Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Google Advanced Search For Economic Intelligence?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 29, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Economic Intelligence
. 1 Comment

When was the last time that you used Google Advanced Search for your economic intelligence needs?

The Google Advanced Search feature is an option often ignored by users on a daily basis. Many individuals take the function for granted but it is handy to have.  Competitive intelligence researchers will tell you that using the function will lead to finding information that you would not have expected to be on the web within seconds.

In case you have not dared to use the the advanced feature before, Figure 1 illustrates the search interface of Google Advanced Search.

Figure 1: Google Advanced Search Interface
(Click on the image to enlarge the screen shot)

The main objective of using such an interface is to filter results and hopefully provide relevant information in a specific format for your needs.  Some of the things that you can do with Google Advanced include:

  • Specify the number of results you may see per page
  • View results in different languages
  • Access documents in a variety of formats (ie, MS-Word, MS-Excel, .pdf)
  • Search within a site or domain name (ie, restricting a search to one specific website)

Case Example: Foreign Direct Investment in the United States

You are in a  rush to find a current and detailed report regarding foreign direct investment in the United States and the regular Google search is not doing the trick.  What do you do?

Solution: By turning to the advanced search option, you can submit a query in which Google can attempt to find a document that was publish in the past year.  In addition, you may specify that would like the document to be in .pdf..  (Most reports are stored in .pdf for online readership)

Submitting the query with the two criteria will provide you with the following page of results with the relevant hit highlighted in yellow in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Listing of Results For Query - United-States “Foreign Direct Investment ” filetype :.pdf in the past year
(Click on the image to enlarge the screen shot)

This hit leads to the report in .pdf, “Foreign Direct Investment in The United States” published by the Organization for International Investment in March 2009

For addition details on search operators for Google Advanced Search queries, please click here

Social Media Marketing and Economic Development: A Business Case Study

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 24, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 1 Comment

At the same time E&B DATA released, “Web 2.0 And Business Attraction: Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index”, a second document was placed online.  A case study dealing with social media marketing for  economic development was published.

The business case study presents how social media marketing applications were adopted by Entreprise Chaleur, an economic development agency that represents 15 communities on the northeast coast of New Brunswick.

Location of The Chaleur Region

Source: Entreprise Chaleur

The use of Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, key success factors and a status report of the initiative for foreign direct investment attraction as of September 2009 are the main topics that discussed in the case.

To download the case study, “Entreprise Chaleur - Social Media Marketing Applications For Economic Development”, please click here.

Do you believe that websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube can play a key role in your investment attraction strategy for your cities or region? Tell us by leaving a comment below.

Web 2.0 And Business Attraction: Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 22, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

Social Media Tools has given marketers new avenues to communicate with consumers.  Whether it be pushing information via Twitter, engaging potential buyers on a Facebook fans page or providing product information on Flickr, these applications can be quite powerful to promote a product or service.

Can the same tools be used by economic development officers that have the responsibility to market their territory in hopes of attracting investment?

E&B DATA’s benchmark report, “Web 2.0 And Business Attraction - Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index” takes a look at the top 20 Canadian cities (CMSAs) that are utilizing social media tools on their economic development agency’s website.  In addition, an assessment of specific information for site selectors was performed. Each site was examined utilizing the following 13 criteria.

  • Blogs
  • Linked to Facebook
  • Linked to Twitter
  • Linked to LinkedIn
  • Linked to other sharing platforms  (i.e. YouTube, Flickr, Digg, StumbleUpon)
  • Podcasts (Audio or Video)
  • RSS Feeds
  • Newsletters
  • News Alerts
  • Forums
  • Home page including link for site selection section
  • Contact person name for site selection inquiry
  • Multi-language functionality

The study presents examples of the early adopters (ie, cities) of social media marketing applications such as YouTube, videocasts, podcasts and various bookmarking  and sharing tools.

Best practices in providing information to site selectors for investment attraction are illustrated in the second half of the study regarding:

  • The currency of the information
  • How easy it is to find on the web?
  • How many pages on Google Canada before finding the link to the page?

The complete study can be downloaded here.

Entreprise Chaleur Adopts Social Media Marketing Strategy With RegionChaleur

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 10, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

Entreprise Chaleur, an economic development agency located in northeastern New Brunswick is rapidly building its network of stakeholders via its Fan page on Facebook, RegionChaleur.  The goal of the page is to promote the remote region as the best location to invest and live.

Here are a few screen shots of what the page has to offer to its fans and interested individuals.  Please click on the images to enlarge the screen shots.

The Wall with current local news headlines and associated links on the web

Photos illustrating the beauty of the region

This Facebook initiative is just a part of the Entreprise Chaleur integrated social media marketing strategy for economic development.   To complement the fan page, Entreprise Chaleur has a Twitter page and a Flickr account.

In the past few weeks, the initiative has received some attention from the media specifically by Radio-Canada and L’Acadie Nouvelle.

To become a fan of RegionChaleur, please log onto Facebook and click here.  Be sure to click on the “Become A Fan” button.

Real Time Searching With Addictomatic

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 9, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

This tool is not new however; it is very handy for individuals who need to conduct real time searches when it comes to the web 2.0.

Addictomatic permits users to perform internet searches taking into account the content available on a wide array of web 2.0 or online social media platforms such as Digg, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr just to list a few.

Screenshot of Index page of Addictomatic

Here is screenshot of the result page for a search query using the keywords, “foreign direct investment”.

Please click on the image to enlarge

It is recommended that you test out this tool to see the long list of resources that are consulted to supply you with relevant results.

Addictomatic is available at http://addictomatic.com/