Sir Thomas was born February 7, 1478 and was King Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor and forced to make a difficult decision - acknowledge something he knew in his heart to be false and stand up for his convictions or remain silent. Economic developers often find themselves in similarly difficult situations. Sir Thomas has always been a consolation for me because he was willing to give up everything he had to do what he felt was right. His courage in the face of death is impressive. He serves as a stark reminder that there is a cost to be right.
Here's the rundown of what we were reading about this week!
Economic Development News
The CFO's Role in the Site Selection Process - Must read article for any economic development professional. This piece goes into the increasing role that CFOs are playing in site-selection decisions. Area development goes in-depth to give you a good perspective on the changing business practies.
States Put Economic Development in Hands of Private Sector - This article has been making the rounds and it's worth reading if you haven't seen it yet. Fox News provides some coverage of the recent trend at the state level to propose privatizing economic development services.
Social Media a go-go!
Social Networks Useful to Economic Development Corporations - The Schenectady Daily Gazette writes about New York's Center for Economic Growth's & Saratoga EDC's effective use of social media, especially LinkedIn.
Does Social Media at Work Help Productivity? - A big question facing any economic development organization is whether the time put in to connecting with social media will actually produce results. This infographic shows that allowing access to social media at work has actually improved productivity.
Just How Influential Is Your Social Media Program? - A good article from Ad Age that focuses the attention on the value proposition associated with social media marketing. If you're getting tons of fans, followers, or even visitors to your website and you're not seeing an increase in investment or even leads, then something is wrong about your messaging or tactics.
12 Ways to Get People to Like Your Facebook Page - The title speaks for itself. These may not all work for economic development organizations but these are tried-and-true methods to increase the number of users likeing you on Facebook. Keep in mind these may not be the most engaged users, they're coming for a particular benefit. But if you just want to enhance your visibility on Facebook you may want to try some of these.
Applied Social Media Markeing for Economic Development Organizations - If you missed our webinar or just want to go through our slides again, please check out this link. We'll be doing our next webinar on February 24th on using your website to generate leads for your economic development organization.
Other news of interest
5 Ways to Better Manage Your Online Presence - 140 Applied has some great tips to keep the social media presence for your economic development organization (and yourself) organized and effective! These are important elements of Cirrus ABS NetCentered Marketing.
Deep Plane Thoughts: The APPocolypse - Some sober thoghts about mobile app development. If your economic development organization is considering developing a mobile application, carfully consider why you're developing the application and to what end it will serve. If you're recreating a minature version of your website, make sure that there is a market for that use before you devote resources the project.
How Foursquare Grew 3400% in 2010 - A snapshot of FourSquare at the end of 2010. A great info-graphic demonstrating the enormous growth in adoption of this application.