ED Solutions social media-03-11-final2

Social Media for the Practical Economic Development Professional
Mark J James, CEcD
ED Solutions, Inc.
mark.james@solutionsED.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/edsolutions
http://twitter.com/EcoDev

2011 © ED Solutions, Inc.
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Dean- dean@whittakerassociates.com
Eric- ecanada@blanecanada.com

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Professional Learning Lab Affiliates

1. Viewer Window
2. Control Panel
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About ED Solutions, Inc.
ED Solutions, Inc. mission is to help economic development organizations with the effective use of technology.
We provide-
Web site review and analysis
Web redesign strategies and advisory services
Contact management solutions
A variety of other technology solutions for the profession
Training services to the economic development profession.
Web Metrics and data subscriptions through affiliated firm- www.developmentresults.com.
ED Solutions, Inc. is among the most respected firms providing web site strategies to the economic development profession. ED Solutions, Inc. has worked on over 200 web projects in 30 US states, Canada and the UK.

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5 Ways Social Media has changed economic development
Even less control about what’s being said about our place. The “democratization of information”
Exponentially enhanced our marketing reach.
Able to create communities within and between our communities
We can now crowd source ideas/initiatives
Social CRM and Social SEO
Audiences

Atlas Primary Research, October 2009
Estate Inc., New Mexico
Mike Barnes Group, Inc., Texas
Colliers Location Agency & Incentives Practice, Indiana
McCallum Sweeney Consulting, South Carolina
Koll Development Company, Texas
CB Richard Ellis, Washington
Studley Inc., Pennsylvania
Greenfield Development Company, North Carolina
CB Richard Ellis, Arizona
The RSH Group, California
Moran, Stahl & Boyer LLC, Florida
Sherwin-Williams Co., Georgia
Trione & Gordon/ONCOR Intl., Texas
Colliers International, Toronto CANADA
Little & Associates Architects, North Carolina
Palm Inc – Sunnyvale, California
Visa – San Francisco, California
Foote Consulting Group – Glendale, Arizona
Source: Atlas Advertising

What social networks or tools, if any, do you use?
71 % use LinkedIn, and just over 50% use facebook.

How frequently do you use each?
72 % use some form of Social Media at least weekly.

What is the applicability of Twitter to your profession?
63.6% say Twitter has no/very little applicability to the site selection profession.

What is the applicability of LinkedIn to your profession?
52.6% say LinkedIn has good application to the site selection profession.

What is the applicability of LinkedIn to your profession?
“I have used it along with Hoovers to check who is LinkedIn and contact people for business meetings.”
“I think it has good application. I have gotten proposals through this tool.”
“Pretty low rated.”
“It’s okay.”
“I already have the contacts I need in my email – how is this different?”
“Not much”
“Good for seeking independent information.”
“Good for finding contacts, and to keep in touch with peers.”
“More of a business site”
Useful networking tool
Don’t know yet.

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What does all this say to the practical economic development professional?
Just
say
no

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Depending on organization,
a reasonable inclusion
of SOME
social media applications

The Practical ED’r Starts with a Social Media Strategy
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Consider-
Objectives
Identify your audience-key leaders, stakeholders, etc.
What calls to action will you use?
Identify some benchmarks
Keyword/SEO analysis
How Will You Measure Success?
Visits
Followers
Return on conversation?
(Last) Best Tools for You

Some Typical ED Goals
Brand awareness
Program/practitionercredibility
Drive traffic to web
Create community
Connect resources
Lead development

Case Studies- Strategy
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What’s missing from these?

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Social Listening

Social Listening
…community
…existing employers
…State/Province
…prospective employers/ targets
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About your

-Google Alerts
-Hootsuite (or Tweetdeck)
-LinkedIn
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Social Listening
How?

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What’s Your Strategy?

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Social Media Integration

Websites have a crucial new role
Old view:
Destination
New view:
Content Engine
Source: Mark W. Schaefer Slideshare- http://www.slideshare.net/Rialta/social-media-best-practices-for-economic-development

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Indypartnership.com
addthis.com
or
sharethis.com

Check this out…
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2-28-11

Check this out…
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2-28-11

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SEO & SMO
Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

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Deeper Dive
Facebook
LinkedIn
Flickr
Slideshare
YouTube
Twitter

Using Facebook – WHY?
500 million active users
50% of active users log on EVERYDAY
>5 Billion Pieces of Content
>1.5 Local Business Have Pages
It’s International – 70% of FB users are OUTSIDE the US
INFORM-INFLUENCE-ENGAGE
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Nearly one in four page views in US

Using Facebook – Start Smart
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Who’s Your Target Audience?
Prospects
Existing Business
Investors
Find Your Voice
Business
Community
Stakeholder
Post Current Relevant Content
Use Applications to Pull Your SM together
Push traffic to your website
Engage your community
Create “Super Fans”

Best Practice- Hudson River Valley EDC
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Source: intelegia- slideshare

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Best Practice- Richmond Jobs Net

Beginning to see third party apps
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Using FacebookAnalytics and Advertising
Insights – Detailed real-time demographics
Advertising – VERY targeted pay-per-click schedules
Link other Fan Pages - Favorites
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http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/04/23/facebook-overhauls-page-and-app-insights-adds-domain-analytics-features-and-an-api/

Facebook – The Good News
Business and Community Use is Growing Exponentially
You can separate your personal from your professional persona
It matters in SEO
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Using LinkedIn
Favorite SoMe tool of choice by SSC’s/Businesses
Increasing number of toolsets for b2b and b2c
It matters in SEO
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Don’t forget Keywording…

Building profiles
Education and expertise
Clients you have worked with
Full contact information
Link/address to Twitter page
Link to your website
Slideshare “Slidespace”
Membership groups (groups joined)
Upcoming and past events
Upcoming sales trips (as events)
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Building your contact list and your connections
Inventory contacts associated with past deals
Inventory industry specific contacts
As a team, set territories
Import lists into Outlook
Import contacts from Outlook into LinkedIn
Write a personalized invitation – keep it simple.
Send invitations to those you know well en masse
Work your 1st degree connections to gain introductions to others on your list
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More LinkedIn Tips
Build new GROUPS and connect with GROUPS
Participate in DISCUSSIONS
Build a Company Profile for your organization
FOLLOW Companies – Existing and Prospects
Ask for RECOMMENDATIONS and INTRODUCTIONS
Remember – this in NOT your online Roladex. It’s your opportunity to inform, influence and ENGAGE your network. (and their friends)
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www.waynealliance.org

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“Maps, maps, my project for a map!”
Mark M. SweeneySenior PrincipalMcCallum Sweeney Consulting

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Facebook/Flickr-Project 365
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We moderate uploads
As a community builder
As a resource for free pictures – our Terms of Use allows us to use submitted photos in City promotional materials. In return, we give credit to photographer

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Where Does Twitter “Fit In”
Link sharing, not trite sharing
Offer twitter feeds to chamber members
Search twitter to see if existing companies in your community are tweeting
Start conversations on Twitter- e.g., does anyone know which skills their employees need and aren’t found in X.
Celebrate newsworthy events

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OK, so let’s admit this…

A Word About Followers
Its not how many, its who
Look for people to follow who have more followers than they are following
Beware of ‘someone’ with very little followers and lots of people they are following. This = spam
Check this out-
http://twittercounter.com

Create a Custom Background
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How… http://www.ehow.com/how_4613303_twitter-background.html
Step 1
Create a Twitter account. If you haven’t gotten around to signing up for Twitter yet, what are you waiting for? Go to twitter.com and sign up for an account. If you need a little more help, read How to Set Up a New Twitter Account in the resources below.
Step 2
Decide what type of image you want to portray. Part of the difficulty in setting the correct background is deciding what you want your Twitter page design to say about you. Many folks take any image or graphic and upload it to their Twitter account without much thought. Take some time to come up with something that speaks of your style, taste and personality.
Step 3
Consider the screen real estate. The important information to be viewed on Twitter occurs in the center of the page. No matter how many images or sayings you have on your background, the center of the screen belongs to Twitter. Therefore you have to create a background that gives Twitter center stage.
Step 4
Go large. Larger images and/or graphics reduce the necessity for tiling an image. It gives the appearance of one large background specifically made for Twitter. Try starting with an image as large as 1600 x 1200.

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How…
Step 5
Remember that all screen resolutions are not the same. The smaller the screen resolution, the lower the likelihood of your image will have to repeat. In other words, if you elect to use an image that has a flower located to the extreme left of the screen, on a lower resolution screen (800 x 600 for instance), the flower displays once. A screen with a resolution of say 2048 x 1536, the flower will display tiled on the screen several times.
Step 6
Think about using a border. When creating an image, remember that a small portion of the top of the screen is dedicated to the Twitter logo and user navigation. It’s a little easier on the eyes if the design included a boarder over which the Twitter logo and navigation could sit without having to fight against a busy background.
Step 7
Upload your image to Twitter. Once you’ve played around with the image, upload it to Twitter to see how it looks. Log onto your account. Click “Design” found under the “Settings” tab. Once on the design screen click “change background image.” Once you upload your image, check it out to see if you like it. If you don’t you can change it or use one of the Twitter default images until you come up with something you like.

Top 21 Twitter Apps.
Twitpic 1,236,828
Tweetdeck 285,864
Digsby 233,472
Twittercounter 212,200
Twitterfeed 149,812
Twitterholic 147,164
Twhirl 143,333
Twitturly 88,793
Twtpoll 74,154 10
Retweetist 60,051
Tweepler 51,304
Hellotxt 45,754
Twitdom 45,411
Tweetscan 44,463
Tweetburner 41,754
Tweetvisor 31,621
Twittervision 30,708
Twitterfall 29,592
Monitter 25,433
Twibs 17,168
Twistori 16,229
Twitbin 14,986
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/
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Consider a profile on…

www.tinytwitter.com
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Why is 120 the New 140?
Retweets!
RT@ecodev....

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Source:
YouTube

Develop a video strategy
Inventory the assets you have
Categorize them by audience
Identify your communications needs, and plot how video could help you tell your story:
Virtual familiarization tours
Industry specific presentations
Expansion or relocation announcements
Policy announcements
Company or stakeholder profiles
Annual accomplishments
Identify a low cost production partner or invest $2,500 to $5,000 in the tools
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Upload all of your videos to YouTube, and embed
Produce or record videos
Check format, file size, and length. Offer multiple formats (e.g., mov, mpeg, mp4)
Include meta data, keywords, etc. in video titles
Use one video per URL
Enable comments
Autoshare with various social media networks
Embed them in your website
Send to partners to embed in their websites
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Establish a YouTube channel for your community
A place for all of your community’s videos
Can include multiple organizations in your community, such as economic development, tourism, workforce, and more
Develop a profile
Invite others to subscribe
Subscribe to other channels
Solicit comments
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http://www.youtube.com/user/NCDeptofCommerce
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Get your video indexed-http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2010/03/videos-indexed-by-google/
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Put a video on your page : I mean a real video, hosted on your site, not on Youtube or DailyMotion. You need a .flv file (or .mpg, .avi, .mp4) and a video plugin that supports this kind of video formats. Jing is perfect to record onscreen action and make nice video tutorials.
Create a thumbnail of your video : that’s the thumbnail that Google will display on its search results page, so making a good quality thumbnail out of your video is an important step. Personally, I’ve found that 160×120 gif or jpg works well for that purpose….and they actually don’t need to be extracted from your video. Any image pertinent to the content of your video will make the trick.
Create a video sitemap : Video sitemaps are XML files similar to usual sitemaps but using a different syntax. See an example below.
Submit your video sitemap to Google : Video sitemaps can be submitted in Google Webmaster Tools exactly as a standard sitemap. If you had not yet registered your site in Google Webmaster Tool, that’s the perfect occasion to do it now.

Using YouTube to drive traffic- http://www.blastmedia.com/blog/2010/02/7-ways-to-get-website-traffic-from-youtube/
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A
Wonderful
Social Media
Report Card!

Social Media Metrics
Not mature yet- things like;
Return on Conversation
Followers
Impressions
There are a few things which you can and should do
Monitor what’s being said about your community
Measure the numbers
Regularly go back to the strategy

Social Media Metrics
Some interesting metric tools-
Compete.com
Google Alerts
Xinureturns.com
Bit.ly
search.twitter.com
Twittercounter.com

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twittercounter

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Wrap up
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Social media extends the reach and influence of you and your organization.
It allows you to reach and connect with people/companies in much deeper ways than has been possible with traditional ‘marketing’.
By cutting through the confusion on focusing on the right tactics, you can save time.
It can be done for low or no cost (other than the currency of time).

Read These…
http://www.socializedpr.com
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And These…
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http://www.copyblogger.com/grow-business-twitter/
http://123socialmedia.com/business-blog/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3283966/The-Essential-Guide-to-Social-Media#document_metadata
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3483043/Social-Media-A-Simple-Visual-Story

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mark.james@solutionsED.com
Thanks for your attention!

ED Solutions social media-03-11-final2

by Mark James on Mar 02, 2011

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ED Solutions social media-03-11-final2 — Presentation Transcript