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.
