Tag Archive for 'Web 2.0'

Are You Really On Social Media For Investment Attraction?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on July 21, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Investment Attraction
. 0 Comments

A lot of effort can be placed into planning and executing a social media marketing campaign for investment attraction however; there is an element that cannot be omitted.  Getting exposure.

Similar to the saying, “If  a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”, having a presence on social media but if nobody knows it,  then it is a huge issue that should be dealt with immediately.  While preparing for the 2010 Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index, I was surprised to find that some Web 2.0 accounts were not linked to the economic development agencies’ website and vice versa.

Here are a few practical tips to help obtain some additional exposure for your agency’s Web 2.0 efforts.

1. Links, Links, Links - Take a look at the agency’s website. Do all the links to your platforms (i.e., Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) appear on the front page of the site?   Providing direct links will make life easier for investors and site selectors who are looking to gather information and not guessing where links are on the website.  Be bold and put them upfront where they can not be overlooked.

2. Find Yourself - Put yourself in the shoes of site selectors and conduct a search on the popular social media networks using the keywords that they would used.  Have you found your agency’s page, profile, channel and / or account?  If not, you have some extra work to do to get on the first page of results.  (Please read, “Finding Keyword Intelligence For Investment Attraction Promotion“)

3. Get People To Read All About It - If you believe that you have done something great with one or all of your Web 2.0 applications, let people know about it.  Issue a press release, mention it in a newsletter or send out a tweet (remember to use hashtags).  Nobody is going to draw attention to your agency except for yourself.

4. Be Active and Engage - To some. being on social networks for investment attraction begins and ends with just posting content in the form of links, videos, tweets, etc.   An important factor to a social media campaign is engaging your target audience.  This can be done by simply replying to comments made on a Facebook Page Wall or participating in a LinkedIn Group. This kind of interaction will help you enhance your credibility as a knowledgeable economic development officer representing a region and an agency.

If you have placed a check mark beside the four tips above to indicate that you have completed or are doing the tasks, congratulations.  It is a sign of very good social media marketing management.

If you found yourself nodding in agreement as an indication that these tips should be acted upon, then I wish you good luck.  It is time to improve your visibility to get on the radar of site selectors.

Why Attend Intelegia’s Workshop at Georgia Tech?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on June 23, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith and Economic Development
. 0 Comments

As discussed in Intelegia’s Business Intelligence Course At Georgia Tech University,  I mentioned that two of Intelegia’s seminar trainers will be present on July 20th, 2010 at Georgia Tech to cover the topic of business intelligence research for economic development initiatives.  At the end of the post, a list of who should attend was provided.  Now, here are five excellent reasons why you should attend.

1. To discover other internet search tools that will help you become an efficient online researchers. Did you know that using the Google Advanced Search option will increase your chances of finding more information about a company and/or sector?  If you have not seen the image shown in Figure 1 before, you really need to think about attending the workshop. :)

Figure 1: Google Advanced Search Interface

2. To begin using Web 2.0 as a source of competitive intelligence.  User generated content is great to spot valuable information for key decisions.  Why not expand your internet searching skill set with tools which will allow you to gather real-time information?

3. To eliminate the routine of conducting the same queries for important key intelligence topics, learn how to set up content alerts efficiently. This is the ultimate time saving component for any business intelligence research function.

4. To analyze collected information to make insightful decisions.  Collecting information is nice however; what does it really mean for your organization?  Learn about frameworks that will permit you to get more out of raw data.

5. To quench your thirst. After the workshop, you can pay a visit to Coca-Cola museum and have a few Cokes.

Convinced yet?  For more information on “How to Conduct Business Intelligence Research to Gain a Competitive Advantage” contact Hortense Jackson

Social Media Monitoring With FPinfomart Heartbeat

Published
by
Ian Smith
on June 21, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

As content increases on Web 2.0, the need to implement a social media monitoring system is essential for competitive intelligence functions within large and small companies.  As seen in the posts, “Simple Monitoring Of Social Networks With Google Reader” and “Social Media Monitoring With Radian6“, there are applications available to cull strategic details about competitors and their products or services.  Recently, I had an opportunity to take FPinfomart Heartbeat for a test drive.  FPinfomart is a Canadian media monitoring and corporate information service providers.

FPinfomart Heartbeat is an application that allows user to participate directly in social conversations and monitor the conversations through one interface.  Once an user logs in, a dashboard is provided to access to information regarding the keyword(s) that are being tracked across multiple social networks, including forums.  Figure 1 presents the dashboard for the keyword, “Tylenol“, where the latest information on the amount of mentions per social network is posted.

Figure 1: Heartbeat Dashboard For Mentions of “Tylenol”

Individuals interested in the amount of mentions for alternatives brands of Tylenol, Heartbeat supplies statistics as seen in Figure 2.


Figure 2:  Share of Mentions of Alternatives to “Tylenol”

To begin investigating the content gathered by the tool, users can click upon one of the icons representing the Web 2.0 applications.   Figure 3 illustrates the results or “Your Heartbeats” from blog posts that mentions, “Tylenol” and filtered by the tag, “side-effects”.

Figure 3: Filtered Heartbeats by “side-effects” Tag for Tylenol, Motrin and Advil

Heartbeat provides a wide array of metrics to measure mentions on social networks.  Figure 4 presents the “Geography” measurement for “Tylenol”.

Figure 4: Measuring Heartbeats by Geography

Heartbeat also offers a powerful comparison tool for social mentions.  As users click on the “Compare” tab on the dashboard, there are six criteria in which they can generate charts from.  Figure 5 is a look at the gender comparison charts for the Tylenol, Motrin and Advil.

Figure 5: Gender Comparison of Mentions For Tylenol, Motrin and Advil

For individuals who are seeking to improve their Web 2.0 monitoring capabilities, be sure inquire about FPInfomart Heartbeat.

APDEQ 2.0 - Economic Development Meets Web 2.0

Published
by
Ian Smith
on April 14, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

For those who will be in the Montreal area on May 5, 2010,  Intelegia invites you to the (Association des professionnels en développement économique du Québec (APDEQ)’s event, Le Web 2.0 C’est Vous. Maintenant!.

APDEQ’s objectives of this event are:

  • To provide an understanding of Web 2.0 and different social media tools
  • To put the use of Web 2.0 into context for economic development
  • To establish a strategy in order to help create a web identity for participants
  • To demonstrate the importance of following the principles of Web 2.0 to put a region on the radar for existing and potential stakeholders
  • To allow participants to question speakers regarding their visions on the new economic development paradigm

The event will be kicked off by Benoit Meunier, a web strategist and  Sébastien Daoust of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, who will be dealing with the topic of “Web 2.0 and Social Media: How?, For Who?, Why?”

My colleague, Isabelle Poirier, will be on hand at the event to present best practices in terms of the use of social media applications for economic development and to discuss  E&B DATA’s, benchmark study, “Web 2.0 And Business Attraction - Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index“.  In addition, she will participate in a panel discussion regarding practical uses of social media marketing tools and real case examples.

The event will be in French.

For more information on the event, please visit www.apdeq.qc.ca/

Thank You Readers Of Tools For Thought

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 19, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Development and Social Media Marketing
. 2 Comments

Last week, Intelegia published its 300th post.  From the first post, “Users of Wikipedia - Now Read This!!!” to “Competitive Intelligence Research With Google Squared? “, the objective of Tools For Thought was to provide readers with an outlet to learn about tools and practices for competitive intelligence research, social media marketing and economic development initiatives.

We are honored that we have such loyal readers from around the world.  In January 2010 to February 2010, readers came from over 75 countries, specifically, from approximately 800 cities as illustrated in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Locations of Tools For Thought Readers (January 2010 - February 2010)

From search tools to the use of Web 2.0 applications for economic development purposes, Intelegia looks forward to every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in providing its readers with the relevant resources to be efficient users on the web as a research or communication tool.

Some of the popular posts so far in 2010 include:

We welcome your feedback on each post that is placed online.  Feedback will be used as discussion points in future posts.  If you feel that we are not dealing with an important aspect of competitive intelligence research or economic development, please let us know.

Once again, thank you for dropping by Tools For Thought and your continued support.

Best Regards,

Isabelle Poirier and Ian Smith

Gathering Twitter Intelligence With TipTop

Published
by
Ian Smith
on February 22, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith and Web 2.0 Search
. 1 Comment

Searching social networks has afforded online researchers to get a pulse of what individuals are doing and thinking.   An application such as Twitter allow individuals to share their thoughts / opinions, (good or bad) with followers and users of the web for research purposes.

One challenge that presents itself when using Twitter Search is the tool’s inability to sort the “good tweets” from the “bad tweets” when it comes to a product. service or a region for economic development purposes.

The search tool, TipTop, attempts to solve this problem.

TipTop takes results for a keyword search on Twitter and displays them into the following three categories:

  • Tip tweets (Highlighted in green) - “good tweets”
  • piT tweets (Highlighted in red) - “bad tweets”
  • Other tweets (Highlighted in blue) - “neutral tweets”

Figure 1 presents the results for a Twitter search for “Google Buzz”.

Figure 1: Results Sorted by TipTop For Keyword Search, “Google Buzz”

On the right hand side of the results, TipTop supplies a sentiment trend chart (More Tips) comparing the three types of results.  The chart can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Sentiment Trends Chart

Although not perfect, TipTop may save individuals time when going through the countless amount of tweets that are sent on a daily basis.

TipTop is available at www.feeltiptop.com

Engaging Fans On Your Facebook Page For Economic Development

Published
by
Ian Smith
on February 17, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 2 Comments

You have finally dipped your big toe in the large body of water called, “Web 2.0″ for economic development, what do you do now in terms of engaging with individuals who are “following” you or fans?  According to Sysomos, only 77% of Facebook Fan Pages have under 1,000 fans.

If you have selected to utilize a Facebook Fan Page as a part of your economic development 2.0 strategy, here are a few tips to follow to increase the activity on the the page’s wall and discussion board.

1 - Build Your Audience

This tip may seem elementary however; building an audience is often taken for granted.  Economic development agencies begin their adventures on Web 2.0 by just creating a fan page and expect to be found in the sea of results for the query, “economic development” and prompting users to become fans.  Practical approaches to build an audience include:

  • Word of mouth promotion when meeting with stakeholders
  • Posting a link on the agency’s website where it can be highly visible
  • Placing a link in the signature of staff members’ email
  • Putting a brief note about the page in any online or offline publications

It is important to note that you should attempt to convince individuals to become “A Fan” for reason.  Individuals will decide to join based on a specific need such as keeping informed on the economic development initiatives in your region.

2 - Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience (fans) is vital.  This type of intelligence will influence the type of content that will be posted on the Facebook Fan Page.  By taking a look at who has become fans, you should be able to know  what percentage of the audience are:

  • Citizens of the region
  • Economic development professionals (elsewhere)
  • Site selectors / potential investors
  • Generic fan followers (Individuals that do not fit into the first three categories.)

A quick look at the fan’s profile could provide you with enough information to place the individual into one of the four groups listed above.

3 - Post Relevant and Timely Content

After assessing your fan base, you should be able to tailor your post for your wall or discussion board.  In the situation where your audience is comprised of economic development professionals, you may want to consider posting a link to an article regarding a particular issue dealing with a incentive program.  Making the program the subject of discussion will encourage professionals to share expertise on the topic.

Figure 1 seen below is an example of a posting of good economic news in the Chaleur region and a response of one of its Facebook Fans.


Figure 1: Link Posting On Chaleur Region Facebook Fan Page With Fan’s Comment

4 - Comment

At times, it is best to encourage a dialog amongst fans by simply being the first to comment on what you have posted.  You may post a comment summarizing the article for those who do not have the time to read it or just make a remark to spark a debate that will turn into a fruitful exchange of ideas.  Posting questions is a great way to begin to engage fans.

5 - Evaluate What You Have Done

The practice of engaging fans on Facebook is not completed as you click on the “POST” button.  It requires reviewing and evaluating what has been done and could be done to enhance the page for the fans.  Some elements of the page may include:

  • Adding applications to facilitate fan interaction
  • Including tabs for easier navigation on the page
  • Provide a news feed with relevant articles that could be the basis of a discussion

The post provided a brief list of suggestions of how to engage your audience on your Facebook Fan Page for economic development.  For more tips, read:

Are you thinking about building your economic development 2.0 strategy? Attend Intelegia’s seminar, “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications” to learn about the key elements for a successful strategy.

Monitoring Social Networks For Economic Development

Published
by
Ian Smith
on January 11, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Development and Web 2.0 Search
. 4 Comments

As of January 8th, 2010, results for the keyword search, “economic development” on Facebook yielded 396 hits for fan pages. These pages are not only built for promotional purposes but to share information with the city’s or region’s stakeholders.   As a result, the pages become as a public source of information in which competitive intelligence data can be gathered for economic development purposes.

Search Results For “Economic Development” On Facebook For Fan Pages

With the use of Google, some think that there is no need to monitor content on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.  An argument can be made that tracking information via these platforms may contribute to a region’s economic development strategy by providing strategic intelligence.

How you may ask? Consider the following:

  • Facebook Fan Pages serve as a compliment to websites and hence provides information on a frequent basis.   The pages are easier to update than websites and enables agencies to maintain the resource within a matter clicks.
  • Twitter pages can be used as a tool to push relevant information to interested individuals.  Information such as local or regional news, analysis reports or details on financial assistance programs can be available.

The motivation to “Become a Fan” or “Follow” is simple to understand from competitive intelligence point of view.  Individuals with accounts for both social networks can have a steady stream of information on regions and/or cities that are competing for investment dollars from around the globe.

Strategic intelligence for economic development purposes that can be gleaned on Web 2.0 can be in the form of:

  • Success stories in the region
  • List of key sectors / companies in the region / cities
  • Successful incentive programs
  • Regions’ value propositions

To learn more about monitoring social networks for economic development, attend Intelegia’s seminar, “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications“.

Best of Tools For Thought 2009 - Economic Development 2.0

Published
by
Ian Smith
on December 23, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

In 2009, we examined the use of social networks for economic development initiatives.  Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook, Twtter and YouTube serve as efficient vehicules to market a region without spending a huge amount of money.  The following post highlights the best practices in economic development 2.0 and related fields.

YouTube: Nova Scotia On The Map For Investment Attraction

This post provided an excellent example of how a private sector organization can use a Web 2.0 application to convince potential investors that Nova Scotia, Canada as the best location for foreign direct investment.

To learn more about this initiative and view the video spotlighting the key locational factors, click here.

Web 2.0 For E-Government?

Can Twitter be used in an e-government context?  Why not. Both Tools For Thought and Des Outils et Des Hommes identified San Francisco and New York as the cities that are utilizing Twitter to compliment a government service such as an 311 information telephone hotline.

Click here to read more about this simple use of Twitter.

What Is Available On YouTube For Site Selectors?

YouTube has quickly become a search engine for information.  Rather than using Google, some individuals are turning to the Web 2.0 site.  Intelegia conducted a search on YouTube to see what relevant videos are available for site selectors in terms of promotional content for investment attraction.

Click here to read the results of the exercise.

Are you seeking to create or improve your economic development 2.0 strategy for investment attraction?  Register for Intelegia’s seminar, Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications

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.