Archive for September, 2009
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
A recent survey of economic development professionals conducted by DCI and the IEDC indicates that LinkedIn is seen as the most valuable social media tool in communicating with individuals outside their Region. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of July 2009, it had more than 43 million registered users, spanning 170 industries. Facebook is being used primarily to communicate with individuals inside their Region.
It is interesting to see how the utilization of social media is evolving in economic development. There is a lot yet to learn about how to create a virtual window into a location that lets others get a genuine picture of what it is like to live and work there. But, the possibility to do so offers an exciting potential to connect with capital investment decision makers and key influencers in a way that can provide an important competitive advantage for locations that master social media in their place marketing mix.
Here are a few of my key take-aways from reading the study data:
- Most ED organizations are just getting their feet wet with social media. The report indicated 93% of respondent organizations have used social media for less than 2-years. Once more ED organizations have used social media longer, advice on the best way to leverage the communication channel will be available.
- Social Media use in ED is likely to grow in the next couple years. The majority of ED respondents (51%) indicate social media will become very-to-most important in their place communication efforts. This is great news, because more and more success models will be created that you will be able to reapply locally.
- ED organizations using social media have a person on staff accountable for managing it. Only 2% of respondents had a fully dedicated staff person, 77% assigned accountability to a staff member as one of their responsibilities versus their sole responsibility. I think creating an internal expertise on social media is a key to successfully leveraging it in your place communication mix.
- There is an opportunity for the ED community to get more knowledge on the use of video to communicate a location’s benefits. The study indicated only 18% of respondents use video frequently. However, a study recently conducted by Forbes Magazine entitled “The Rise of the Digital C-Suite: How Executives Locate and Filter Business Information” indicates 58% of C-Suite executives view video content on the web from several times a week to daily. One study reviewer concludes, “When you’re dealing with complex concepts, it’s sometimes better to stop talking and just use a video. It’s very much a picture being worth a thousand words.” Communicating why a location is the ideal choice for capital investment is certainly a complex challenge, so video may in fact play a very important role in how the ED community leverages social media in the future. Time will tell.
If you would like to view a summary of the study results, it is available for download from the DCI website. If you are attending the IEDC Annual meeting this year in Reno, Nevada, you may want to spend seek out some of the DCI staff in attendance and chat with them about the study and their observations on how social media is being used effectively in economic development. Another person you might want to catch up with is Mark James of ED Solutions. Mark has a plethora of social media knowledge that he can share. I routinely follow Mark on Twitter and find his insights extremely valuable. Of course, feel free to reach out to me if you like. I’ll be at the IEDC meeting and would be more than happy to share my perspective with you.
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Everybody is trying to figure out how to leverage social media to help supplement their traditional economic development efforts. Any why not? I just read a great Forbes Insights publication entitled “The Rise of the Digital C-Suite” that suggests electronic media is quickly becoming a key communication channel to reach capital investment decision makers. Here are a few of the interesting data presented in the publication that made me pause.
- A generational shift is occurring in the C-suite. “Generation PC” is beginning to assume leadership positions in corporate America.
- The internet is the C-suite’s top information resource.
- Members of the C-suite search for information themselves versus delegating research to others in their organization.
- Video and online networks are emerging as C-suite tools.
- C-suite executives in the Forbes survey indicated they find the internet more valuable than any other information resource (more important even than either personal networks and outside consultants).
- Search is the #1 activity of C-suite executives when they are online. The prompt to search is often from traditional media suggesting an interesting synergy opportunity for economic development professionals to consider when making communication mix decisions.
Twitter seems to be a tool that is best targeted to younger C-suite executives. In the Forbes survey, more than half of the executives under 40 said they use Twitter.
If this audience is a key prime prospect target group for your economic development promotion efforts, I think you will appreciate the following link to a great slide presentation on how to get the best communication value from Twitter. I found it entertaining and educational. I hope you do as well. A member of our Strengthening Brand America community shared it with me and I am now paying it forward with you.
http://www.slideshare.net/kelvinnewman/32-tweeted-twitter-tips
Let me know what you think about the slide presentation and please share a tip or two from your experience in using Twitter for economic development by leaving a comment.
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
USA Today recently ran (August 26, 2009) a story titled “States Knock Heads to Lure Businesses”. The story showcased a new attack campaign designed to encourage business relocation. This approach to place marketing raises several important questions.
- Does negative promotion work?
- What might the unintended long-term risks be?
- Is it a direction that should be encouraged for economic development?
Here are my thoughts and an overview of what I learned.
Does negative promotion work?
The literature is unfortunately unclear on the subject of negative campaigning. There are a number of references that demonstrate it has been an effective approach for political campaigning. However, I also found a paper that suggested the approach works in politics when there are only two viable candidate choices. The theory is voters will seek to select the lesser of two evils when a campaign goes negative. In addition, it has been reported that negative campaigning may reduce voter turn out suggesting by its nature the approach can be alienating. I could find very little on the impact of attack advertising in the product world (probably because the scholarly focus has been so overwhelmingly on the political application). But, there is information on comparative advertising and we all can cite high profile campaigns like Mac versus PC and the Pepsi Challenge as examples.
What might the unintended long-term risks be?
It appears that when there are more than two viable choices, negative campaigning can backfire. Consumers may select a third alternative option rejecting both the attacked and the attacker. This can have a destructive effect on the image of both locations that should be considered as an offset to any near-term business attraction gains. In the case of state versus state attacks, I believe an unintended risk is that it can also have a destructive effect on Brand America’s image among global capital investors. My personal point-of-view is strong state brands make a strong Brand America. I am concerned that when one state seeks advantage by denigrating the image of another, it may ultimately weaken the image of our country.
Is it a direction that should be encouraged for economic development?
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with comparative promotion that meets FTC guidelines of being fact based and truthful. But, I do not believe attack campaigns that are designed to gain competitive advantage by destroying the image of another location is an approach I think is in the best interest of the economic development profession or Brand America.
In the spirit of understanding what others in economic development and within the CEO office think, I did a little qualitative research using LinkedIn. You can download the verbatims. This is not a well-controlled market research study and should not be considered as such. The general sentiment ranges from “off putting” to “whatever works in tough times”.
The question of what position the economic development community should take on the practice of negative campaigning is a great one for more formal research and spirited debate. It is also a subject I believe the economic development community could (and probably should) consider taking a formal position on, perhaps as a future amendment to the current IEDC Code of Ethics.
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
In my last post, I reported that Brand America’s equity declined based upon the Country Brand Index 2008 Report results. I raised the question – How long will America hold the top spot?
A newly published report by Financial Times suggests Brand America has already fallen from the top spot globally. No longer is Brand America the most competitive in the world. Brand America is in second place according to World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2009-2010.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/459bc644-9c56-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0.html
Effective reapplication of product and corporate branding principles to effectively position Brand America for an increased share of global foreign direct capital investment is part of the solution. This involves improving the value proposition of Brand America so it is more competitive versus other location options. Doing this sooner rather than later is mission critical to long-term success.
Perhaps tumbling from first place will serve as a catalyst to address Strengthening Brand America more aggressively and to place an even higher priority within the entire U.S. economic development community to become more competitive for foreign direct investment inflow.
In your opinion, can Brand America regain the #1 position for global competitiveness?
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