What are some good marketing ideas for an apartment community?

Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools?

• Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools? So a lot of web savvy folks are on MetaFilter - I'm hoping some of you kind souls might be able to help. This is a little similar to some of the previous questions, but hopefully not too redundant. I'm familiar with both the previous marketing questions on AskMe, as well as being familiar with a lot of the web 2.0 related sites and tools. What I'm looking for is help and best practices on actually executing a marketing plan for publicizing a site and the idea behind that site. I'm working with some folks (in my spare time) who have an existing site on a semi-obscure topic and they even have a recent book on the topic they've written to boot. I'd like to help them out, but am trying to figure out how, and how best to measure the efforts. I'm seeing it as a combination of: a) reaching out to interested people who don't know about the book and accompanying site (via a Flickr group? affinity groups related to the topic in message boards etc.?) b) measuring how they're doing reaching out (this, I'm not as sure of - survey existing users of the site? measure click throughs with banner ads, etc.? what else?) The problem is I don't want to come off at all like we're spammy folks. If new users buy the book, fine - but if not, life goes on. The people behind the site are doing this out of a pure love for the topic and a desire to create a community around it rather than a 'OMG, let's get rich and famous on the Internets' scheme. They're interested in building a community, and I've heard the 2.0 technologies are good for that ;) Also how do you measure the metrics of these things - what methods work and which don't? Are there blogs devoted to discussing which methods work ('send to a friend' type links) versus which don't (click through ads?), and the metrics for these different methods? What sites do you use to propogate your memes, hobbies, ideas? How do you do it in a fun, friendly, upbeat way, rather than 'buy the book' type of thing? What templates or tools do you use to keep track of where you've publicized things to? If people know of forums for interactive marketing that discuss these topics and are useful to you, please post them here as well. Thanks muchly! (and yes, there'll be a linke to MeFi projects when the time is right, but first, marketing plan)

• Answer:

  Check out what http://www.sethgodin.com/ does with his books. As one of the foremost pontificators in the 2.0 world, he 'gets it'.