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NREDA.org

Social Networking Rocks the Economic Development World
By Pat Merritt, CEcD, Director from Presentation by Glen Gould and Benjamin Turpin

At the Annual NREDA Conference, Glen Gould and Benjamin Turpin from Inspiration Agents, Inc. opened participants' eyes to the growing importance of social networking. They suggested to conference attendees to "keep in mind you have access to people from anywhere in the world and while you may not be using Facebook® and Twitter®, your clients, customers, employees and future employees are."

So, what is Facebook® and Twitter® and why do I need to know about them? In April 2009 Twitter users were growing at a staggering 1,382 percent on an annual basis. Meanwhile, Facebook posted huge numbers of its own in March, growing 23.4 percent month-over-month to more than 91 million US visitors. That represents nearly 200 percent annual growth, and, given its size relative to the much smaller Twitter, is also extremely impressive. (source: http://mashable.com/2009/04/06/twitter-and-facebook-post-huge-growth-numbers-in-march/)

Gould and Turpin also shared that the fastest growing segment of the population using Facebook® is Grandmothers. You might ask why? To view photos of their grandchildren.

So, why is social networking so important?

  1. Because decision–makers are getting younger and younger generations are much more comfortable communicating via social media outlets than in traditional (newspapers, print media, etc.)
  2. If your organization or community has a presence on FacebookŪ you are more likely to rank higher in the search engines of Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, etc.
What is Twitter® and why do we need to "tweet"?
Twitter® is essentially "micro–blogging" as it allows only 140 characters per update. It is important that your "tweets" are relevant to your customers if you are trying to get their attention. Just like leaders, Twitter® accounts must have followers. As the Baby Boomers move on to other careers or retirement, companies are going to need younger employees. These younger employees will want to work for "cool" companies. Tweeting is seen as "cool."

Take Away Advice from Gould and Turpin Session on Social Networking
  • Make sure your content on Facebook®, Twitter® and other social media outlets is relevant!
  • Remember that anything you put on these outlets is your permanent resume
  • Create a "Fan Page" on Facebook® for your organization — it is free and will be picked up by Google faster than your organization's website.
  • By creating "Events" on Facebook® you can have total control of who is invited to your event.
  • Not everyone who has a Facebook® page is a real person.
  • To manage all of your various accounts, they recommend using PING or Tweet Deck which organizes all of your accounts and lets you update them all at once or as you choose.
  • This is just the beginning. Google Wave and the next generations of social media will make Twitter® obsolete.
Click for more information about the presenters or for more about social networking data.