How to talk to audiences that aren't just your residents

As a city leader or communicator, your inbox is likely dominated by one group: residents. From pothole complaints to recycling schedules, the immediate needs of those who live within your city limits often dictate your communication strategy.

But what about the people who don’t live there yet – but invest there, visit there, or run businesses there?
To build a Stronger Economy – one of Orlo’s 6 key outcomes – you must broaden your digital conversation. You aren’t just managing a municipality; you are marketing a destination and a business hub.

Here is how to pivot your social media strategy to effectively engage business owners, investors, and tourists using data-driven tools.

Residents might flock to Nextdoor and Facebook for community updates, but your economic drivers are elsewhere.

• For Investors & Business Owners: They are on LinkedIn. They want to see data on workforce productivity, infrastructure projects, and stability.
• For Tourists: They are discovering your city on Instagram and TikTok. They want visuals, experiences, and “vibe.”

The Fix: Don’t treat all channels the same. Use a platform that centralizes these distinct feeds. Orlo’s unified inbox allows you to manage a LinkedIn inquiry about zoning differently than an Instagram DM asking about festival parking, without logging in and out of disparate apps.

Most cities use social listening to track local sentiment (e.g., “How do people feel about the new park?”). However, to drive tourism and investment, you need to listen to the conversations happening outside your geofence.

• Tourists: Are people posting about your city as a “hidden gem” or a “tourist trap”?
• Investors: What are business leaders saying about the region’s economic climate?

The Fix: Utilize Social Listening and Media Monitoring tools. Instead of just tracking keywords like “trash pickup,” track keywords related to your city’s brand, such as “[City Name] weekend trip” or “[City Name] commercial real estate.” This allows you to spot trends and sentiment shifts among non-residents before they impact your local economy.

For a resident, a slow reply is an annoyance. For a tourist or an investor, it’s a dealbreaker.

• The Tourist: If they ask a question about event tickets on Saturday morning and don’t get an answer until Monday, they’ve already booked elsewhere.
• The Investor: If they reach out via social regarding an opportunity and are met with silence, it signals a lack of professional responsiveness.

The Fix: A Unified Inbox helps you prioritize queries based on urgency and channel. You can set up chatbots or auto-responses for common tourist questions (hours, locations) to ensure instant gratification, while flagging high-priority investor inquiries for your economic development team.

Orlo data highlights that improving trust is a top priority for 54% of public sector decision-makers. But trust looks different to different groups:

• Residents trust you when services work.
• Investors trust you when you are transparent and stable.
• Tourists trust you when you feel safe and welcoming.

The Fix: Use AI-powered Insights to segment sentiment analysis. Don’t just look at an aggregate “trust score.” Drill down to see if your economic development posts are generating positive sentiment even if your public works posts are facing headwinds. This granular data helps you prove the ROI of your tourism and business campaigns distinct from general city operations.

A citizen-centric approach is vital, but in a modern economy, your “citizens” include anyone who interacts with your city. By using tools like Orlo to segment your listening, professionalize your responses across all channels, and analyze specific audience sentiment, you turn your social media presence from a complaint department into an economic engine.