Economic Development and Social Media: A Strategic Approach for Success

Abstract

The use of social media for personal, professional and business purposes is rising quickly, as are the number of tools available. Economic development agencies have an excellent opportunity to use social media to effectively deliver their programs and services. Social media tools provide timely, engaging, interactive, targeted and low-cost ways to market a community, gain intelligence, and communicate and build relationships with stakeholders. To make effective use of social media, economic developers must understand the underlying purpose of social media and develop strategies to implement it effectively. Using research and recommendations from social media experts in a variety of disciplines, this paper examines how social media has changed marketing and communications, the purpose of social media, possible applications of social media in economic development, and how to develop an effective social media strategy. By taking a strategic approach to social media, economic developers can use it to achieve their goals.

Keywords: social media, economic development, social media strategy, tools and techniques, investment attraction marketing