If you're like a lot of properties out there, you might be dipping your toes in the waters of social media.  If you've taken the time to learn the culture before jumping in, which I hope you have, then you're well aware of the fact that social media is dependent on interesting, relevant content.  Your current residents or followers don't give two toots what your hot list is, but they care about other things like the occasional resident event or special events happening around town.  Keeping active followers is about engaging your followers, or, in our case, residents.  From a psychological point of view, the most useful part of using social media is that it exploits the nature of human narcissism.  In short - We all want to be important and social media can allow us to feel like a mini celebrity, if even for the time it takes to click a mouse.

Samsung has found a way to utilize this "awesomeness of me" principle to their advantage in their new camera, the Samsung Dual View TL220.  This neat little camera not only shoots in a high res 12.2 mega pixels, but it has two LCD screens, one on the front and one on the back, so that it's easier for people to take the "MySpace Shot."  What is the "MySpace Shot," you might ask? To explain, please see the video tutorial below.  (Man, I love my Flip Video Camera!)



Which gives you a picture that looks something like this:
This particular shot evolved from the former "MySpace Shot," which consisted of you standing in front of a mirror with your camera and hoping that the flash didn't ruin the picture. (And yes, I know just how irrelevant MySpace is as a platform currently, but you've got to give credit where credit is due, and they started it.  Accept it, it's another Gen Y creation.)  The MySpace pic has a few characteristics: Notice the arm takes up a great deal of the shot, there is a ton of space above my head in the frame, it's greatly blurry, and since I can't see what I'm shooting I have no ability to adjust camera angle for things like composition and lighting.  In short, the picture sucks.

So why do we social media mavens care about the "MySpace Shot?"  We know people take pictures of themselves this way because we have a whole social network dedicated to doing just this.  We also know that people are willing to post these self portraits, awful as they may be, to an open network on line because of that whole "Look at me" thing Americans so love to do.  And now, thanks to the people at Samsung, we now have a tool that will help us capitalize on human nature to create web content for our facebook pages!

The TL220 Dual View has two screens, one on the front and one on the back, so it's made to help you eliminate the majority of the bad things about that picture above.  I've added a picture of the front and back of the unit so that you can see what I mean, but this camera is made for facebookers, myspacers and other social media junkies who both want to be behind the camera and in front of it at the same time.  That, and it's made for people who don't have enough friends to take a picture for them, but pushing this angle isn't the best way to boost sales.  This camera isn't cheap.  It costs about $500, so it's one of those expenditures that you're going to have to make really count! 

One idea I had as soon as I saw the first commercial for this:  Photo contest.  Purchasing the camera and asking your residents to come in and take a picture with their friends or neighbors.  You can award the camera for the funniest pic, or since Halloween is coming up, the scariest pic, or even for a cute couple picture.  It's completely up to your staff.  Best of all, by entering the contest, they sign a waiver that allows you to put up their pictures on your Facebook Fan Page.  People might not read an article, but they'll look at pictures, especially if they are interesting.  Talk to you staff and see what interesting picture contest ideas that they can come up with.  The key here is that you want PEOPLE in your pictures, not your buildings.  If people want to see pics of your property, they'll go to Rent.com, not to Facebook.  Facebook is about faces.

What ideas can your team come up with to use this great tool as an inspiration for online content creation?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!