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Digital IR Communications Best Practices Guide 2018
Remember when a mobile strategy was optional? In today’s mobile-first
society, it’s a necessity. Smartphones and tablets are the preferred routes
for conveying and accessing information—nearly 60 percent of searches are
now done on a mobile device. In 2016, desktops accounted for 46 percent of
total IP traffic, and Cisco projects that by 2021 that figure will fall to just 25
percent.
It’s more important than ever for IROs to “think digital” – to use responsive
technology that constantly adapts to the ways people consume information.
In this guide to digital IR communications, you will find the latest best
practices for IR communications in strategy, content, design and technology
for a variety of communication channels, from websites to press releases.
3 ELEMENTS OF A MORE EFFECTIVE IR WEBSITE
You know investors and analysts rely on your IR
website for the latest financials and corporate
announcements, but it’s become increasingly
important to spotlight other facets of your company,
from your social responsibility efforts to executive
thought leadership. With technology changing the
way we find and access information, it’s not just
important to think about what content is on your IR
website, but also how your audience consumes it.
Website visitors are on the move and multitasking,
so you need to ensure your IR website can keep
pace in a mobile-first world.
Contents
• 3 Elements of a More Effective IR Website
• How to Deliver More Engaging IR Webcasts
• Social Media Tips and Trends
• 6 Ways to Optimize Press Releases
IT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER FOR IROS TO “THINK DIGITAL” – TO USE RESPONSIVE TECHNOLOGY THAT CONSTANTLY ADAPTS TO THE WAYS PEOPLE CONSUME INFORMATION.
Digital IR communications, with its ever-evolving range of tools, plays a key role in a company’s
efforts to connect with current and potential investors. But as attention spans shrink and
competition for people’s time increases, it’s imperative for IROs to think ahead to ensure their
message is heard.
west.com/digital communications© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications
Consider these three elements to ensure your IR website is up to speed:
Design
• Responsive design helps ensure visitors receive a customized
experience when accessing your IR website. Investors and analysts are
using a variety of smartphones and tablets to access information, making
responsive design critical to creating a consistent user experience across
devices.
• A clean grid or tiled layout that incorporates white space seems to be a
growing trend in website design, making it easier to locate featured assets
while pushing low-priority content to secondary pages (such as historical
data).
• A featured content section that includes the latest quarterly results, SEC
filings, webcasts, corporate presentations and news releases at the top of
your homepage will help increase the visibility of your announcements and
simplify navigation for users.
• Place call-to-action buttons, particularly those helping investors contact
your company or sign up for news updates, in a consistent, visible location
across your IR website (e.g., along the top navigation area).
• Use a clean, modern design with large images to evoke an emotional
connection with your audience. Interactive slideshows can provide variety
and engagement.
Content
• A corporate profile that includes your mission statement and describes
in a clear and concise way what the company stands for and why
shareholders and potential investors should care can serve as an important
first impression. It also helps support the non-financial tangibles which
many investors care about. You can use the corporate profile to introduce
visitors to your leadership team with management and director bios. Think
creatively about how you can profile your executives, including video clips
from event appearances and interviews.
• Financial data is among the most sought-after content on your IR
website, so feature your most recent earnings reports, fact sheets and
presentations prominently. It’s also helpful to provide fundamental data,
ownership data and live stock data, and an archive of all materials for
reference.
VIDEO
By 2021, consumer video-on-demand traffic will nearly double and a million minutes of video content will be posted on the internet every second. In fact, 59% of executives would choose to watch a video over reading text if both were available on the same topic. Though your IR department may not be producing its own videos, you may want to consider posting other suitable videos that your company has produced, such as corporate or marketing videos, on the IR website. When selecting which videos to share, consider:
• Message. A video that includes key messages reinforcing the corporate story and providing insight into strategy may resonate more with the investment community.
• Duration. In an age of shrinking attention spans, shorter videos with a succinct message are often better received than longer videos. On social media, most videos are typically no longer than two minutes.
• Relevance. Before posting a video on your IR website, ask yourself whether the subject matter featured in the video is relevant to your audience.
• Presentation. If possible, embed your company-produced video content on your site, so that visitors stay on your site, where you can provide complementary content. HTML5 players and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) can help ensure your video is better optimized for a variety of devices and connectivity.
WEBSITE VISITORS ARE ON THE MOVE AND MULTITASKING, SO YOU NEED TO ENSURE YOUR IR WEBSITE CAN KEEP PACE IN A MOBILE-FIRST WORLD.
west.com/digital communications© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications
• A downloadable version of your company’s latest earnings report makes
it easier for visitors—especially those using mobile devices—to access
financial information.
• Highlight marketing materials that provide insight into your company’s
strategy and value proposition to your customers. Think about how you can
weave product marketing and thought leadership assets such as videos,
guides and infographics into the IR story on your site.
• Consider integrating your company’s social media feed to give visitors a
real-time view into the latest happenings. An active social presence can
capture the energy of your brand, keep visitors informed with up-to-the-
minute posts, and add context to your IR website content.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) can help improve the visibility of
your content in search results and extend your reach to potential investors.
Start with keyword-rich headlines and website content that aligns with the
terms (e.g., company and brand names, industry terms) your audience may
use. From there you can work with your web team or a partner to improve
cross-linking between your IR website and other sections of your corporate
site, backlinking (increasing the number of external sites that link to your
IR web pages), and optimizing the tags and descriptions on each page to
ensure your IR website is indexed appropriately by search engines.
Technology
• Create an internal review and
approval workflow for market-
moving news that limits the
amount of collaboration over email
and file saving on external hard
drives (including USB). Consider
a dedicated online collaboration
platform which is designed to
manage sensitive information.
IR WEBSITE TECH TRENDS
• A website built on an open-source platform taps into a community of developers who are constantly creating new modules, identifying and fixing bugs, and working to improve the user experience. This enables greater flexibility in building and maintaining the site, and accelerates innovation.
• Cloud-based infrastructure enables your website to handle millions of hits per month and scale up and down as needed. This kind of support can be especially helpful during high-traffic events such as earnings events.
A WEBSITE BUILT ON AN OPEN-SOURCE PLATFORM ENABLES GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN BUILDING AND MAINTAINING THE SITE, AND ACCELERATES INNOVATION.
Your IR website is a key communication tool and authoritative source for connecting stakeholders to the relevant content and timely information they're looking for.
west.com/digital communications© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications
• Partner with an IR website provider that offers technology features
such as:
• A process to transmit and upload content to your IR website.
Email is not a recommended method for transmission of sensitive
information, as it is too vulnerable to hacking.
• HTTPS/SSL which ensures all communications between your IR
website and a user’s browsers are encrypted.
HOW TO DELIVER MORE ENGAGING IR WEBCASTS
Webcasting technology has continued to evolve to keep pace with the
streaming demands of a mobile-first audience. With the introduction of
HTML5 players and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), the webcast experience
for viewers of earnings, Investor Day and AGM events is better than ever. The
use of video for these events continues to trend upward as companies realize
the benefits of putting the faces of its executive team front and center to
improve trust and engagement.
Engagement/Interactivity
• Video is being used more by IROs who understand the benefits of
personalizing their executive communications, adding a greater human
element to IR events, and improving engagement with remote audiences.
Today’s webcast technology, which features adaptive streaming and HD-
quality broadcasting, has vastly enhanced the video experience of years
ago.
• Foster discussion with “Ask a Question”, survey and polling features.
Particularly for non-earnings events like shareholder meetings, giving your
webcast audience a platform to ask questions and submit feedback is a
great opportunity to increase participation and create a dialogue.
Technology
• Responsive HTML5 webcast players adjust your broadcast to the
optimal size and layout of each user’s device, from desktop to mobile.
• HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) detects a user’s available bandwidth and
automatically adjusts the stream to avoid interruption. Consider an analyst
viewing your webcast on a train. Rather than facing the dreaded buffering
wheel when passing through an area with a weak signal, the user will see a
lower-resolution video until the signal becomes stronger.
5-STEP IR SOCIAL MEDIA CHECK-UP
• Assess your goals. Are you looking to build awareness through social media, engage in a conversation or promote an upcoming event? Proceed with caution as it comes with additional regulatory risk.
• Collaborate with corporate communications. Get together with your corp comm colleagues to determine how you can help contribute IR content into its pipeline. Think about corporate content, such as product launches and plant openings that might also interest investors.
• Make sharing easy. Make sure you’ve added “like” and “share” buttons to your press releases, blog posts, reports and videos. Empower your audience to amplify your messages.
• Consider guest posts. Is there an influencer or analyst at your company who can provide industry commentary or best practices through your company blog or on your IR website (or both)? Creating a regular stream of content can spotlight the expertise of your subject matter experts, increase the visibility of your IR website, and keep visitors returning between corporate announcements.
• Create posting guidelines. What are the do’s and don’ts for your company’s social media strategy? What is appropriate for posting? What will be reserved for the IR website? Make sure everyone involved in posting IR content is trained on disclosure rules.
WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF HTML5 PLAYERS AND HTTP LIVE STREAMING (HLS), THE WEBCAST EXPERIENCE FOR VIEWERS OF EARNINGS, INVESTOR DAY AND AGM EVENTS IS BETTER THAN EVER.
west.com/digital communications© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications
• Embed your webcast into your IR website to create a seamless user
experience between your IR website and presentations. Keeping your
audience on your site can encourage them to explore related content after
the event.
• Monitor analytics to get important insights into which investors, analysts
and journalists joined your webcast, how long they participated, and
how engaged they were (e.g., did they ask a question or respond to a
poll) but ensure any analytics is collected in compliance with applicable
privacy laws.
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS AND TRENDS
Many IROs are still cautious when it comes to incorporating social media
channels into their communications plans, but interest and use are growing.
Twenty-eight percent of IR practitioners now make social media part
of their strategy, according to a recent survey by the National Investor
Relations Institute. Social media can be a powerful platform—actually,
many platforms—on which to tell your company’s stories and monitor the
conversations about your company in real time. Within the investment
community, 77 percent of investors and analysts have investigated an issue
based on information viewed on digital and social media, according to a
Brunswick Group survey.
Whether your IR department has already embraced social media or is still
deciding the best way to join the conversation, consider these tips:
• Ask your internal experts about how
to best weave IR-related content into
your social strategy. Your company may
have a dedicated social media team or
it could fall under another department.
Whatever the structure, a good
place to start is with your corporate
communications and marketing leaders
to discuss which messages and content
are appropriate and how they fit into
the identity of your company’s social
channels. Some accounts may be
geared toward specific brands and a
consumer audience while another could
be focused on corporate news.
28% of IR practitioners now make social media part of their strategy, according to a recent survey by the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI).
77% of investors and analysts have investigated an issue based on information viewed on digital and social media, according to a Brunswick Group survey.
west.com/digital communications© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications
• Drive traffic to your IR website. Include IR website links on all relevant
social posts, such as major changes in company leadership or market-
moving news. Direct people to key digital assets, such as financial data,
earnings reports and presentations.
• Publish announcements and promote events. Use social posts to
highlight upcoming announcements and IR-related content, but remember
this approach does not meet regulatory requirements for disclosure.
• Monitor online activity. Pay attention to the conversations that are
happening about your company. Use this to help gauge sentiment in the
marketplace and inform your IR communications strategy.
• Integrate social media feeds on your IR website. If your company has
an active Twitter account, adding a widget can give visitors a real-time view
across your company—from product-related posts to thought leadership. If
your social platforms aren’t updated daily, think twice about giving the feed
real estate on your IR website.
6 WAYS TO OPTIMIZE PRESS RELEASES
Today, the audience for your IR press release can extend beyond the financial
community. By optimizing your release for search engines, you can help
increase the discoverability and reach of your financial news:
• Write a concise, keyword-rich headline and include two subheads
that summarize the news to make it easier for outlets to use your words in
their own news summaries. Headlines and quotes that are verbose force
journalists to interpret your news in their own words which can lead to a
gap between your message and how it’s conveyed to the marketplace.
• Link to your IR website, webcasts and multimedia content (e.g., high-
resolution images, logos and videos).
• Use simple language and lists. Write in a conversational manner but get
right to the point. Your audience wants quick access to the numbers and
drivers, especially in an earnings release. Bullet points of need-to-know
information make it easy for a reader to identify the key points.
• Link to your corporate social media channels to offer a view into your
company activity, and give readers a real-time view across your company—
from product-related posts to thought leadership.
• Consider translating your release to accommodate the regional
preferences of investors and media in markets across the globe.
Translations are more common in Europe and Asia than they are in North
American markets.
• Tap the talent of your newswire provider’s experienced editors who can
help with proofreading and formatting.
IF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AREN’T UPDATED DAILY, THINK TWICE ABOUT INCLUDING THEM ON YOUR IR WEBSITE.
© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications west.com/digital communications
BY OPTIMIZING YOUR RELEASE FOR SEARCH ENGINES, YOU CAN HELP INCREASE THE DISCOVERABILITY AND REACH OF YOUR FINANCIAL NEWS.
CONCLUSION
Digital communication is evolving quickly and it’s incumbent upon the
IRO to continually evaluate and integrate new technologies that engage
shareholders, prospects and markets around the world while meeting
regulatory requirements. Embracing newer communication channels,
becoming educated about social media, and optimizing IR content for mobile
are critical. A well-executed and dynamic digital communications strategy
can help make a lasting impact on your company’s reputation and its ability to
deliver on its overall business objectives.
YOUR PARTNER FOR DIGITAL IR COMMUNICATIONS
Let us help you tell your investment story and meet regulatory requirements
with a suite of powerful communications solutions that target the right
audiences, reach across multiple channels, and monitor the impact of your
messages.
A WELL-EXECUTED AND DYNAMIC DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY CAN HELP MAKE A LASTING IMPACT ON YOUR COMPANY’S REPUTATION AND ITS ABILITY TO DELIVER ON ITS OVERALL BUSINESS OBJECTIVES.
• Websites and Newsrooms
• Webcasting
• Press Release Distribution and Regulatory Filing
• Media Monitoring
© 2018 West Corporation. All rights reserved. EOE/AA Employer 180511SG-05-BR-Transition-Digital-Media-Communications west.com/digital communications