Real-Estate Firms Get a Handle on Twitter

The commercial real-estate industry is notorious for being slow to embrace new technology. Social networking is no exception.

But that is finally beginning to change. Some top firms are beefing up their activity on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, and some brokers say they are doing deals thanks to leads generated by the sites.

As recently as 2010, four years after the launch of Twitter, many brokers didn't even know what the service was.

"People don't understand it," confessed Ron Houghtaling, CBRE Group Inc.'s head of social media, at a 2010 technology conference.

Today, CBRE leads the Twitter pack among major firms with more than 26,000 followers. Meanwhile Jones Lang LaSalle, is second with 16,048 and has a four-person social-media team that also manages accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites.

View the full article.

Read More

Tech-savvy Moms Lead Home-based Food Culture

According to “Moms as Food Shoppers: Grocery Store and Supercenter Patterns and Trends,” a recently released report from market research firm Packaged Facts, the modern American mom is at the center of the new home-based food culture and at the front lines of the movement toward healthy eating.

Each year, moms contribute to spending nearly $200 billion on food purchased for use at home. The report reveals that 13.3 million moms (41 percent) consider their kitchen to be the most important room in their home, while 19.7 million (61 percent) say they enjoy cooking.

A growing number of these moms want to put a new spin on the same old menus, especially with new recipes and food products, and this growing desire has given influence to the internet and social media when it comes to household food purchases.

Read the full article here: http://www.progressivegrocer.com/top-stories/headlines/fresh-food/id36836/tech-savvy-moms-lead-home-based-food-culture/

Read More

Retail Auctions Heat Up (VIDEO)

Who is interested in buying retail real estate in an auction environment? How much of auctioned retail real estate is distressed? Auction.com’s Joe Cuomo answers those questions on GlobeSt TV this week at ICSC-New York.

View the full video here: http://www.globest.com/videos/event_coverage/newyork/retail-real-estate-auctions-327396.html

Read More