Recent research confirms that government officials are increasingly using online platforms such as LinkedIn to vet potential vendors. Poorly optimized personal profiles can cost vendors valuable contracts.
State and local procurement professionals have become electronic detectives, digging deep into the internet for information on vendors and even scanning employees' personal social media profiles.
B2G marketing agency Lumino recently released “The Pulse of Procurement Report.” This report features the results of a survey of 100 state and local governments and 100 federal budget owners about how they find, evaluate, and select new vendors.
“One of the biggest takeaways for state and local governments is how much they rely on online now,” said Jenny Kahn, Lumino CEO and founding partner. “For example, we don't often use directories to find vendors.”
Government turns to online examinations
According to Lumino's report, 35% of state and local government respondents said they only vet vendors online, a statistic Kahn found to be eye-opening.
“I thought the number would be pretty small and they would do another interview or vet it in a different way,” Khan said in an interview. government technology.* “But many state and local governments are really just focused on online presence. It emphasizes the importance of making sure you get good information when finding a good impression of your company.”
According to Lumino research, establishing a web presence and combining it with a strong SEO strategy is critical from the get-go. Seventy-one percent of state and local governments surveyed said that through a company's website they found a vendor to invite to an RFP, whereas 61 percent of federal respondents said they found vendors to invite to RFPs. Searching for these websites most often begins with a search engine such as Google or Bing. “Even if you're not discoverable, your competitors are, and they'll find those solutions on your behalf,” Khan said. “If your goal is to reach out to state and local government agencies, I think you need to make that a priority.”
Social media platform of choice
Research shows that governments of all sizes identify LinkedIn as the social media platform of choice for finding new vendors. TikTok, on the other hand, ranked last. Less than 10% of respondents said they used the platform to find new vendors.
Moreover, the government does not only look at a company's main profile. Most governments say they check vendors' personal accounts at least sometimes during RFP reviews.
“I thought it was really interesting because a lot of companies are active on LinkedIn. They think about their company page, but they don't think about their personal page. It’s clear that budget owners are also paying attention to their personal LinkedIn profiles,” said Khan.
“I think an incomplete profile is a clear sign that people don't take this channel seriously,” she continued. “So having an image, making sure the title is updated, making sure the heading is updated, making sure the current role is there, all of those things are very important. I would go one step further. So you want to think about the keywords that you want to be associated with. If someone works for a government agency and they're looking for someone to help them with a certain thing, your profile should mention that specific thing. is it being done?”
Trade show connections are also valuable.
While the internet has become an essential tool for connecting governments and vendors, Lumino's research reveals that face-to-face contact still plays a critical role in the process.
A majority (83%) of state and local governments said finding new vendors is “definitely” or “probably” a reason to go to a trade show, compared to 74% of federal respondents. of respondents said finding new vendors is the reason they go to trade shows.
Meanwhile, 37% of state and local government respondents said they evaluate new vendors through trade shows, compared to 26% of federal government respondents. Additionally, more state and local respondents than federal respondents said they planned to attend at least one trade show in person this year.
*This article appears for the first time government technologyto sister magazine Industry Insider — California.
