Presentation presented by Sandy Ratliff at the Business Retention and Expansion 2011 Conference (BREI) held in Williamsburg, VA.

1. Social Media
for BR&E
Sandy Ratliff
Business Services
Manager
May 11, 2011
Williamsburg, VA

2. What is social media?
Why social media?
How to implement?
Who is doing it right in Economic
Development?

3. Something to think about…….

4. You know………
• that the success of your economic development organization means
attracting new businesses and supporting existing business
• attracting new business is going where they are
• it‟s no secret these businesses are online
– Over 90% of selection begins (or ends) on the web
– How do you know these businesses are finding your website?
• your boards/committee members/stakeholders want to know that their
investments in your online marketing strategies are making
connections/getting a solid return

5. Economic
Development – is a
competitive business.
15,000 Economic Development
Agencies in US.
8,300 in Europe
330 in Canada
Estimated 70,000 on the planet!
In 2009: ($1 m+ investment)
2,096 New projects
2,098 Expansions

6. How can you compete for attention...

12. Staying Top Of Mind
• Social Media can help you or your brand/community stay „top of
mind‟ with your prospects and stakeholders
• Is time spent on social networking a cost or an investment?
• It depends on the results
© Peter Lisney and Irun Business Intelligence 2009

13. Time to Re-think Your Marketing Strategy!
Old/Outbound Marketing New/Inbound Marketing
• TV Radio Ads • Social Media
• Print Ads • SEO
• Direct Mail • Blogging
• Telemarketing • Online Videos
An Interruption An Interaction

16. More than Three Quarters (78%)
of the online population are frequent social media users
164 million: Total U.S. Adult Population
128 million: Total U.S. Social Media Users
INC 500 Survey – 2010
71% of the fast-growing companies on the Inc. 500 list said they have
Facebook
59% use Twitter
50% maintain a corporate blog
Fortune 500 Survey
56% use Facebook in 2010
23% maintain a corporate blog
60% used Twitter

17. Benefits of Social Media
Law of Attraction (pull marketing)
Allows you to establish yourself as an expert
Organically increases SEO
Only investment is your time*
*some restrictions may apply

19. Stand out from the Crowd
• Think about how
you can get through
the noise and carve
your own niche.

21. Social Media
Why anyone that needs to
communicate…either with
citizens, stake holders or
prospects should care………

22. 2 Main Objectives

23. Spread
ideas………

25. Social Media Revolution

26. Social Media???
WHAT do I
say?
WHAT is all
HOW do I
this social track it?
media stuff?
How to
WHO is
doing it
make it WHY should
I participate?
right?
work for
me?
WHERE can I WHEN will I
find have time to
inspiration? manage it?
WHO’s
listening to
me anyway?

27. 5 Ways Cities Are Using Social Media to
Reverse Economic Downturn
1. Strengthening or Rebranding a Region’s Image
2. Showcasing Story Ideas for the Media
3. Attracting Former Residents Back to an Area
4. Linking Job Seekers to Jobs
5. Promoting Local and Regional Businesses and Assets
http://mashable.com/2010/12/16/cities-social-media-recession/

29. Why Social Media for your organization?
You can buy attention (with advertising); You can beg for attention
from the media (with PR); You can bug people one at a time to get
attention (with direct sales).
Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and
valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video,
photo‟s, a Twitter stream, a Facebook page, a presentation on
SlideShare.

31. Time magazine named Mark Zuckerberg
Person of the Year!

32. What do we know about
• It‟s not just about young people anymore!
– 663 million active users (23.32% US Users)
– Almost 40% of Facebook users in the US are over 34 years of age (59
million people)
• Facebook is visited more than any other website in the U.S. (even Google)
• One-in-six online ads shown to US internet users are displayed by Facebook
• 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook every day. (That‟s 3.65 million new
websites per year)
• The average Facebook user uses the Like button nine times a month
• Monthly time spent on Facebook is 8.3 billion hours
• 50% of active users login for at least 1 hour per day
• 25 billion pieces of content shared monthly

33. Key features of
• Your profile
• Your friends
• Status updates
• Inbox
• Advertising
• Mobile Access

34. Challenges facing organizations on
1. Best practices dictate that your
“organization” maintain a “page”
rather than a “profile”
2. “Pages” can‟t interact on user
profiles, only “profiles” can
3. You can‟t have a “page” unless
you have a “profile”
4. Strong emphasis on paid
promotion to gain following
5. Have multiple administrators to
populate/status updates
6. Don‟t set-up and forget it!

35. Advantages for organizations using
• Very easy connections
between web pages and your
Facebook page
• There are many tools
available to promote your
page without paying for
advertising
• Fair analytics panel with
excellent demographic
breakdowns
• Content areas to promote
different media types

36. Working with Facebook
 Networking
 Reaching out to businesses throughout Virginia and the
world.
 Meeting and connecting with like businesses.
 Marketing
 Getting the word out about products & services.
 Reaching new audiences.
 Additional means of Communications
 Decreasing the distance

38. Some quick facts about
• 200 million registered users –
110 messages per day
• Over half of active users
follow brands/organizations
• 60% of Fortune 500
companies use it
• 300,000 users/day sign up for
new accounts
• Largest user group is 35-49
years old comprising 42% of
site audience
• It‟s search engine processes
60 million queries/day

39. What I know about
• Users are different than on
Facebook
– Over half of Twitter users update
their status daily, one in eight
Facebook users update theirs
daily
– Significantly more engaged with
brands they follow
• 55 million tweets per day
• 58% of users income $60K -
$100K+
• U.S. has 33.3% of site traffic

40. Challenges facing organizations on
1. Identifying your key followers
can be difficult
2. “Twitter culture” takes some
effort to learn
3. There is no clear path to
pursue engagement… it takes
practice
4. Over-emphasis on follow
counts as “proof” of authority
5. Spam can be annoying

41. Advantages for organizations on
1. Very simple interface
2. Lots of independent
applications have been
developed to improve usability
3. Active user community
4. Brand loyalty among engaged
users
5. Easily communicate with
stakeholders/community and
target market
6. Twitter can be very much an
‟of the moment‟ information
network/breaking news

42. Proactive customer service
Searching for Stuff: Personal
News. A job. New
Promote projects Branding
clients. Garden tips.
Recipes. Ideas
and updates
Drive awareness Discovery:
Updating lots of of something of trends,
people – all at once interest to a larger sites,
A point audience breaking
of Spread news
an Idea A personal release –
contact ideas you just need to
get out of your head – an
Promote an event on-the-go notebook

44. About & Benefits
1. YouTube is a video network focused on “broadcasting yourself”
2. Video on YouTube can be viewed on their site, as well as embedded
in websites, blogs and other locations throughout the web
3. Video is proven to increase audience engagement… a picture is
worth…..
4. Nearly all of us have video of some kind, and a 1/3 of us already
have video on our websites
5. Video has gotten easier to produce… get a FLIP or similar camera
6. Users will grow to expect video: In the past month, 25 percent of
Americans watched a short video….on their phone

45. 225 million streams/day
24 hours of video uploaded
every minute!
It would take 412.3
years to watch every
YouTube video
2 Billion YouTube videos viewed per day

46. Why for Economic Development
1. Video can take your audience from the
city they are in to your community in
seconds
2. The size of the audience is substantial
3. The cost of posting a video on YouTube =
$0, and the cost of production is a fraction
of what it once was
4. Creative and informational subject matter
can generate lots of exposure for your
community at a very low cost
5. Compared to links inside promotional
materials, videos can be clicked on up to
five times more frequently

48. Examples ……..

50. Some quick facts about
• Membership almost doubled last
year
• Page views more than doubled last
year
• Over 50% of users are outside of
U.S.
• An executive from every company
on Fortune 500 represented
• Top four industries represented
– High tech, finance, manufacturing
& medical institutions

51. Key features of
• Your profile
• Your contacts
• Your connections
• Introductions
• Status updates
• Groups
• Applications
• Mobile access
• Recruitment
• Follow companies

52. Challenges facing organizations on
1. Less adoption compared with other channels
2. Many options for interaction creates confusion
3. Some features require a paid membership
4. Less than optimal analytics

53. Advantages for using
1. Tightly focused, engaged audience
2. Greater share of members
promote content
3. Connect with experts - Lots of
options for engagement
 Groups!!!!!
4. Much less spam, less privacy
concerns
5. Opportunities to have work
recommended and explore
connections

54. Let’s talk tactics for social media

55. Social Media for business recruitment
• Who is the audience, and what are they looking for?
– Site selection professionals
– Corporate real estate execs
– CEO‟s
– Media
– Growth industry sectors
– Other

56. Social Media tactics for recruitment
1. Build a social media network of past deals, site
selection and local brokers, and prospects.
2. Build industry-specific networks of prospects and
past deals according to your industry sector targets.
3. Seed those relationships with regular updates to:
1. Linkedin posts (profile and groups)
2. Add recruitment and information presentations to
Slide Share
3. Post YouTube video‟s promoting your existing
industry, community/quality of life, sites/buildings and
events.
4. Be engaged!

57. Social Media tactics for retention and
investment relations
• Turn that stack of business cards into
connections on Linkedin
• Add a Twitter feed and consider industry-
specific Twitter feeds, as well as organizational
updates, that can augment monthly and
quarterly email
• Focus on posting new, relevant content along
with a link to a story or download, i.e.
newsletter, promotional material, video
• Select organization/county/city representatives
to post 2-4 times daily
• Be engaging to followers and those you follow.
(Remember its relationships!)

58. Become an online community resource
• Share content & information on your
social media channels that provide an
answer to the questions citizens want to
know
• Share relevant content. Listen to what
your local community is talking about via
social media
• Provide statistics, demographics, and fun
facts via status updates
• Share information about new business
(large or small), existing industry
expansions, and community development
• Become the one-stop information
resource

59. Six things you should be doing with
Social Media for recruitment & retention
1. Use a variety of tools to recruit Site Selectors and
prospects
2. Develop a dialogue with your workforce,
community and stakeholders using Facebook
3. Use Twitter to engage your investors and
community stakeholders, and to share information
about your community
4. Integrate Social Media and sharing into your
websites
5. Develop a dedicated approach using Linkedin for
prospecting
6. Share your video content on YouTube

60. TOOLS TO MANAGE ACCOUNTS

61. TweetDeck

62. Manage Accounts: Twitter, Facebook (Personal & Business) & Linkedin

63. Stat Summary of Tweets

64. GET PREPARED…DO
YOUR HOMEWORK AND
DECIDE YOUR FOCUS

66. IT’S NOT HARD, IT JUST TAKES PRACTICE

67. “If you always do what you’ve
always done, You will always
get what you’ve always got!”

68. The Social Media Train is Leaving the
Station WITH or WITHOUT YOU!

69. Sandy Ratliff
Business Services Manager
Virginia Department of Business Assistance
Phone: 276-676-3768
Email: sandy.ratliff@vdba.virginia.gov
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sandyratliff
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sandy.ratliff
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyratliff
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/vastartup