By Staff Writer

The Federal Government’s trade and investment development agency, the Australian Trade Commission, is upgrading its website to include a range of multimedia and social networking functions.

The Austrade website will include multimedia training, information and social media content for Australian exporters and overseas investors and buyers.

Site visitors will be able to search for video and audio content to be streamed on the website or fed through Apple iTunes as a podcast or vodcast.

Video and audio content will also be referenced through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Austrade corporate marketing and communications web manager, Emma Palmer, said flexibility was the overarching goal throughout the web design process.

“Our website is the main communications and marketing channel to our customers around the world and has become even more important since Austrade took up responsibility for attracting inward investment in July last year,” Palmer said.

“This means our audience has expanded significantly, and the new functionality will help us deliver more direct, interactive content that our customers can use to improve their business in a tough economy.”

The multimedia functionally will be created with the help of local enterprise content management company Elcom. It is expected to be complete next month.