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EI targets America with revamped online offering
07 June 2009 By Dick O’Brien
Enterprise Ireland (EI) has decided to revamp its online presence by using a raft of new social networking technologies to help Irish software companies build up their contacts in the North American market.
The state business development agency has launched a new website for client companies that encourages them to connect with it and North American-based firms on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Such services have enjoyed a boom in popularity in recent years, with many in the younger generation of businesspeople embracing them as useful networking tools. The new site (americas.
enterprise-ireland.com) differs from the standard template used in other sites developed by EI, with much of its content based around a weblog. According to Jennifer Condon, divisional manager for software at EI, the project is something it is going to pilot first in North America. If it is successful, the agency will bring other regional websites into the initiative.
Condon said that the new website cost next to nothing to set up, but added that the days of spending tens of thousands of euros on online promotional campaigns were probably over, given the prevalence and success of the kind of free networking tools the agency is employing.
The new initiative is part of a strategy designed to boost exports by Irish companies to the North American market.
The programme will initially focus on the internet and software sectors, where the goal is to drive those sector’s revenues to more than €2.5 billion by 2013.Revenues from this sector stood at €1.4 billion at the end of 2007.
The campaign kicks off in Silicon Valley this week with events involving Stanford University and the Kauffman Fellows Program.
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