Tag Archive for 'Social Media'

Web 2.0 & Health Information Delivery

Published
by
Ian Smith
on December 16, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

My colleague, Aicha Habiby, who blogs at Des Outils et Des Hommes, informed me on the use of social media tools to push health information to citizens.

The Public Health Agency of Canada provides health information in regards to the H1N1 flu via the following five Web 2.0 applications:

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds allows the agency to disseminate information via users’ RSS readers.  As seen in Figure 1, there are four topics covered as of December 15th, 2009.

  • H1N1 Flu Virus (Human Swine Flu)
  • Travel Health Advisories
  • Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR)
  • Chronic Diseases in Canada (CDIC)

Figure 1: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s RSS Feeds

Widgets

To help citizens access information easily, the agency has created a widget in which individuals can plug into a website, blog or a social media platform.  Figure 2 presents a look at the widget and the content that is updated in real time supply information about the H1N1 flu.

Figure 2: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s Widget For H1N1 Information

Twitter

Figure 3 illustrates the agency’s Twitter page with 1,433 followers.  Browsing the past tweets, the agency disseminates information on the H1N1 Flu.

Figure 3: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s Twitter For H1N1 Information

Facebook

The content of the agency’s Facebook Fan Page is divided amongst the following four sections:

  • Wall - The wall offers access to links to current news and information about the H1N1 flu.
  • Info - Fans have access to links to Public Health Agency of Canada and Fightflu websites in English and French.
  • Notes - The Notes section offers general information on the H1N1 flu with the ability to have fans to post comments.
  • H1N1 Information Centre - This section is the one-stop shop for H1N1 information.  The resource is divided into 10 activity modules as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s H1N1 Information Centre on Facebook

YouTube

The agency’s YouTube Channel is composed of a series of bilingual videos regarding H1N1 Flu and on-going initiatives to keep the public health.  The video below is a short 30 second clip about the H1N1 Immunization Campaign.

Web 2.0 and Investment Attraction: UK Trade & Investment

Published
by
Ian Smith
on November 11, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Investment Attraction, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 2 Comments

E&B DATA’s recent benchmark study, “Web 2.0 And Business Attraction - Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index” examined how well economic development agencies in large Canadian cities are utilizing social media marketing tools for investment attraction.

Just to show that cities are not the only entities that are using web 2.0 applications, countries have hopped on the bandwagon.  A perfect example is: UK & Trade Investment.

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is the government department that helps businesses locate in the UK and grow internationally.   The department’s website ranks amongst the best in class according to Organization for Economic Co-operation Development as stated in The World Bank’s Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking 2009 Summary Report (Please see page 62)

Upon visiting the website, you will be able to spot their collection of social media marketing  tools.  The site provides links to the following applications:

  • Blog - The provides insights on various aspects of trade and investment attraction activities.  UKTI uses a multi-blogger approach by having different staff members post on a regular basis.
  • Twitter - This  page acts as a vehicle to push information regarding  UKTI activities and relevant news items.
  • YouTube - This channel is an outlet to:
    • Learn about London’s success stories
    • Provide information on High Growth Markets
    • Provide country information
    • Access past speeches from Lord Davies - Minister for Trade & Investment
    • Access case studies
  • Flickr - The Flickr photostream allows individuals to view pictures from past business events involving UKTI representatives and ministers.
  • Facebook - The Facebook Fan Page is mainly composed of UKTI staff members and is used to provide updates on new posts on the other social networking platforms.
  • LinkedIn - The LinkedIn group is avenue in which UKTI can bring together trade and investment experts and businesses.  It is interesting to see that the department has created subgroup for business people interested in trade and investment between Canada and the UK.

Figure 1 illustrates the UK Trade & Investment’s Twitter page.

Figure 1: UK Trade & Investment’s Twitter Page
Please click on image to enlarge

UKTI shared their thoughts on their web 2.0 strategy in terms of their objectives and tangible benefits:

Objectives:

  • Reach new audiences: new and existing customers; consultants; the media; other government departments; colleagues
  • Spread the word about UKTI through news and insights
  • Raise awareness of events/initiatives/news
  • Support marketing pushes
  • Be more accessible/responsive/open/two-way
  • Keep track of what is being said about UKTI and have the opportunity to respond direct

Benefits

  • Opportunity to feed back, re-inform and offer further information
  • Increase attendance at events, and in turn increase take-up of UKTI services
  • Reach new audiences and be where conversations are already taking place
  • Positive (unsolicited) tweets about UKTI/services have reached a large and diverse audience (of previously untapped potential customers)
  • A major website traffic driver. Both Linkedin and Twitter are in the top 5 traffic referrers to the investment services website.
  • Drive (trade website) registration by raising awareness of how we can help. Eg, by tweeting business opportunities we are broadening reach beyond the current customer-base

Are you thinking about creating an economic development 2.0 strategy for economic development initiatives such as investment attraction for your city, province or state and/or country?    What are the main challenges that you will have to deal with?   Tell us.

Branding Reinforcement Tool or Source For Competitive Intelligence?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on November 5, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

It should not be a huge shock to find that some of the well known brands in the world have a Facebook Fan Page. The popular social media marketing tool allows marketing professionals to reinforce brands on the web by engaging consumers via wall postings, photos, videos and discussions. This low cost avenue of keeping a brand in the minds of consumers does have its disadvantages.

In the process of exchanging messages and sharing images via the web 2.0 application, companies must realize that a great deal of competitive intelligence data can be made available. Such data can be used by competitors to adjust offline marketing plans, create consumer profiles and modify their respective social media marketing campaigns. Figure 1 illustrates Mitsubishi’s Facebook Fan Page.

Figure 1:Screenshot of Mitsubishi’s Facebook Fan Page
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

The challenge of finding the right balance between soliciting just enough feedback from consumers and not putting on display valuable information should be a concern for marketers and CI practitioners responsible for defensive competitive intelligence strategies.

Dealing with the challenge calls for having a practical approach to managing a Facebook page by considering the following issues:

  • Do you really need a fan page?
  • Should the page be public or private?
  • Are you aware of who is joining the fan page?
  • Are you prepared to deal with feedback provided on the page’s wall? (Positive vs Negative)
  • What topics should be discussed to engage consumers on the page?

Although it would be easy to suggest possible answers to the questions listed above, it is recommended that they should be used as discussion points in your company. Results from the discussion can be used to build a sound social media marketing campaign considering the competitive intelligence implications of the Facebook Fan Page.

New Investment Pattern In Canada For 2009

Published
by
Ian Smith
on November 3, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Investment Attraction
. 0 Comments

Representatives of E&B DATA were on hand for this year’s Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Via data from the Investment Observatory, E&B DATA presented  its findings regarding new investment pattern in Canada for 2009.   The presentation is full of details regarding the following:

  • Status Of Major Private Industrial Projects Announced In Canada
  • Investment Trends
  • Announced Investments In Canada $ Value Per Country Of Origin
  • Investment Projects Announcements - Number By Sector
  • E&B DATA’s Green Investment Index
  • Trends Of Capital Investment Announcements - Emergence Of Green Investments
  • Green Investment Projects Canadian Regions And Sectors

Investment Projects Announcements in Canada (2000-2008)
Please click on image to enlarge

The last quarter of the presentation unveils what major Canadian cities are doing in terms of marketing themselves on the internet via Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools.  (To learn more, please reading E&B DATA’s benchmark study, “Web 2.0 And Business Attraction - Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index“)

To download, “New Investment Patterns In Canada” please click here

itpints…Another Real-Time Search Engine

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 13, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Another day, another real-time search tool to add to your competitive intelligence research toolkit.

itpints allows you to submit keyword(s) to search for relevant content on social networking platforms and blogs.  Figure 1 below illustrates a test for a query using the keywords, “Gourmet Magazine“, the very popular cuisine magazine that has ceased publication two weeks ago by Condé Nast.

Figure  1: Results of search for “Gourmet Magazine” on itpints
Please click on image to enlarge

By browsing through the results, one can see that the tool pulls content from such Web 2.0 applications as:

  • Twitter
  • Plurk
  • Facebook
  • Friendfeed

Any relevant content found by itpints on Digg and blogs will be presented as an abstract as seen in Figure 2.

Figure  2: Abstracts from Digg and a blog for keyword search, “Gourmet Magazine”
Please click on image to enlarge

The beta version of itpints can found at www.itpints.com

Tell us how itpints compares with Samepoint, OneRiot and Collecta.


Real-Time Search With OneRiot

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 7, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Here is one more search tool for content on social media platforms in  real time.

OneRiot, which is in the beta testing phase, is a tool that crawls such platforms as Twitter, Digg and other Web 2.0 applications in order to provide users with real time results.  Figure 1 is a screen shot of the index page of OneRiot.

Figure 1: OneRiot’s Index Page
Please click on the image to enlarge

Users of OneRiot have the option of searching content on the web (in text and image format) or video clips courtesy of YouTube.  Figure 2 illustrates  the results for a web search using the keywords, “Investment attraction”.

Figure 2: OneRiot’s Result Page For “investment attraction”
Please click on the image to enlarge

Be sure to sort the results by either clicking on “Pulse” or “Realtime” when looking through the hits.

OneRiot is available at www.oneriot.com

Tell us what you think about OneRiot? How does it compare to Collecta?

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.

Sustainability and Social Media : Is It A Natural? - Take 2

Published
by
Ian Smith
on July 20, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Author-Isabelle Poirier, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

In May 2008, Intelegia examined the Dow Jones Sustainability Index - 10 Supersectors Leaders in terms of the use of blogs in their approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development (SD).    After conducting a thorough examination of the websites of the companies listed in the index, Intelegia discovered that Intel had a full compliment of Web 2.0 tools (i.e., blogs, podcasts, videocasts) and Web 1.0 applications (i.e., newsletter and news alerts) to deal with social responsibility issues.

With the acceptance of online social networks as viable communication tools during the past year, Intelegia decided to conduct the same exercise with the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (2008 / 2009).  The image below is the scorecard that was used to evaluate the company’s websites. (Please click on the image to few a full scale version of the table.)

DJI Sustainability Index and Social Media

Source: E&B DATA / Intelegia

Please Note: Only online social networks that are mentioned on the company’s website are considered.

Findings from the study include:

  • Of the 18 companies in the index, only two companies do not have a section of their corporation website discussing corporate social responsibility or sustainability development. Itausa-Investimentos Itau and TNT N.V.
  • Intel still leads the way in terms of adopting Web 2.0 applications when it is comes to promoting their dedication to corporate social responsibility.  This is seen through Intel’s official Facebook Fan page for their Inspired by Education project.  Although not located in their CSR section, the company has a channel on YouTube titled, Channel Intel.  It would not be a big shock if Intel creates a channel specifically for CSR content in the near future.
  • adidas AG does not offer much in terms of Web 2.0 tools when it comes to CSR or SD however; looking at their products website is a different story.  adidas.com offers an array of Web 2.0 tools such as podcasts
  • Eni, an integrated energy has a collection of videocasts discussing their various sustainability initiatives.
  • Air France-KLM in the airline industry does not have a presence on Web 2.0 which is surprising.  For a company that should be engaging with  clients, Air France-KLM must begin an effort to use social media tools.

With the power of the Web 2.0 or social media offer to connect with other, it is interesting to see who will be quickly adopting applications and who will be conducting “business as usual” over the next 12 months.

White Paper: The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications

Published
by
Ian Smith
on June 18, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

If you have a few minutes, we encourage you to take a look at the white paper, “The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications” by Josh Gordon, President of Selling 2.0

The document is structured along the following discussion points:

  • Overview of the key issues regarding social media and its role in business
  • Business applications for Twitter
  • Business applications of social networks

Have Cities Bought Into Social Networks?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 12, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

Why is there so much interest in tools such as Facebook and Twitter?  From a marketing point of view, these tools are vehicles to communicate with consumers and enhance branding on the web.  Prime examples are Nokia’s Fan page on Facebook and Dell Computer’s multiple Twitter accounts.

Can the same Web 2.0 based marketing techniques apply to branding a city or region?  Let’s find out.

Using The 2008 Global Cities Index from Foreign Policy Magazine, the top 10 cities in terms of business activity were examined based on their presence of the two social networking platforms.  The selected cities  were  1. New York, 2. Tokyo, 3. Paris, 4. London, 5. Hong Kong, 6. Singapore, 7. Seoul, 8. Shanghai, 9. Beijing, 10. Amsterdam

Findings:

  • Of the 10 cities, three cities (i.e., Paris, London, Amsterdam) have a Facebook Fan Page
  • Of the 10 cities, seven cities (i.e., New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing) do not have a Facebook Fan Page

Given the power of online social networks, one has to wonder what is taking cities so long to buy into the benefits?

  • Is it a question of money?
  • Is it a question of time?
  • Is it a question of awareness? (i.e., the benefits having  fan pages)

Research for this blog post led to some interesting finding in terms of cities / towns that have embraced social network platforms such as Facebook.

1. It was difficult to identify the official pages from pages created by citizens.  The set of criteria that were used to identify the city’s official page were:

a) Complete contact information
b) Wide Reach (number of members, fans and followers)
c) Link on the page to the city’s official website

2. Two very good examples that were found: Coventry City (U.K.) and City and County of San Francisco

Coventry City - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=41296119424

The local government of Coventry City created a Facebook group with the objective of communicating with citizens regarding a new civic centre.  The group was an avenue to consult with stakeholders in which they used discussion boards and the wall as sounding boards. The image below presents a sample of posts made to the discussion board asking the question, “What you dislike about the city centre?”

City and County of San Francisco - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/sanfrancisco?v=info&viewas=1244463797

The City and County of San Francisco’s presence on Facebook can seen through a fan page.  The fan page is an extension of the city and county’s website.   Fans can easily access information from the local government via wall postings, photographs and video clips on YouTube.  In addition to being an information tool, the page can be viewed as a branding vehicle based on the many scenic photos placed on the page and events that are promoted.  Below is a screenshot of what is offered in terms of photos on the page.

Final Thoughts

  • A Facebook Fan Page is a logical extention to a city’s or region’s official website
  • Social network applications are excellent avenues to reach individuals within the 24 to 54 age bracket
  • Some cities have yet to realize the possibilities that social network tools offer to communicate with its citizens.