Social Media for Economic Gardening and Entrepreneurship

www.ZoomProspector.com © GIS Planning www.GISPlanning.com

For An Introduction
to Social Media:

http://www.vimeo.com/7638078

Agenda

Understanding
Economic Gardening

The Impact of Social Media


“Success in the New Economy requires that a
whole array of institutions—universities, school
boards, firms, local governments, economic
development agencies—work in new
and
often uncomfortable ways.”
- Kauffman Foundation*

* Grow Local Economies, Inc.


What is
Economic Gardening?


What is Economic Gardening?
“An innovative entrepreneur-centered economic growth
strategy that offers balance to the traditional economic
development practice of business recruitment.”
- U.S. Small Business Administration

 Seeded in Littleton, CO

Co-invented by Chris
Gibbons & Jim Woods

 Business Retention & Expansion vs. Business Attraction

 Helping local high-growth companies thrive


Seeking: Gazelles
Focus on 2nd Stage (Growth) Companies

 $1 - $50 million in annual
revenue

 10 - 100 employees

 Growth intention

 Job creators

Image source: www.freakingnews.com


Economic Gardening Efforts

Nurturing Local Business: The Key Ingredients

 Information
 Business
 GIS
 Training

 Infrastructure
 Quality of Life
 Intellectual

 Connections

Image Source: http://www.progressivegardening.com/ProgressiveGardeningImages/MoneyGrowsA150.jpg


Social Media:
Untapped (Free)
Business Resources


LinkedIn
Create a Company Profile


LinkedIn
Leverage Group Discussions


Facebook

 Engage
Community Members

Promote
Local Business


Facebook
 Santa Cruz Think Local First


Facebook
 Santa Cruz Think Local First: Membership Organizations


Facebook
 A Storefront for Every Business

 free public beta


Facebook
 Facebook Apps for Businesses


Twitter
 Job Search by Location


Twitter
 Local SMBs: Reach Out to End Customers

Of an in-store sales record, 68.60% of total
dollar sales came from customers who said
"I'm calling from Twitter"

They asked themselves a basic question:

“If The North Face was a person who would their
friends be, what would they be interested in, and
how would they communicate it to the community
that they are a part of?"

It wasn't until they stepped away from product
promotion and into representing the core outdoor
values of the company that they finally found their voice.
Source: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/

Twitter
 Turn negative comments into an opportunity

“...Someone tweeted about an awful experience they had
in one of our client communities. I was mortified and
tweeted, „Ouch, tell me more.‟

She was blown away. Ultimately the situation was
resolved and this person wrote a long post about how
blown away she was that I responded.”


Goal: Integrated Marketing Mix
 Flying Dog Brewery
 Aim: delivering “purposeful, provocative irreverence”

Engage in snap polls about
favorite brews on Facebook

Encourage customers to
write haiku about their beer
on Twitter

 Invite everyone down to
the bar for a beer on their
blog

Share pictures with
everyone who couldn’t
make it on Flickr


Directly Integrate Social Media Into Your GIS Website




Free Nationwide GIS
Business Resource


ZoomProspector.com: Community Connection Pages

 Aggregate all social media
properties into a personalized
“calling card” to showcase
your community.

 The Social Network for EDOs

 Automatically updates all your
important content into one place

 Show available jobs, your
tweets, youtube content,
contact info

 A one-stop-shop for your
constituents to get all your
social media updates - for free!

The Future is Now.


 Check in to local business

 Unlock badges

 A glorified loyalty points program

 Gaming mechanism  influencing behavior  $$$


 Gaming elements..

...that lead to real
(competitive) emotions.

 Implicit user
expectations


 First official
partner: Starbucks

 Deals with
Pepsi, Dunkin
Donuts, Bravo,
Warner Brothers
& more

How can your
local businesses
leverage this
user loyalty?


Places (coming soon)

 Mass adoption coming with Facebook Places product

McDonalds first official partner – allow users to checkin to
share location & menu items with Facebook friends

Takeaways


Takeaways

Social media provides access to information, infrastructure, connections

EDOs and businesses are already optimizing social networks to turbo charge growth

Leverage free resources (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, ZoomProspector.com, CCPs)

Location-based marketing is next... Are your businesses ready?


Arti Kuthiala
Q&A Marketing Director
GIS Planning
akuthiala@gisplanning.com
(415) 225-1678
@ZoomProspector.com
@ArtiKuthiala


Social Media for Economic Gardening and Entrepreneurship

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