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This presentation provides an overview of how companies, through their investor relations departments, are using social media to communicate with shareholders, analysts and investors.
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Reaching investors through social
mediaPresentation to Social Media Breakfast Club,
Abilene, Texas
Dec. 2, 2010
By Dave Hogan, APR
My background in investor relations
Serve as director of investor relations and corporate communications for First Financial Bankshares on part-time basis while teaching full time at ACU.
Worked as full-time IR officer for two companies in Southeast U.S. prior to moving to Abilene in late 2001.
Served as investor relations and corporate communications consultant for various public companies through PR agencies in Nashville and Charlotte.
Previously worked as business-news journalist and as a stockbroker for A.G. Edwards.
Target audiences for investor relations (IR)
Institutional investors
Analysts
Retail shareholders
Financial and business media
Traditional investor relations
communication channels
News releases
Quarterly and annual reports
Fact sheets
Investor kits
SEC documents (10-K, 10-Q, proxies)
IR communication used to be
a closed club
Presentations to investor groups – by invitation only
Quarterly investor conference calls – by invitation only
Field trips and home-office visits
Private phone conversations with corporate executives
Prior to the SEC’s new disclosure policies (“Reg FD” launched in 2000), retail investors and the general public were largely shut out of the conversation between corporations and Wall Street.
IR now more democratic, open
Regulatory change from the SEC has forced companies to create a more equal playing field where “the little guy” can gain better access to information about the companies in which they own stocks.
Technology has hastened the democratization of investor communications.
Web 1.0 IR toolsFinancial news websites and corporate IR
websites put information within reach of the everyday small investor in a timely manner.
IR websites have expanded from first-generation bulletin boards to dynamic information hubs that are the leading source of investor information at many companies.
E-mail made it easier for investors to communicate directly with corporate investor relations officers.
Web 2.0 for investor relations
IR lags behind marketing, PR departments in using social media
Companies’ fear of SEC and shareholder lawsuits hinders innovation
Many CEOs, CFOs and other corporate executives still living in pre-social media world
Corporations are late to the party when it comes to integrating social media tools into their investor communication programs.
Social media tools for IR
Twitter is most popular social media tool for IR purposes.
Facebook has not emerged as a mainstream IR communication channel.
YouTube, Flickr popular for sharing multi-media content.
Twitter is leading IR social media tool
More than a third of U.S. public companies use Twitter for IR.
Most use it to announce previously disclosed news, such as earnings announcements and other corporate news.
Twitter used to drive traffic back to corporate IR website
Fewer use Twitter for value-added discussion or to engage audience in two-way conversation
Reminder: Cisco Conference Call for Q3 Fiscal Year 2010 Financial Results | Weds, May 12, 1:30PM PT | http://bit.ly/aXAkhE 5:53 PM May 7th via TweetDeck
Cisco's Q3'10 global highlights in French (http://bit.ly/dpzkZ4) & German (http://bit.ly/aX2aj9). Spanish coming soon! (RT @MarcMuz) 4:22 PM May 11th via TweetDeck
Cisco CEO John Chambers in Q3 FY10 #earnings release: "probably the strongest quarter in our history." | http://bit.ly/cxqXlU 3:51 PM May 12th via TweetDeck
#CFO Video: Cisco reports Q3 FY2010 financial results | http://bit.ly/cPopZQ #earnings 3:29 PM May 12th via TweetDeck
You Tube for IR
Tell investor story verbally with video
Good for earnings announcements, major news
Answer expected questions
Cost effective
Company channel on You Tube
Blogs
Blogs provide maximum flexibility for telling the investor story in words, photos, video and podcasts.
Blogs can add value, depth to conversation
Blogs are the most time-consuming social media tool for IR staff
One blog often covers IR and corporate communications
Dell’s blog dedicated to IR
“If you have questions or suggested discussion points for next week’s call, please post them here or email them to me at [email protected]. We will use your feedback to address the most popular topics on the conference call.”
More social media tools
Slideshare
StockTwits
Seeking Alpha
• Post PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, Word documents and videos on www.slideshare.net.
• Slideshare allows companies to greatly expand the number of views of their existing IR PowerPoint presentations.
• Slideshare makes it easy for bloggers to embed IR slides into their sites.
• Monitor discussion about your company and stock from Twitter on StockTwits
• Monitor Twitter discussion about peer group
• Set up StockTwits Desktop for continuous monitoring of multiple stocks or subscribe to StockTwits TV.
• View company profiles
• Research institutional investors
• Search by company or city
• Engage in group discussions
Sample Linkedin search: Dallas, Texas, USA, “investment
management” companies
Seekingalpha.com collects best research articles from investment newsletters, blogs and other sources; widely read by analysts, institutional investors, retail investors
Seeking Alpha is searchable by stock ticker symbol, allowing IR officers to monitor commentary on their company and peer group
Seeking Alpha provides conference call transcripts from 1,500 U.S. companies
Seeking Alpha
What’s next? IR websites now being updated for mobile
viewers.
What is the future of the traditional news release?
Annual reports are morphing into multimedia, digital communication tools
Will Facebook finally be accepted as an investor communication tool?
