Pick a hashtag

I was looking over our twitter posts on @_tinyhouse and was trying to figure out what was leading to more engagement. Was it the content? The time of day I was posting? The hashtags? Hootsuite and twitter dashboard are both able to delay twitter postings to certain times of the day. The full scoop is here but basically timezone matters, and choose noon and 5pm -- lunch and after work.

Now for hastags, there is a free website called Hashtagify that does an analysis from Twitter (or Facebook or otherwise) of different hashtag popularities. Let's look at these common ones for tiny homes:

hashtags data by hashtagify.me

Based on this as of time of posting, the answer is that you should use #tinyhouse over any other tag. Also, there is some contention with how many hashtags to use. If you are new player with social media, you actually want the exposure that lots of hashtags gives you. Going from 0 to 100 followers is a big deal! Now, once you reach a certain level of followers, it's not necessarily the first exposure that will get you more followers but the quality of your content, meaning the shares from existing users. That is going to be different for different markets, exclusive of hashtags. At that point, the chart below tells you that you should only use 1-2 hastags, else you appear annoying and selfish rather than giving a benefit to the public.

Hope this helps! -Conrad

A Spectrum of Space

At the heart of a tiny house is function. There is simply not enough space for sculptural ornamentation (a paperweight has no place here) but there is plenty of space to merge the various surfaces for both form and function.

Tiny houses require a bit more architectural thought.

Multifunctional surfaces and spaces are atypical to an American home. Sofa-beds may be common, but not sofa-tables. Tables and chairs are objects that are freestanding rather than folding back into the wall. This is what makes a tiny house great--consider that while one may live in a 1000 sq-ft apartment, what is actually being done with the space? If I'm not sleeping in my bed, why is it there? If I'm done doing work at my desk, can I put it away? Murphy beds and secretary desks exist, but they can come off as being rather spartan.

But if spartan living is the raison d'être of the tiny house movement, then why are noses being turned up towards some in our community? Like a temporary tattoo, rental homes are being made on par with glamping retreats and are for those who wish to dabble in tiny home living. These retreaters are looking for the experience but cannot commit to the lifestyle change of living in tiny spaces. The tiny home zealots (i.e. buyers) are looking for brands that match their essentialist value system and any hint of bourgeois or capitalist inclinations will sour their experience. To be neutral to both, you need to capture high design, have a reductionist message, and not look like you're trying to make a profit.

Let's look at some traits of our two consumers:

Buyers	Renters
Essentialism	Experientialism
Long-term Commitment	No commitment
Return to nature	Return to nature
Custom home to their needs	Cute space
$20-60k / home	$100-200/night
Where to find land?	Whom to rent from?
Tiny home community influence	HGTV influence
DIY build is attractive	Professional build is attractive

This is not to say that these are the only users in this space. You also have: the builders, charitable organizations, the entertainment world, real estate developers (less so), local governments and architectural groups (including schools).

My wife and I will be traveling to the Tiny Home Jamboree in Colorado Springs where we hope to explore and understand the people some more and clarify the list.

Until next time,

-Conrad

Introducing

My wife has been an avid viewer of the world of HGTV for a few months now, and as a result she caught the tiny house bug. Tiny House Hunters, Tiny House Big Living, and Tiny House Builders have given her (and as a result, me) the impression that tiny houses are the latest trend in the real estate market. Being the internet sleuth that she is, there is a lot of confirmation out there that it is growing. To be candid, our end goal is to make a business move into that market. However, since I am not as engrossed by HGTV I come at this with a bit of a side eye. That's the aim of this blog: to understand if the tiny house market a viable one to enter and if so, how and where.

I also see this site as an experiment in open innovation. These posts are primarily meant to help record the basis for our business... but there's only two of us. By sharing our observations the aim is to inspire others to get into the market and to share their own experiences and musings with us & everyone else. Sharing information does not undercut business because it is in the execution that people win or lose.

Thanks for reading this far (and finding us in the first place). Here's to more insights.

-Conrad

Google trends says...

If you haven't used the tool, Google trends is a great little tool to track what folks are searching for over a certain time period for a variety of search terms. It even gives you locations. It lacks giving you a real number of how many searches were performed, but you can baseline it against certain things. Check out what happens when you compare "tiny houses" with a similar and even smaller yet still elegant "teardrop trailer."
Now try going the opposite direction into a broader category like "affordable housing."
Or even broader like "mortgage."
You get the idea. What's interesting here is that these searches look cyclical -- there's been a jump in the past two Januaries and maybe even the past two Julys. Not sure what events are happening then, but my hypothesis is that a lot of the hype surrounding tiny houses has to do with HGTV's extensive lineup of shows, and perhaps their marketing campaigns.

Notice though that tiny houses are starting to break out from being buttressed by HGTV, which means they are starting to be their own thing for a larger populace. I am hoping that this is the beginning of a sleeping S-curve such that this industry is just starting to take off, ever so slowly. With real wages stagnating, housing prices still up, and millennials with student loans, there are some real economic pressures for people to flock to a means of living that has a low investment. We'll explore that later.

Cheers,
-Conrad