Visit the SimplyMap team at the ALA Midwinter Meeting 2016 in Boston. We will be at booth #1913 offering product demonstrations, tips & tricks, and of course Ghirardelli Chocolate!
Exhibit Hours
Friday, January 8th – 5:30pm-7:30pm
Saturday, January 9th – 9:00am-5pm
Sunday, January 10th – 9am-5pm
Monday, January 11th – 9am-2pm
With the final week of the college football season in the books, and bowl game selections having just taken place, we wanted to search within SimplyMap to see if any data pertaining to college football bowl games is available. Here’s what we found.
To start, open up the search function within the Variables panel.
In a previous post, we covered how to use the variable search function to search for multiple terms. First, we searched for “football”.
Not surprising, the results yielded a large number of football related variables at 648.
With the Thanksgiving holiday last week, we decided to take a quick look into SimplyMap to see what pertinent variables are available for analysis.
First, open the Variables panel and click on Search. Type in “Thanksgiving” in the available box.
The results display a total of 12 variables related to the keyword ‘Thanksgiving’.For fun, we also searched the keyword: turkey. Care to take a guess how many turkey related variables are in SimplyMap?
If you guessed 122, you’re right! There is a grand total of 122 variables related to the word ‘turkey’, ranging from:
In a previous blog we demonstrated the power of utilizing multiple years for the same variable. We found that the usage of Amazon.com had grown substationally from 2008-2014. In this week’s blog, we’ll take a look at the growth of tablet ownership in the US. It seems iPads, Surface Pros and other tablets are everywhere these days. Let’s take a look at the data to see how much tablet ownership has grown in the last 3 years.
To find this information, we’ll look into the SimmonsLOCAL data set. For those unfamiliar with this data, SimmonsLOCAL is a powerful targeting and profiling system that provides insights into consumer behavior for all of America’s 210 media markets on a local level with 60,000+ data variables, including over 450 categories and 8,000 specific brands.
The quickest means of pulling the data here would be to create a Standard Report. First, click on New Tabular Report > Standard Report.
Next, navigate through this path: SimmonsLOCAL » CELL/SMARTPHONES/TABLETS » TABLET (NOT PC/LAPTOP) » TABLET (NOT PC/LAPTOP)-DO YOU OWN?
Inspired by a recent help desk ticket, we wanted to discuss how users may utilize SimplyMap to identify relationships between unique variables. For example, does having a college degree significantly impact the median income of areas? And how does median income effect spending on eating out? Let’s take a look at ZIP Codes within the state of North Carolina.
To quickly analyze a larger area by its smaller geographies, a Location Analysis Report is ideal.
Click on New Tabular Report > Location Analysis:
Choose the state of North Carolina, and navigate to the variables you would like to see compared and analyzed. In this example, we’ll use:
Did you know that SimplyMap allows you to search for businesses by NAICS or SIC codes? Searching by these codes is a great alternative to the general keyword search. Using the keyword search function to search for a business is the quickest method of compiling a business report or placing businesses onto a map. But searching by keyword may result in a broad mix of different business types. Narrow your search to a specific business classification type to generate more meaningful results.
Let’s take a look at an example of searching for coffee shops by SIC code in Austin, Texas.
First, Click on New Tabular > Business Report to start a new report.
Open the locations panel, and search by City > Austin. Next, open the Businesses panel to bring up the New business search. Click on the Add Condition button to bring up your options.
Did you know that SimplyMap includes the ability to export Shapefile data for use in desktop mapping software (such as MapInfo or ArcGIS)? This advanced feature extends the power of SimplyMap and allows for increased data manipulation and mapping capabilities for advanced users or GIS professionals. Let’s take a look at the exporting process with an example.
To export shapefiles from any map, select Actions > Export Shapefiles.
The shapefiles export menu will appear. Follow the 5 easy steps shown and depicted below to receive your shapefiles.
In this week’s SimplyMap tip, we wanted to do a quick write up reminding users about the Saved Tabs feature within SimplyMap.
Did you know that SimplyMap will automatically save all of your work on maps or reports? Although your tabs will save by default, there is a separate option to delete your tab/work. Please note that deleted tabs cannot be recovered.
Let’s take a look at how this works. Firstly, identify a tab you would like to close – we have a Business Report titled Full-Service Restaurants – Raleigh. Next, click on the respective tab and choose the Close option.
With tens of thousands of variables available in SimplyMap, it’s common for users to wonder whether or not a particular variable they have in mind is available in SimplyMap. This is where the value of our variable search function comes in. The variable search allows you to type in a keyword or two, and will output any related results. Let’s take a look at an example.
We’ll start with something broad and go with a simple search for data related to income.
Open the Variables Panel and click on the Search icon. Enter your keyword, “income,” in the empty text box and hit the search button. Your results will be displayed (over 2,800 income related variables!).
By default, SimplyMap will display results ordered by the popularity of that given related variable among all SimplyMap users. In this example, popular income variables include: Family Income Average, Family Income Median, and HH Income ranges. Hover over a variable and select Use This Variable to add into your report or map.
This week’s SimplyMap report will set out to discover what America’s favorite type of music is. We will use data within the premium data package, SimmonsLOCAL to answer the question. The process outlined below can be completed within a matter of minutes – let’s get started!
First, create a new Standard Report.
Next, locate the folder MUSIC – TYPES LIKE MOST. When you hover over this folder, use the option to Use All Variables from the action menu. Picture below for reference.
