radius of your community. Alongside Business Posts comes Nextdoor's "Dashboard," an analytic marketing platform that allows marketers to review the amount of views and actions on each of your posts. Dashboard will be available to all businesses nationwide before the end of the month.
Nextdoor's announcement is a welcome addition to the local listing and online classifieds options out there- many of which have failed to evolve in recent years. Nextdoor has created a trustworthy, neighborly reputation for itself that creates good brand association for the apartment communities who select to test out the new feature. While very new and sure to evolve further, Business Posts is a free feature worth testing and keeping a close eye on for hyper-local advertising options.