Social media: a focused, coordinated approach

(Note: reposting from my blog at the World Bank)

After having dabbled in the social media space for some time now, it seems that the World Bank Group has finally jumped in with both feet. No matter where you turn these days, a host of social media initiatives are springing up around the World Bank Group. Internally and externally, words like "Web 2.0", "beta", "pilot", "open source" and "demo" grace the banners of many online knowledge management / collaboration platforms and virtually every unit seems to have a video channel, blog, podcast or "fan" page, underscoring World Bank President Robert Zoellick's recent note to staff to "Make no mistake about it: this is no longer your grandfather’s World Bank. But we need to continue to change."

Here at MIGA — the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency — we've recently made our foray into the social media space as well. MIGA's mission is to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries to help support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people's lives. We do so by providing political risk insurance in the form of investment guarantees against noncommercial risks like war and civil disturbance, breach of contract, expropriation and more. As one of the smaller members of the World Bank Group, social media works to our advantage in many ways.

Leveraging social media tools like YouTube, Flickr and blogs helps us "get the word out" to a larger audience of investors about what we do and how we can facilitate FDI. It levels the playing field between small organizations like MIGA and gives us the same global marketing and communications platforms as other, larger institutions enabling us to reach a truly global audience.

One of the ways we’re using social media at MIGA is to help investors first find us and then help them understand how we can facilitate the investment process into some countries that could really benefit from it. Sierra Leone is one of those countries. Not long ago MIGA's business development team noticed an uptick in applications for projects in Sierra Leone. We decided to augment those efforts through a focused, coordinated use of social media tools to help generate business inquiries. Not long after combining the collective reach of a) blogs, b) Twitter, c) YouTube and d) Google keyword search ads to find and drive investors to e) a customized MIGA.org landing page about political risk coverage in Sierra Leone, we received an inquiry from an investment intermediary (referring to the customized landing page) asking about MIGA can help them with projects in Sierra Leone.

Online marketing techniques like the above have been used in the private sector for well over a decade so the results are not very surprising. What is interesting however is that they still work - even for a complex, niche product like political risk insurance.

Our recent experience underscores a few points we try to keep in mind:

1. Have a focused, coordinated approach: use of all the social media tools at your disposal to produce a specific outcome or behavior. In MIGA's case, the desired outcome was to use social media to inform investors about our products and services and drive them to a relevant page on MIGA.org for more information and/ or make a business inquiry
2. Avoid "bait and switch": if you're using online advertising (keyword search, banners, links etc.) promoting "Private Equity in Africa", for example, make sure the link in those ads go to a specific page on Private Equity, not a generic welcome or your home page.
3. Customized landing pages: related to the point above, the "landing page" you drive users to should have sufficient compelling information to continue to lead potential clients to the next step in the customer acquisition process — calling you about your products and services.
4. Data analysis: before you launch your social media initiatives, make sure you have the ability to capture the impact of the effort on customer care, web analytics software etc. in place to evaluate the impact and measure the results of your efforts. As they say, "If it's worth doing, it's worth measuring" and one of the greatest advantages of social media is that it can be measured.

Socialnomics - How social media transforms the way we live and do business

If you're not sure how Social Media can be used to make money, read this - "Socialnomics - How social media transforms the way we live and do business" Erik Qualman, Global Vice President of Online Marketing at EF Education, provides an interesting overview of Social Media and how various applications (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) can be used to drive traffic (and dollars) to both online and offline products.

Easy to read and filled with plenty of examples and references for those new to (or afraid of) Social Media. It's definitely worth your time - especially if you're a small business/ SME.

Cue the YouTube Video

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socialnomics.net

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GIPB '09 Take Away - IPA's Lack of Follow Through

Interesting discussion held at the World Bank yesterday re: "Are Developing Countries Missing out on Investment Opportunities?" Facilitated by FIAS to discuss major findings of the 2009 "Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking" report, the distinguished panel of experts including Pierre Guislain, FIAS Director for Investment Climate, Cecilia Sager, FIAS Lead Investment Promotion Officer and Louis Wells, Professor of International Management at the Harvard Business School.

The answer to the question was yes - developing countries are missing out on investment opportunities - due to the lack of simple follow-through. The panel noted that despite the fact that most IPA's have "drunk the Kool-Aid" on using web sites to promote investments (no-brainer), what is now surfacing as a major impediment to investment promotion is the lack of IPA response to potential customer inquiries. Potential investors learned a lot about IPAs when they simply failed to return phone calls or email or responded to specific inquiries with general information. Not surprisingly, such "bureaucratic" responses killed investor interest. In the end, IPA's could learn a lot from the private sector in inquiry handling and more. Read the full report here.

Online Investor Marketing Best Practices

If you're an IPA/IPI or investment intermediary and don't know where to begin your online marketing efforts, first spend some time thinking about your online strategy.

Agencies without experience managing web sites may be tempted to “just get a web site” and be done with it. This approach overlooks the vast potential a well-run web site can provide in marketing investment destinations, engaging investors, generating investment queries and reaching a truly global audience. IPIs should strive to incorporate their web site into every facet of their business development plans in order to reach the maximum number of potential investors. All interactive features of a web site - email alerts, newsletters, instant messaging, multimedia including video - empower IPIs to engage directly with investors to facilitate the investment process – and for maximum effect, these tools need to be coordinated to produce specific strategic outcomes as specified in an IPI’s business development plan.

Read the full report in WAIPA Newsletter, Quarter 2 2009

Social Networking - Does it pay?

If you think the jury's still out on the value of Social Networking as a driver of business, think again. The recently published "Engagement, Ranking of the Top 100 Global Brands" conducted by Wetpaint/Altimeter Group claimes "for the first time ever .. to measure the true financial value of social media."

Examining the use of social media by the world’s 100 most valuable brands, the report finds that: a) As the number of channels increase, overall engagement increases at a faster rate, b) that engagement differs by industry and most imporantly, c) that financial performance correlates with engagement.

While some naysayers may still be reticent to agree, the data presented is compelling and the full report worth a read.

Also, check out the Social Networking Websites Review for more info.

Leverage Global Investment Marketing & Distribution Channels

Investment Promotion Agency (IPAs) a.k.a., "Investment Promotion Intermediary" (IPIs) seeking to get the word out about their investment destinations should leverage large (legitimate) global investment marketing & distribution channels.

While there are a few out there, IPA's should certainly take advantage of the Foreign Direct Investment Network (FDI.net), run by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group. MIGAs' FDI.net works with literally hundreds of IPAs to distribute information about specific, local in-country investment opportunities to over 25,000 registered users. FDI.net also combines investment opportunities with information on the business operating environments (laws, regulations) in over 160 countries along with macro economic indicators and in-depth research from the World Bank as well as contact information on local consultants - all of it for free!

IPAs may also be interested in contacting other multilateral development banks.

* Disclaimer: the author currently works for MIGA and FDI.net.

WAIPA - World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies

If you're organizaiton promtoes investment, especially cross-border investment, you need to know about WAIPA - the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies. Established in 1995 in Geneva, Switzerland, "WAIPA acts as a forum for investment promotion agencies (IPAs) to provide networking opportunities and facilitate the exchange of best practices in capacity-building and investment promotion. Membership is open to all agencies whose prime function is to promote any country or territory for investment." Visit them at http://www.waipa.org/ to see how to take advantage of the contacts, investment promotion tools, services and regional training they offer.

Political Risk Insurance and Investment Promotion

Against the backdrop of the global economic decline, investor perceptions of political risk are on the rise. Recent surveys and reports also show that most investors expect political risk to increase further over next five years. Coupled with the global economic recession, sharp declines in FDI flows and the re-emergence of “resource nationalism” , investment promotion intermediaries (IPIs) face an uphill climb to attract foreign investors. However, powerful and innovative risk mitigation instruments in the form of political risk insurance (PRI) exist to help IPIs and their investor clients combat political risk in the calculus of investors and keep cross-border investment flowing. The next few blog entries will present an overview of political risk and PRI, and suggests how IPIs can use risk mitigation instruments, such as PRI, to facilitate the investment process.

Study finds 70% of IPIs May Be Missing Out on Investors

Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) - a.k.a "Investment Promotion Intermediaries" (IPIs) would be wise to check out the lastest "Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking 2008" report released by FIAS - the Foreign Investment Advirsory Service.

Note that, "The main findings of GIPB 2008 are that the world of investment promotion has finally moved online. Virtually every country’s IPA has a web presence. However, the information on Web sites is often shallow and conveys a lack of broad and deep knowledge about their economies. It seems that, although IPIs have finally realized the importance of promoting online and have allocated some budget to the development of the Web site, they have not invested enough to develop in-house capacity to gather and consolidate relevant information for investors." Read more and get the full report.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

Implementing a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) regime allows IPIs to gauge how well their web strategy is working. Free (Google Analytics) and fee-based (Omniture Site Catalyst) web analytics software applications can be used to track the behavior of visitors on your web site providing key insight into their interests. Such real time market intelligence enables IPIs to quickly identify the type of investment opportunities and business environment intelligence that visitors are looking for and make sure that such information is prominently displayed. Through an M&E framework, responding to the expressed information needs of visitors helps IPIs grow visitor loyalty, increase return rates and build an ever increasing community of potential investors.