What are property professionals buzzing about in advance of MIPIM?

March 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Cannes and New York (March 7, 2011)

What are property professionals buzzing about in advance of MIPIM?

Unique CREOpoint study puts London, Manchester, CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield, Union Investment Real Estate, GE Capital Real Estate and AXA REIM as winners of the CREObuzz™ awards.

CREOpoint, the leader in using online networking to foster effective communication in commercial real estate, recently mined 10,000 sources corresponding to 5 Million online article posts, blogs, videos and social media mentions relating to commercial real estate. The market sentiment was more upbeat. London ranked No. 1 among cities and CBRE among companies that are getting the most Internet buzz. Manchester and Cushman & Wakefield took second place in their categories.

In the chart, word size corresponds to frequency of occurrences. Expected key words like investment, development, architecture, awards, MIPIM, Reed MIDEM, cities, Cannes, property, real estate and market were removed to reveal more insights.

CREOpoint’s proprietary CREObuzz™ algorithm monitored what was being said in the six months through March 1, 2011 about MIPIM in English in the 30,000 property-related articles analyzed each day for clients. This word cloud highlights the “trending” topics in the run up to MIPIM 2011.  

For example for the first time, the words “brand”, “blog”, “Online”, “Twitter” and “video” made CREObuzz™ list. Also just like we see a bifurcation with secondary investment markets getting significantly less interest, brands based in Continental Europe and looking for exposure at MIPIM had a low amount of buzz. This confirms that smaller areas and organizations on the Continent need to be more creative in developing their own distinctive voice and presence in conventional and social media.

Hope is back
In addition to looking at key words that identify locations and businesses, CREOpoint also tracked the market sentiment, to determine how it has changed since MIPIM 2010. Jean-Claude Goldenstein, CREOpoint CEO and CREObuzz Founder noted, “Hope is back. Our proprietary analysis shows that words such as ’better’, ‘hope’ and ‘opportunities’ have increased in use compared to a year ago, outnumbering negative expressions such as ‘problems’ and ‘recession’.” Although the words ‘party’ and ‘champagne’ have not reappeared, we expect the flutes to be half full this year Vs. half empty last year and the “Gin and Panic” of two years ago.”

European organizations lag in use of social media channels

American developers and service providers regularly blog and network online to grow their brands, but this is only recently starting in Europe. CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield, Union Investment Real Estate, GE Capital Real Estate and AXA REIM were the organizations most mentioned online in the run up to MIPIM. CB Richard Ellis will be awarded the honor at an exclusive pre-MIPIM evening party hosted by CREOpoint and its partner The Wall Street Journal this evening. Surprisingly U.K. Investors, the Big 4 as well as global law firms, architects and developers were not yet in the picture.

Bernhard Klein Wassink, Chief Marketing Officer, GE Capital Real Estate, commented: "Social media is now a legitimate business tool in commercial real estate. We have definitely moved beyond experimentation and are pleased this is already showing in the CREOpoint buzz rankings. By following us, real estate investors, journalists and other interested parties get instant updates on the latest GE Capital Real Estate news.”

JC Goldenstein added: “MIPIM is no longer strictly a one-off event. We expect increasing online discussions before, during and after the live exhibition. We’ll track who makes our online CREObuzz™ awards list throughout 2011. This will be the year where organizations in our industry recognize the need to define themselves rather than leaving others to do it. The Internet is a great equalizer. I expect the share of mind to shift to less household name brands who embrace social media as a professional business tool and an extension of conventional marketing methods. Many are starting to monitor what’s being said about them online. Stay tuned for upcoming CREObuzz™ insights about these newcomers and their growing relative internet brand equity.”

Jean-Claude also highlighted that a number of leaders at CREObuzz™ clients are recognizing that having a limited blog or social media presence means they are not being found in prospect’s Google searches. Expect leading CRE organizations to start using social insights to begin to influence strategic communication decisions, as well as informing the organization’s objectives, marketing plans and product roadmaps. Functional leaders will respond effectively after resisting change or will be replaced by younger executives with both a mandate—and experience--to build social capital.

The most buzzed about companies pre-MIPIM 2011
1.     CB Richard Ellis
2.     Cushman & Wakefield
3.     Union Investment Real Estate
4.     GE Capital Real Estate
5.     AXA Real Estate Investment Managers

Source: CREOpoint based on the online buzz pre-MIPIM 2011 (excluding event organizer Reed MIDEM)
 
U.K. cities dominated the pre-MIPIM buzz

In the 500 online English language posts analyzed, London had twice as many mentions as Paris. Manchester, which was almost as visible as London in our MIPIM 2010 CREObuzz™, continued to be very visible. Although Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, made the top 10 list, the buzz it generated was far lower than its Midlands neighbor, Nottingham who benefitted from a private sector initiative to promote the city online.
Winners   CREObuzz™ award 2011 (2010)
London   1. (1)
Manchester   2. (2)
Paris   3. (3)
Nottingham    4. (N/A)
New York   5. (N/A)

Source: CREOpoint based on the number of online conversations pre-MIPIM 2011 (excluding host city Cannes)



Ends


Notes to Editors:

About CREOpoint:

In less than three years, www.CREOpoint.com has become the global leader in using online networking to foster effective and useful communication in commercial real estate. We now have over hundred thousand members and visitors from over 50 countries.

In addition, CREOpoint’s CREObuzz™ consulting solutions help clients such as Cassidy Turley, BNP Paribas Real Estate, CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield, Ernst & Young, GE Capital Real Estate, NAI, OSCRE and Real Capital Analytics protect their online reputation, get unique market insights or cost effectively reach those who matter most. The above insights can be refined for differentiating insights by company, market, building, development project or other leading indicators.

Let us know if you could also benefit from some of our insights or an alliance with CREOpoint like these leaders have decided to engage in: BOMA, Commercial Property Executive, CoreNet, Euromoney, ERM, IFMA, IREM, MIPIM, NAIOP, NAR, OSCRE, Property Week, REIDIN, RICS, SIOR, the Appraisal Institute, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Urban Land Institute and the Wall Street Journal.

For free real time intelligence from CREOpoint:

CREOpoint.com
CREOpoint.com/m/ on your mobile
@CREOpoint on Twitter

   
For further information or appointments during MIPIM please contact:

JC Goldenstein, CREOpoint Founder and CEO  
jcgoldenstein@CREOpoint.com
French mobile phone between March 7-13th +33 (0) 6 16 90 28 06
U.S. cell phone +1 914 310 4189
Skype: jcgoldenstein
http://www.CREOpoint.com


Andrew Barber, MD Revolution Public Relations
Cell phone +44 (0)7989 553 903
andrew@revolution-pr.co.uk
Skype: andrew.barber22
http://www.revolution-pr.co.uk

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London based commercial property PR agency and media relations consultant focused on the UK and European real estate sectors.