9. HRSR 01-07-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Crty IElk REQUEST FOR ACTION River TO ITEM NUMBER Housing&Redevelopment Authority 9. AGENDA SECTION MEETING DATE PREPARED BY January 7, 2013 Clay Wilfahrt,Assistant Director of Economic Development ITEM DESCRIPTION REVIEWED By Social Media Update Annie Deckert,Director of Economic Development REVIEWED BY Cal Portner, City Administrator ACTION REQUESTED None BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION According to a recent Nielsen report,Americans spent 121 billion minutes on social media in July 2012, a year-over-year growth of 37%. With the proliferation of smart phones and tablets, a social media presence is increasingly important. Economic Development staff continues to aggressively utilize social media as a business retention and recruitment tool, as well as a platform to market the community brand, finance programs,housing initiatives,resources, the Northstar Commuter Rail, events and more. A number of businesses follow our page to view videos promoting free business resources such as the Small Business Development Center,branding initiatives, foreclosure prevention, etc. Businesses also gain knowledge of available properties,incentives, new businesses, and seminars. Residents get information about events such as the downtown tree lighting and Halloween, free Northstar rides, and construction projects. The three major social media outlets used by the Economic Development Division are Facebook, Twitter, and www.poweredbynature.blog.com. All three of these strategies are utilized at no cost to the city other than staff time. The three media are connected so that an update on one automatically populates another media with content. For instance,when the blog is updated,it automatically sends the information to Twitter where it is posted as a tweet with a link back to the blog. This system maximizes efficiency and outreach. Further, staff regularly views stats for each media to establish benchmarks and set goals, and identify trends in topics. Doing this helps us better understand what information businesses and residents seek. For instance, some of our most popular posts are those recognizing the accomplishments of others such as Pompeii Pizza recently being featured in Midwest Living magazine. Using this information,we can design content for all of our marketing accordingly. For example,if we know that residents and businesses like reading about the success of others,we can include case studies and quotes from local business owners in marketing material for our microloan program. P U L R E ® / I N:\Departmentss\Community Development\Economic Development\HRA to move\Agenda\Year2013\1-7-2013\HRA 'NATURE Social Media Update.docx