Make sense, right?

Of course however; how many agencies have a map that is more that a map?

A map for investment attraction used by site selectors should be an information product that provides intelligence on locations in a region.  Case in point: IDA Ireland.

IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Agency) is responsible for the attraction and development of foreign investment in Ireland.  Below in Figure 1 is a screen shot of the agency’s “Location” section on its website.

Figure 1: IDA Ireland’s Location Section

Thanks to tabs labeled:: “Locations of Ireland”, “Business & Technology Parks” and “Strategic Sites”, site selectors can easily access information that they can use to choose real estate to fit their clients’ investment needs.

Within the Strategic Sites subsection, IDA Ireland offers the opportunity to have a view of 10 locations in which they feel that it would be beneficial for any investor to do business.  Figure 2 is an animated model of Oranmore, Co Galway where Biopharma Campus Ireland is located.

Figure  2: Animated model of Oranmore, Co Galway

For each listed strategic site, the website provides a promotional brochure and video to learn more.

When engaging site selectors via a website, it is important to realize that some selectors would like to be independent when it comes to gathering information.  Pushing information to individuals for the decision making process does have its limits.  With a variety of search tools, selectors may want seeking out information for themselves since they are only individuals who knows what they really need and want from a location.

Figure 1: Real-time Search Results Amongst Web Search Results
Click On Image To Enlarge

Recently, Google has unveiled a brand new search interface that will allow users to enter their keywords.  Figure 2 presents the Google Realtime Search interface.

Figure 2: Google Realtime Search’s Interface

The results from a query using this specific interface is presented below in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Google Realtime Search Results For “Twitter”
Click On Image To Enlarge

The result page is composed of the following  three parts:

• Trending bar chart - Know how hot the topic is over time.
• Search results - Access relevant content on Twitter, Facebook, etc as they are placed online.
• Top links - Get to know what are the most popular links that are being posted.

To access the Google Realtime Search Interface, click here.

What makes a good website for business attraction?

a) Current and relevant key location factor data
b) Social media tools to push information and great marketing content
c) Multilingual content
d) Database of available real estate options in the region
e) All of the above

After our evaluation of the leading economic development agencies in Canada for the 2010 Canadian Online Marketing Index, Intelegia believes that the answer is definitely, e).

We were alerted to the Yes Virginia website by Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) via the LinkedIn group, Foreign Direct Investment Professionals.  The website deserves a closer look in regards of the elements vital to investment attraction efforts.

I) Multilingual Content

Seeing multilingual content on a website that is devoted to investment attraction is a clear indication of “openness” on the part of a region.  Supplying information in more than one language allows a region to put itself on the radar of investors who speak French, Spanish, German or other languages.   Figure 1 illustrates Yes Virginia’s content in German that deals with Virginia as a place to invest.

Figure 1: Yes Virginia German Content
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

This particular section of the site provides details on:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Investment by Country
• Strategic Locations
• Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures
• Success Stories
• Export Programs

Along with German content for the above is available in French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, China and English.

II) Site Selection

It only makes sense for a site selector to have access to database of available real estate option to evaluate possible sites.  Yes Virginia gives site selectors the opportunity to conduct in-depth research based on their needs.  Figure 2 is the search interface for a query for industrial sites.

Figure 2: VEDP Property Search Interface - Industrial Sites
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

III) Contact Information

One faux pas that agencies commits on  the website is the lack of contact information for key individuals. VEDP provides a detailed a staff directory on their website.  Figure 3 is a sample of the directory.

Figure 3: VEDP Staff Directory
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

Each individual that is listed in the directory has their phone number and email address.

The three elements of the VEDP’s website that were highlighted in this post should be at the core of any website for business attraction.

• Multilingual Content - Multilingual content ensures that agencies do not discriminate against potential investors who may speak a difference language other than English.
• Site Selection - This portion of the site must give selectors and potential investors the ability to place themselves in a region to benefit from the existing infrastructure, especially transportation.
• Contact Information - By simply providing a list of contacts relevant to investment attraction, agencies can remove the first barrier associated with promoting a region.
  

Linkedin is already 7 years old. Curious isn’t it, since its recent popularity … at least in Quebec. In fact, over the last 12 months, the primary business social network in the world has doubled in size from 35 million to 70 million members, including 2 million in Canada and 500,000 in Quebec. Well, it’s still small compared to 500 million users of Facebook however; the profile of its members is quite different. The average member of LinkedIn earns more than US$ 100,000 per year.

Most importantly, LinkedIn is a business network first. Forget the pictures of the weekend and gossip - people really do business on LinkedIn.

For most people, LinkedIn is not a directory of resumes that are online.  To some, it is a network because they have received many invitations from others. Too bad, because LinkedIn offers many advantages that are free.  Here is a list.

1. External Communication

Forget the false email addresses, CRM applications and email campaigns - LinkedIn simplifies and integrates everything.

2.  Internal Communication

Start a group with employees in your company. Take advantage of their contacts, share your knowledge and be notified of any changes.

3.  Business Development

Enhance your visibility and be found by thousands of users. Find potential customers and partners and strengthen your business relationships.

4.  Employment

Targeting businesses, stay abreast of job openings, recruiters or join any contact within the targeted companies.

5.  Expertise

LinkedIn is a rich directory full of experts. Thanks to the advanced search, find a specialist on any topic, sector, company or region.

6.  Training

Get answers to your questions, read the comments of members and read the replies of your contacts.

7.  Business Intelligence

Stay abreast of your competitors and hiring of new individuals in your industry. Ask questions to your contacts, members of your communities or former employees of your competitors.

8.  Recruitment

Over 80% of recruiters use LinkedIn. Surprisingly, since this tool gives you access to the roadmap of millions of candidates.

In summary, if used properly, LinkedIn allows you to:

• Reduce your operating costs
• Improve your operational efficiency and
• Improve your sales … for free!

About The Author Simon Hénault:

Simon invites you to join the largest business community in Quebec, Linked Quebec Linkedin Group and read the eBook, which includes the sub-group, Communications and Marketing which is moderated by Isabelle Poirier.

Simon welcomes you to listen to a set of elearning podcasts in which he provides a guide to how to use LinkedIn.  The podcasts, which are the most visited by individuals in francophone countries comprise of the following eight episodes.

1. Why use LinkedIn ?
2. How to complete your LinkedIn profile?
3. How to build your LinkedIn network?
4. How to optimize your presence in LinkedIn?
5. How to search LinkedIn?
6. How to keep your information confidential on LinkedIn?
7. How to find a job on LinkedIn?
8. How to find customers on LinkedIn?

Please Note: Content is available in french only.

Simon Henault knows how to mobilize Quebec professionals in new ways. Building on a LinkedIn group created by and for Quebecers, it offers to business people in Quebec an effective platform to better network and break the shackles of traditional marketing and communications. His enthusiasm for social media is contagious and we want all our partners, both in Quebec and abroad to benefit from his expertise.

For the first time, the creation of a territorial community will be shared with you, so you can be inspired to grow your organization and possibly change its outlook. Henault’s goal is simple and ambitious. It aims to convert one million Quebecers to be active users of LinkedIn and provide a communication platform that is free and beneficial. His expertise, experience and mission makes him a excellent VIP guest blogger.

“The development of a community is demanding, but very motivating. It is with joy that I share with you, the readers of Intelegia’s blogs, the creation of such a movement. I hope that my insights on Des Outils et Des Hommes will enhance the scope of Linked Quebec, since the blog is read in approximately 40 countries around the world.” says Henault.

Isabelle Poirier
President, Intelegia

Simon is the founder of Linked Quebec, the largest Linkedin Group for business professionals in the province of Quebec (Canada).  As of August 16, 2010, Linked Quebec has 6249 members and a still growing by the minute.

Readers of Des Outils et Des Hommes will benefit from Simon’s expertise in  content management and using LinkedIn for business purposes.  Simon’s first blog post, “LinkedIn, ça sert à quoi ?” is now online and we encourage our french readers to visit his post.  An english version of the blog post will be online Wednesday morning on Tools For Thought.

Once again, welcome Simon.

Keep in mind that a website is an extension of a business card and must include all the information on it.

While preparing of the 2010 edition of the Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index, we were surprised to see that some cities do not provide a name of a key contact for investment attraction inquiries.  As a potential investor, you are provided with a general email address with hopes that a message gets to someone’s inbox that can be of assistance.

With the limited amount of time that potential investors and site selectors have these days, can cities afford to place these barriers (ie, not providing a contact name) in front of them with the risk of turning them off and pushing them to another region?  A region that is more open in terms of providing information to facilitate the process of investment attraction will make life easier for their economic development officer and most importantly, investors.

Go ahead, visit your website for business attraction.  See if the complete contact information for the individual in charge of investment attraction is on the site.  This should not include an email address that begins with inf@… or invest@…….  If you see a lack of information, ask yourself why and what is the point of doing so.

Once logged onto the site, individuals can access significant information related to investing in the region.  As seen in Figure 1, there are navigational tabs to browse through details regarding:

• News in the region (What’s new?)
• Sites and buildings
• Incentives
• Demographics
• Top Employers
• Videos

Figure 1: Sites & Buildings Navigational Tab

A pretty impressive feature of the site is the database that is placed in the incentive section.  Individuals may search the database using different criteria for incentive programs that are available in the city of Rochester and surrounding counties.  Figure 2 is the screens hot of the results given for the grant programs in Ontario Country for medium sized businesses.

Figure 2: Listing of Grants Available in Ontario County for Medium Sized Businesses

As supporters of economic development agencies that use social networks, we were happy to see that Greater Rochester Enterprise is present on Twitter with GRERochesterBiz and a Linkedin profile.

Linking their Web 2.0 presence with a well though out website provides Greater Rochester Enterprise with a “push and pull” information dissemination strategy to serve site selectors and potential investors.

Investors are now have less time and less money to place in regions that may look the same on paper thus putting economic development officers in competition with other officers not only in the same country but in the same province or state.   In order to sell potential investors and site selectors on a competitive advantage that a jurisdiction has over another location, gathering and analysing data on a frequency basis is required.  As a result, the practice of competitive intelligence should be undertaken.

Last week, instructors from Intelegia joined Eric Canada from Blaine Canada and Jennifer Zeller of Georgia Power at The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute.  The four representatives were on hand for the course, “How to Conduct Business Intelligence to Gain a Competitive Advantage“.  The day was broken down into six sessions:

• Fundamentals of Business Intelligence - This part of the course set the tone for the day by furnishing a look at the business intelligence cycle.  Eric Canada continued to stress the importance of localized business intelligence and asking the right questions when it come to business, retention, expansion initiatives.
• Know Your Companies: Business Intelligence For EDOs - In his second session, Eric went on to highlight to some of the anaylsis frameworks used to assess companies for economic development initiatives. Frameworks such as Benchmark Analysis, Portfolio Assessment, Triage Analysis and Company Analysis were discussed.
• Serving Georgia Companies Through Business Intelligence and Research Services - Jennifer Zeller discussed some of the end-products and research tools that are delivered and used at Georgia Power.  From business comparisons reports to industry-specific overviews, attendees had the opportunity to see how an information gathering service can help economic development agencies.
• Locate Your Sources: Gather Relevant Information - Instructor, Frederic Chevalier presented a collection of “must have” sources for EDOs to conduct their own online searches.  The sources ranged from some of the free well known sites to premium content databases.
• Leveraging Social Networks To Gather Business Intelligence Data - Isabelle Poirier demonstrated how economic development professionals can benefit from the wealth of information available on social networks and the simple search tools to find content on Web 2.0.  Tools such as Addictomatic and Samepoint were presented.
• Business Intelligence Monitoring Tools  for Enterprise - Using applications such as Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter and other free tools, Isabelle showed attendees how to push strategic information to themselves.

At the end of the day, attendees were given an outlook on the use of business intelligence and competitive intelligence that every economic development agencies and officers must have.  In order to attraction and or retain investment in a region, agencies must go out and compete with the use of relevant and timely information and established analysis methods to make the best decisions.

In their haste to talk to their audience using Twitter and or Facebook, some companies overlook the competitive intelligence implications of their social media strategy.  Case in point: A consumer - company “tweet up”.

Urban Dictionary.com defines a “tweet up” as “an organized or impromptu gathering of people that use Twitter.”  Recently, I came across a tweet for a scheduled “tweet up” for a product which I thought it was a very good marketing move until my “competitive intelligence senses” kicked into high gear.  I had to question the strategy of announcing and executing such an initiative.  Consider the following scenario from a strategic intelligence gathering point of view.

Sending out a tweet days in advance provides:

1) Competitors who maybe on your list of followers to plan and attend the “tweet up”.
2) Competitors with the opportunity to establish a system to monitor information that is made available during the “tweet up”
3) Competitors to access archives of the “tweet up” courtesy of the company’s Twitter page.

A similar scenario can hold true for a Facebook initiative using the discussion boards or wall posts.

Am I discouraging companies from using the various avenues to engage individuals on social networks?  Not at all. What I am trying to highlight is that strategists must be smarter when it comes to communicating with their target audience.  Social networks are not only marketing platforms but outlets to collect strategic intelligence as it becomes available.  Efforts to prevent significant pieces of data from appearing on competitors’ radar should be taken.  Consider:

1) Conducting an audit of your social media marketing outlets - Have someone outside your marketing department to browse your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to seek out the answer to the following question, “Do we want our competitors access to this piece of information?”.  In addition, use some of the Web 2.0 search tools to cull information that might be available on Web 2.0.  This initiative is a part of a defensive competitive intelligence plan.  (Please read, “Defensive Competitive Intelligence In A Web 2.0 Environment”)

2) Drafting and adhering to engagement guidelines - When engaging your audience, you may not be prepared to deal with some of the unwelcome comments.  These comments can be used against you by competitors.  As a result, a set of guidelines should be established to clear state the topics that should be covered, when postings should be done, should hashtags be used, etc.

Are you concerned about what your competitors can learn about when you are engaging your consumers?  Tell us!!