Viewing posts from : July 2016



David Clare / July 21 / Inspiration, Property, Social Media

Top 5 smarthome technologies (compatible with IFTTT)

Whether you are developing property for rental, and want to give that polished feel, or you’ve recently moved into a property yourself and want the most modern finishes available to you, smarthome technologies are going to be way up there on your wishlist.

The smarthome is one of the best examples of the ‘Internet of Things’. So many appliances and utilities can be connected to your home’s WiFi network, and by extension your smartphone, tablet or other services that make use of the APIs in the tech, allowing you to control your home from wherever you may be.

The smarthome technologies we feature below are not just fascinating because of what they can do alone, but all of them can also connect to a service called IFTTT (if this, then that) which allows them to speak to one another. For example, you put a romantic playlist on Sonos, and your lights turn red. Oh the romance!

Take a look at our top 5 smarthome technologies, that are both awesome in their own right, but also talk to one another for all sorts of hacks!

1. Nest

Nest thermostat learns your schedule and the temperatures you like. In theory, you should never have to touch the thermostat again, and even knows when you’re away, or likely to be back. Through IFTTT, you can even use location to let it know you’re on the way home.

2. Alexa

Amazon’s Alexa is designed around your voice. It’s always on, allowing you to ask for information, music, news, weather, and more. With IFTTT you can even use it to control other smarthome technologies, such as turning the Nest thermostat down.

3. Hue

Philips Hue connected bulbs let you take full control of your lighting, turning to whatever colour you fancy, or blinking for alerts. Through IFTTT, you can even set the colour of your home to match your latest Instagram, or to flash when you’re tagged in a Facebook post.

4. Musaic

Musaic is a Smart Hi-Fi system, allowing you to enjoy your music in every room. Through the IFTTT integration, you can set your Hue lights to go into disco mode when your party playlist plays, or even sound an alarm if someone breaks in.

5. Danalock

Danalock lets you control the access to your properties. Through the IFTTT integration, you can set it so your front door unlocks when you arrive at the house, or to lock via text, or at a certain time of day that you set, so you can always be sure.

Have you used any of these smarthome technologies in your properties? Let us know on Twitter, @ElevationComms.

David Clare / July 21 / Marketing

Wikipedia: the rules for property marketers

Wikipedia is a top 10 website on the internet. It means that when people search for a brand or property development, they will look on Google first, and Wikipedia next.

As a marketer, it may be tempting to set up or edit pages yourself. But this can have drastic consequences, tarnishing brands, being banned from Wikipedia and doing far more harm than good, with the bad publicity that follows.

So, with help from the CIPR Wikipedia best practice guide, here are our top tips for approaching the site in marketing.

Avoid writing about yourself

Wikipedia pride themselves on their neutral point of view policy. An article should not promote you (or the brand), it should take into account both the good, the bad and the ugly.

Even if you were to create or edit a page, the chances are it will be deleted within minutes of creation. It will be super obvious and flagged to the editors.

This doesn’t mean you can’t create a page or edit within the site itself. You just have to make sure all editing is carried out honestly and in an open manner.

Avoid editing the competition too

There is a fierce rivalry between competitors in business. You might be thinking editing their Wikipedia page will make you look better, but you’d likely come worse off.

Wikipedia is not there for marketers to influence their client’s image – if you have something you want to say about a brand then send your request to Wikipedia themselves who will edit it accordingly.

How do you go about that? Simply go to the ‘Talk page‘ and it’ll alert the editors to your request.

Reference everything

Wikipedia makes it clear that they require inline citations for all and any material as well as all quotations. They want each point or fact made through Wikipedia to be seen as a reliable source of information so all references, therefore, have to be reliable too.

This is a good thing and means that if you do want to edit a page, and will actually be truthful in what you write, you shouldn’t have any problem at all in backing it up.

Dealing with disputes

If edit wars are taking place and a dispute is ongoing you can ask for a page to be protected. According to CIPR there are various stages in this process, from full protection, where only a Wikipedia administrator can make an edit, to semi-protection, where only Wiki editors who have been registered on the site for more than four days and have made at least ten edits are allowed to make changes.

Again, as with edit requests, you can ask to protect a page on the ‘Talk page’, but as always, you must present your case for why it should be so.

To find out more, download Best Practice Guidance for free.

David Clare / July 15 / Marketing, Property

State of Real Estate Market: July 2016

Each month we report on the current state of real estate, but this month has been dominated by one single topic: Brexit.

Yes, on June 24th we discovered that the UK will be saying ta’ra to the EU, leaving the world in a state of shock. And you can be damned sure that this has affected the state of real estate in July.

Property trusts suffer hard

There is often no better long-term investment plan than a property trust. But by their very nature, they will collapse in the event of mass-withdrawals. Post-Brexit, too many people have been trying to withdraw cash from these trusts, resulting in suspended accounts until the properties can be sold.

Commercial property is boosted

It’s not all doom and gloom, and a real boost to the commercial property market was delivered when the developers of the Cheesegrater in London (aka Leadenhall Building) announced that the building had been filled. With rent in the building reaching up to £100 per square metre, this is a real post-Brexit blues boost that the property sector has been needing.

Investment opportunities are rife

A US private equity firm this month announced it will be investing £1 billion in UK property, following the cut prices available, both to residential and commercials real estate. The opportunity for buyers is clear, and great deals are available among the uncertainty. We all know property bounces back, so now is the time to buy.

So there you have it. July 2016 was the month that Brexit dominated the property market. Let’s hope next month gives us respite and something else to talk about. But remember, now is the time to buy!

 

David Clare / July 14 / Marketing, Property

Serviced offices market to dramatically increase

According to the latest issue of Estates Gazette, the serviced office market is to see a sixfold increase in value over the next 10 years. This follows from strong levels of growth over the past decade, which saw a 67% increase from 2005 – 2015.

With a current value of £16 billion, and a projected value of £126 billion by 2025, the services offices market is certainly a good opportunity to be looking at right now. But why the rise?

Of course, growth in business is behind the expected increase, especially so in people-powered workplaces. Small firms and start-ups, for example, have grown massively in the past decade, thanks to numerous accelerator programmes, both private and government funded.

The growth in professional services and the communications sector has also seen a need for serviced offices, as has more flexible and accommodating work habits, with internationalism playing a big part.

If you’re a UK based firm, then this next bit of information may help in choosing where to direct your efforts beyond London. Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, respectively, are hotspots for people-powered business, and should be key targets for setting up serviced offices.

But don’t forget, internationalism is behind this trend, so make sure to set your sights further than the UK alone. Brexit or no Brexit, we’re a global economy.

Best of Ted
David Clare / July 14 / Design, Inspiration

Best of TED: How food shapes our cities

Every day, for a city the size of London, enough food needs to be delivered, cooked and fed to millions of people. The sheer scale of this has meant that cities are in fact shaped by food.

In this TED Talk,  Carolyn Steel, a food urbanist, takes us on a journey of how our meals affect not just the cities we live in, but the rainforest too, which is cleared to make way for arable land.

From the names of streets, and major routes into cities, food impacted how cities were built in ancient times. And, of course, since cities like London have changed very little, how we may struggle today, now that demand has increased.

Watch the TED Talk to find out more:

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