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Posted by: Andrew Barber

14 March 2011

If nothing else, the arrest of the Tchenguiz brothers on the 9th of March illustrated just how deeply digital communication has become embedded in the property sector. My abiding memory of MIPIM 2011 will be the astonished conversations that morning, most of which seemed to start with the passing of a smart phone and the question: “Have you seen this?!”  

This year’s MIPIM could well be considered a milestone moment, marking the point when social media in the corporate real estate market went mainstream. 

Over the preceding weeks there had been much chatter on Twitter, and on property networking sites, regarding the world's premier real estate event.  The frequency with which the relevant hashtag, #mipim, was used to highlight a comment relevant to the event, gathered pace as property professionals made their final preparations for their pilgrimage to Cannes.

Established members of the Property Twitterarti were joined online by newcomers.  Some of the chatter was informative (@mipimworld), some of it was satirical and irreverent (@twipim), some of it was trivial and some of it was just blatant advertising. 

At the start of the week itself the conversation was added to by many of the property journalists and their colleagues from the daily papers, who informed of progress on their journeys to the Riviera, passing on gossip and snippets of news. 

With the excitement building it was clear that this was certainly going to be a MIPIM where the use of social media would ensure that the news and rumour would be spread faster and further than ever before.  Just how fast was to be demonstrated in the most dramatic fashion on Wednesday morning.

At the time I was sitting in a café with Kate Titchmarsh, having a coffee with one of our German clients, waiting to introduce him to Property Week's Mike Phillips.  The usually reliable Mr Phillips was late.  After several attempts I got through to his mobile and a rather flustered sounding Mike told me that there was a major story breaking and that he was not going to be able to attend our meeting.

A few minutes later the news began to circulate, along with the smartphones. The major story was out. A quick study of the trending topics on Twitter for Wednesday illustrates how quickly the news was spread around the Web with the occurrences of the word “Tchenguiz” rocketing from just one mention over the previous day to thousands within a few hours (some of them forgetting that, in the UK, a person is innocent until proven guilty).  

The Financial Times broke the news of the arrests via Twitter at 10:03 (GMT) on Wednesday morning.  The BBC picked up on the story and its correspondents were also Tweeting it by 10:12.  Within another five minutes the property journalists in Cannes were also spreading the news.  

A quarter of an hour or so later Property Week’s Giles Barrie was spotted heading towards the Veni Vidi Vici, Vincent Tchenguiz’s yacht, along with his colleague David Doyle, struggling with piles of video and sound equipment.  It wasn’t long before the resulting video was posted and its availability online made known to all, again, via Twitter.  That evening Giles made an appearance on Channel 4 News and the BBC’s Robert Peston confirmed what we already knew - that this was a “huge” story.

What can we learn from all of this?

Firstly, news, both good and bad, now spreads around the world at an incredible speed and there is a global social network of those concerned with commercial real estate which is hungry for property stories.

Secondly, the past week has given a clear demonstration of the influence that the “read write web” now has on the distribution of news from the property sector and the way it can shape the perception and profile of property companies and individuals.  It also illustrates that if you do not take part in the online conversation you run the risk of being misrepresented and your public profile being damaged. 

Whether you choose to use Social Media and the Read Write Web as part of any marketing and communications strategy, or not, its power to inform and influence the opinions your clients, customers and partners cannot be ignored.