Why do we live where we do?
By Laurel Earhart, VP Business Development
Deciding where to live has many factors. When I made the decision to move out west, it was largely a result of dissatisfaction with where I was in life. I needed a new start, and moving somewhere new seemed a natural extension of the total transformation I was looking for. Determining where I actually moved was more a choice of lifestyle than a career requirement, and I used a tool called www.findyourspot.com to explore my options. I didn’t check blogs or other social media because it wasn’t as popular then as it is now. And I wasn’t sure of who would be able to advise me on my decision and the reasons behind it. In hindsight, I wish that I’d had more of an opportunity to ask questions of my neighbors. Not necessarily because I don’t love where I live, (see photos below) but I might have prepared better for the transition from big city living to being slightly “off the beaten path”. My clients tend to be in the larger cities, and I’m fortunate to have had the experience living in one and knowing my way around the markets I serve.
One thing I do miss is having convenient access to an airport. It’s a little tricky to get from point A to point B without having to do the terminal two-step shuffle, so I wind up driving 2 hours to a major metropolitan airport for better choices and prices as opposed to about 45 minutes to my local airport. But it’s a small price to pay for living in paradise.
One of the other things I might have done differently is consult some of the websites that specialize in apartment dwellings. You can learn a lot about a community by what people say about where they live. You learn which neighborhoods and properties to seek out and which to avoid. And finally, you get a sense of who your neighbors are likely to be. Thankfully, I rented before I purchased, because I wound up in a totally different neighborhood than I set out to live in.
I’m fortunate to be working with a prospective client who manages high-end real estate rentals. For her, image and reputation are everything. The face of the brand she represents has to be flawless, and toward that end, she needs access to every bit of information, positive and negative, about her brand as well as those of her competitors. She wants to know what her well-heeled clientele value most when searching for a place to live.
We’ve started the process by simply searching general blogs and news sources for her family of brands as well as the competitors she keeps an eye on. Fortunately, she will be able to modify her searches and timeframes on the fly because there are special incentives and seasonal offers she needs to track. There are also a number of specialized websites that focus on apartment rentals and rankings, and our goal is for her to be able to access this data on the fly so she can incorporate this into her analysis. She also has her own database of tenant concerns to mine for changing sentiment in later phases of the project.
One thing we’ve discovered in the process is that some of the issues pertaining to lifestyle raised by tenants as concerns weren’t even on my client’s radar screen. While they aren’t directly under the control of my client (yet), she’s now aware of subtle changes in sentiment toward her brand as a result. I’m excited that we’ve helped her uncover some specific challenges to address going forward. Other issues she identified were clearly her brand’s strength and greatest value to her tenants, and these are areas she needs to stay focused on to retain her impressive market share and occupancy rate.
Working with clients that have their eye on the ball the way she does is an absolute joy. Given the volume of buzz surrounding housing choices, having tools such as ours will ensure her success in any market.
Why I live where I do
Evening at the home office
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Opinion Tracking in the Web 2.0 World
Opinion Tracking in the Web 2.0 World
The world has fundamentally changed as the Internet has become a universal means of communication and the dominant force in advertising and brand management. The blogosphere is a huge “echo chamber” for individual opinions and online social networking is influencing every aspect of life. Word of mouth marketing is increasingly driving purchasing decisions, brand loyalty and customer attitudes. The Internet contains a wealth of data that can be mined for valuable opinions – with implications for companies and national security agencies alike. Web 2.0 companies need to better leverage and monetize the huge volume of opinions expressed, successful product companies must constantly monitor where they stand online and government agencies need better tools to tap this valuable source of intelligence data.
SentiMetrix software enables companies to analyze and capitalize on the explosion of individual opinions expressed online — in traditional and new “social media” sites, blogs, online discussions, customer generated ratings, etc. SentiMetrix provides precise, real-time quantitative data on user opinions. The system’s highly accurate sentiment analysis engine leverages patent pending algorithms that have been independently validated. SentiMetrix software provides precise sentiment scoring, attribute level opinion analysis and supports nine languages.
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