Over the last couple of years we’ve been successful in working with our clients to create a customized approach that drives IR website traffic, expands content distribution and increase investor engagement. Over this time the Q4 platform has evolved and now can provide a true competitive advantage to public companies by expanding their reach, attracting investors and building better relationships.

These new features provide even greater capability for our clients to benefit from the web and the integration of social media into their investor relations efforts AND with the rise of web disclosure coming, our platform provides all of the tools required to be successful in the new world of online investor relations.

The list of upgrades is below, you can also check out our new website at http://www.q4websystems.com to learn more.

We hope you like them!

Darrell Heaps

UPGRADES NOW AVAILABLE

Simultaneous Web Publishing
Direct integration with Twitter,  Facebook and Bit.ly APIs allows for real-time simultaneous publishing to both of these platforms along with email alerts and RSS feeds. Real-time simultaneous web publishing alleviates compliance issues relating to selective disclosure so information can be accessed on all channels at the same time. Using RSS feeds to publish your content to Twitter and Facebook can result in various delays due to how RSS works and the reliance on third party services.

Real-time integration of social media content
Q4’s social media integration enhances client websites by automatically including content from YouTube, Vimeo, Slideshare and Flickr. Once content is published to any of the aforementioned sites, it is automatically pulled into your website and organized by tags.

Real-time Alert Filters
As press releases, presentations, events or reports are published through Q4, real-time alert filters read the content and distribute it automatically to email, Twitter and Facebook. For example, press releases can now be searched as they cross the wire in real-time and depending on the content, be sent to different email lists, your Twitter account and company Facebook page.

Tagging
Tags are like keywords that you can add to any content to make it easier to find later.  For example, during earnings as you add content such as events, presentations and reports you include a tag associated with that event such as Q110. This will then auto assemble the content into a Q1 earnings page, and any content you add to the site with the Q110 tag will automatically be added to this page.  Similarly, you can tag content with “Briefcase” and it will be automatically added to an investor briefcase page on the site. Tagging your content allows pages and lists throughout the site to be easily generated at any time.

Social Media Optimization
Using our software along with the web’s most popular social networks and communities we work with our clients to create a customized social media strategy.  We also provide ongoing support on the execution, ongoing management and monitoring of social channels. Working with our clients we have been able to drive IR website traffic, expand content distribution and increase investor engagement.

Approve Press Release via Email
As a press release crosses the wire, an email alert will be sent to specified individuals within your company for approval.  Once they view the title and confirm the release is correct they click on a link in the email which automatically sends it out to your email subscribers. This feature gives you an improved balance of automation and control over your content.

SEC filings
All of your SEC filings are now available in various formats such as Word, Excel, PDF, HTML, XBRL.  This allows current or potential shareholders the ability to download and analyze the information in their preferred format.

Online event Reminders
Visitors to your IR website can now easily subscribe to event reminders and also click to add to their outlook calendar with one click (iCal).

Interactive Analyst Center
Five years of financial information updated automatically from filings, plus ratios, customizable, interactive charts and company/industry specific Operational Drivers – all accessed from your IR website.

If you’re interested in learning more contact us today and we’ll setup a live product demo.

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On August 1 the SEC issued new guidance that deems corporate web sites and blogs as compliant with Reg. FD providing that certain criteria are met. This allows a public company to disclose information on their corporate web site, without having to issue a press release through an approved news wire service.

What’s bad for the newswires, whom have long enjoyed a guaranteed flow of business, is great news for issuers who stand to save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in newswire fees. Considering the economic climate, this couldn’t happen at a better time, as companies look to trim the fat.

Many issuers are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude, looking to their peers to see how the market responds to the new Reg. FD web disclosure model. Others are starting now to transition their web sites toward Reg. FD compliance. Darrell Heaps, CEO of Q4 Web Systems, wrote an interesting blog post on how to make your web site a ‘public’ disclosure channel under new SEC guidance and Reg. FD.

Q4 Web Systems has long recognized the importance of web disclosure and the inevitability of this new legislation. More than 3 years ago we built Q4 WEB – a fully-featured IR web content and disclosure management system that is a perfect response to the SEC’s new guidance. Here’s why:

1.     Internal Control – In a Reg. FD web disclosure model, issuers need to have complete, easy internal control over web site disclosure – they can’t risk a reliance on internal or external support to update site content in order to ensure timely, universal disclosure. Q4 WEB provides easy, non technical control over all site content, navigation and functionality.

2.     ‘Push’ Technology – Ensuring that information is disseminated in a way that ‘makes it available to the securities marketplace in general’ as the new Reg. FD requires, means that companies need ‘push’ technologies to make it easy and fast to distribute their disclosure. Q4 WEB integrates automated email alerts and RSS feeds to ensure that subscribers are notified as new content is updated. (Also see Darrell’s post re: Notice and Access press releases.)

3.     Documented Controls – If you are posting material information to your site as an alternative to posting it in an Exchange ACT report, as the new Reg. FD allows, you need to have documented controls associated to your site content to ensure that information is not posted without the necessary approvals. Q4 WEB integrates automatic workflow and approvals and captures all changes and associated approvals in a verifiable audit trail.

4.     Searchable Web Site Record – In a Reg. FD web disclosure model, you would want the ability to demonstrate the specific content that appeared on your web site at any given point in time in order to respond to regulatory or investor inquiries. You’d also want evidence of how easily the information could be accessed by the user to demonstrate that it wasn’t purposely ‘buried’.  This requires a ‘real-time’ comprehensive, searchable record of all site content. It also requires a system that can actually generate a replica of your site to show exactly how content could be accessed at the time in question. Q4 WEB is the only solution in the market to provide ‘Time Shifting’  which allows you to instantly generate fully functioning replicas of your site from any point in time – right down to the second –complete with all downloads, presentations and content updated through data feeds.

5.     Enterprise Level Hosting & System Monitoring – A Reg. FD web disclosure model can significantly increase the amount of traffic to your web site. To ensure your site is always available and fast loading it should be hosted in an enterprise level data center with extensive system monitoring.  Our SAS 70 Type II Certified data centre is designed to withstand the highest levels of web traffic, is monitored 24/7 and is fully redundant. Using Q4 WEB your web site is always available and fast, no matter how many people are hitting your site.

Q4 WEB offers an important first step for issuers looking to transition to a Reg. FD web disclosure model. Of course there are other requirements to ensure the same market awareness for your message. And additional developments and new technologies will continue to spring up to address this very important regulatory change. Stay tuned to Q4 Blog for details! 

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CIRI Ontario

Attended by approximately 60 people, the topic was focused specifically on blogging and so the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube were largely omitted.

For the uninitiated, the presentation provided an introduction on how to start using corporate blogs as an effective communications channel. Here’s a brief synopsis of the presentation with a few other helpful bits added:

12.4% of Fortune 500 companies actively use corporate blogs up from 4% in 2005. Some of the most active include Dell, General Motors and Sun Microsystems. (Technorati.com provides a comprehensive annual report on the state of blogging)

Why should you use social media? Branding has changed – your brand is no longer “what you say about it, it’s what people say it is” (David Carlick,  co-founder Doubleclick)

As a blogger, it’s important to understand Technorati.com – an Internet search engine that tracks blogs and other forms of citizen media, including video blogs (vlogs), podcasts and amateur movies and videos in real-time. All this activity is monitored and indexed within minutes of posting. Technorati rates and ranks blogs based on:  Reactions – the number of inbound links to a url, meaning you could have multiple inbound links coming from the same people; Ranking – the more people that link to a particular blog, the higher the ranking; and Authority – calculated based on the number of unique blogs that link to/reference a specific blog.

At Technorati you can search the blogosphere for topics of interest and then view information according to criteria such as ‘Authority’.

Google Blog Search -  a beta project from Google, allows you to search the Internet or blogosphere by topic. It apparently allows you to type in your company name or url and see who’s linking to you. It’s not as intuitive as I’d hoped – I couldn’t find this feature.

Before launching a corporate blog you should consider 4 Essential Policies (from Thornley Fallis):

Corporate blogging policy – Who is going to blog?  What topics will you cover? Establish workflow and approvals. Some good examples for blogging policies would include IBM, Sun Mircrosystems  and Harvard Law School (As expected, the Harvard Law policy is heavier on the legalese). Another approach is the Earl Gilmore rule: Use good judgement. If you don’t use good judgement you are in deep trouble.

Blog monitoring and interaction policy – How do you respond when you’re being blogged about, particularly when the comments are negative and damaging? Where do you draw the line in being transparent but limiting offensive material? (eg. profanity)

Outbound commenting policy – (Earl Gilmore rule applies). It’s very important in establishing this policy to be very clear about conflicts of interest.

Comment moderation policy – these are the most important posts you’ll ever write and will be the best ‘troll’ insurance you can build.

Once you have policies established, you’re ready to get started. No advice was given regarding specific blog applications. PC World ranked the top blog platforms as Blogger, WordPress (which we use at Q4) TypePad, Tripod and Squarespace. There are a slew of articles on this - a quick search should provide lots of ideas.

To get started in corporate blogging, the most important points seemed to be:

Just do it – for blogs to be effective you have to post regularly and you need to ensure that your content is relevant (this goes back to policy #1 – if you establish a content framework, it’s easier to keep content relevant and in line with reader interests)

Build a community – if you write it, will they come? The best way to build interest in your blog is to be interested in other blogs relevant to your topic. Reference and link to other relevant blogs, build on their content. (Back to Technorati – search out other relevant blogs, particularly ‘Authority’ blogs – subscribe to RSS feeds for these blogs and actively follow them.) Ultimately as you build more readership, ask other people to put you on their blogroll. (Blogroll –  list of blogs, usually placed in the sidebar of a blog, that reads as a list of recommendations by the blogger of other blogs. For more blog definitions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogroll#B  and you’ll be talking the talk in no time.)

Use multi-media – blogs can be more than just text.  General Motors uses a lot of video (with transcripts) This doesn’t have to be expensive. Q4 purchased full lighting, a great HD video cam/camera, wireless and wired microphone, backdrop & stand, carry bags  for under $3,500 – luckily I’m married to a professional photographer www.karlrichter.com who had no bias in helping me select equipment. (If you’re interested in our equipment list, contact me and I can provide you with details.) The best way to ensure that you can use video frequently is to limit the need for editing. We have found that brief, candid interviews work best. It keeps it real. Too much editing and you’ll never do it.

Obviously there’s so much more to cover on this topic so we’ll do another blog post on this in the future.

We’d like to hear from you regarding your corporate blogging initiatives. What platform are you using? Do you have a corporate blogging policy? Do you actively follow other relevant blogs? What are your favourites?  And what other social media is your company using? As always, your comments are welcome.

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To be considered “public” the corporate site needs to meet 3 criteria.

1. a company web site is a recognized channel of distribution
2. posting of information on a company web site disseminates the information in a manner making it available to the securities marketplace in general, and
3. there has been a reasonable waiting period for investors and the market to react to the posted information.

For the purpose of this post I’m going to focus on the first two criteria.

From the guidance:  Whether a company’s web site is a recognized channel of distribution of information depends on the steps that the company has taken to alert the market to its web site and its disclosure practices, as well as the use by investors and the market of the company’s web site

In general, for you to use your site as the main channel of disclosure it requires that you act like it is the main channel and that the market recognizes it as such. This means that you need to change the behavior of your company along with the perception of the market – which is going to take some effort. Here are a handful of suggestions (along with language from the guidance) for you to get started with:

Plan to transition to a web disclosure model over the next year. As you just read, this is about the market seeing your corporate site as the main channel of disclosure and knowing that your web site is the first place to go. This means you’re going to have to work and changing the market perception along with (likely) making improvements to your site.  Setting a timeline over the next 4 quarters will allow you to establish some clear milestones and to use traditional means (see below) to condition the market to go to your corporate web site for disclosure.

Act as if your site is your only method of disclosure – even while using all traditional methods. Treating your website as the main channel for disclosure is the first and most obvious step to take. And it’s also the one that takes the most sustained effort. More on improving your web site below. In addition to this, reference your web site in all of your disclosure such as press releases, reports, webcasts, presentations etc.  Routinely post critical information to your web site in a prominent location. Ensure your disclosure and methods of subscription are front and centre on your site – push people to sign-up for email and/or subscribe to RSS feeds.  Look to the leaders in the industry, site’s like Sun Microsystems and others – how can you get closer to these standards?

From the guidance: Whether and how companies let investors and the markets know that the company has a web site and that they should look at the company’s web site for information. For example, does the company include disclosure in its periodic reports (and in its press releases) of its web site address and that it routinely posts important information on its web site?

Transition the market to go to your web site as the starting point. Here is a suggested path to transitioning to web disclosure.

1. Include links to your site in all reports, press releases, etc., condition the market to come to your site (Updated Oct 21, 2008 – Include at the bottom of each press release/report that as of a specific date, your web site will become your recognized channel of disclosure and provide links to subscribe to RSS and/or email.)
2. Make RSS, Email alerts and other subscription features prominent – own your list (don’t let the newswire do this for you)
3. Move to a Notice and Access model for the distribution of your news – send notices via newsires, not news - see the Notice and Access model just posted by IR Web Report for a great model to follow
4. The notice and access model may be the end point for a while until new methods emerge or your company is very well followed  

From the guidance: Whether the company has made investors and the markets aware that it will post important information on its web site and whether it has a pattern or practice of posting such information on its web site;

Use the Internet standards of distribution like RSS and Email alerts to connect with the market and get your message out. Use RSS, Email alerts and other options as they emerge to get your content out to the Internet and into the hands of the market.  Add rich content to your IR site, think of yourself as an investor – what are you looking for. Work with your vendors, push them to improve their products and help you achieve more –it’s a competitive industry and we all want to help.

Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your peer companies – start using RSS today and see what a difference it makes in staying connected. By using RSS you’ll want to have this on your site tomorrow and you’ll see the potential of using it to drive your disclosure.  Subscribe to the feeds from IR experts and from vendors, keep an eye on what’s happening in the industry and what the options are for you to do things better.

Why should you move to a web disclosure model?

From the list above you may be thinking “looks like a lot of work” and the reality is that it will take a commitment from you and your vendors to building the new standard of disclosure. The SEC has opened the field for innovation to drive the market. Being a part of it has a number of benefits:

Gaining complete control over your disclosure and establishing a direct connection to the market. In today’s world you have very little knowledge as to who is interested in your disclosure. Yes there are media monitoring services out there, but these provide an aggregate view of the market’s interest. The more you are able to use your web site as the podium for your disclosure you will find your subscriber lists growing and your understanding of the market improving by having a direct connection, rather than through intermediares.

Reduce or eliminate newswire distribution costs. Although newswires will provide a long list of reasons for why you should continue to pay for the distribution of data (such as editorial quality, catching errors, availability, and their long list of distribution options) you know that there is a finite universe out there that needs to know about your disclosure.  You also know that your internal processes (due to SOX) now force you to check, recheck and obtain extensive internal approvals on material information and the newswires can’t help you there. The SEC guidance now makes it possible to move to a “notice and access” model and drastically reduce the size and number of press releases you put out over the wire. By redirecting just a portion of the savings to a web disclosure initiative you’ll be able to build ongoing sustainable value with your stakeholders.  Do you find yourself thinking – “I’d love to do more with my site but I don’t have the budget?” – reducing your spend on newswires now gives you that budget.

Companies that focus on disclosure and transparency have been proven to maintain value during quarterly earnings.  In a world driven more and more by automated trading IROs need to focus on fundamental investors who view disclosure, transparency and a connection with the company and it’s business a key aspect. By focusing on web disclosure you will create a direct connection with these valuable long-term investors that help you weather the storm as you ride the quarterly roller coaster.

We’re very interested in hearing from you on the above. If you have additional thoughts or completely disagree please comment or send me an email at darrellh@q4websystems.com

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Q4 Press is our newest product, it’s primary value proposition is to “Easily Collaborate on Regulated Documents”. Given that proposition we wanted to make sure that we made the software live by that rule. The welcome page is one of the things we implemented that we thought would bring that proposition to life.

Previous to introducing the welcome screen to Q4 Press, users that had just logged on would be presented with a list of all the press release that they were currently working on. It looked like this:

While this scenario worked fine while we were building the product, we soon realized that in real world scenarios this page would more often then not be blank for most of our users. This goes directly against our primary value proposition and we quickly began looking for ways to make this experience a much more inviting and informative one for our users.

This is where the Welcome screen came into play, it looks like this:

The welcome page’s primary goal is to drive new users to the most logical actions they should perform. In the case of Q4 Press, those actions are to invite other users to collaborate on a press release and to create a new press release.

Again we realized that this welcome screen is targeted at people that are new to using Q4 Press, and more advanced users would quickly tire of the fact that they have to land on this screen and then navigate away to work on the things that were important to them. This prompted us to include the ability for more advanced users to skip past the welcome screen (this is done via a check box on the welcome screen that the user ticks off, all subsequent logins will land them on the dashboard).

We think this feature is a great one and we hope you do to. If you would like to find out more about Q4 Press please email catherinec@q4websystems.com or call 416-789-7829 ext 225 and we will be more than happy to give you a demo of the product.

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What is Google Maps?
Google Maps is a Google service offering powerful, user-friendly mapping technology and local business information—including business locations, contact information, and driving directions. You can find out more about Google maps here

Ok, great. So what can I do with Google maps
Googles maps are quickly becoming a standard method for displaying various types of map related information on company websites. Some examples of how Google maps can be useful on your site are:

• Display a map to your corporate offices
• Show a map of your operations (see a great example on the Baffinland Iron Mines website)

In addition to the basic mapping data, administrators can also tag locations with additional information regarding the location that is tagged on the map. Website users can view satellite images of your mine areas as well as topographical images providing them more insight into your companies operations.

How can I get Google maps functionality on my site?
We think this is a great new feature and we hope you do to! If you would like more information on how you can integrate Google maps functionality in your site send us an email to support@q4websystems.com or give us a call at 416-626-7829 (press 2 for support) and we’ll be happy to help you integrate this new feature.

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What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a method for distributing content over the web in what is commonly referred to as an “RSS feed”. RSS feeds typically contain a summary of the content item or the entire content item itself from the originating website. End users subscribe to and read these feeds in a feed reader. Some examples of popular feed readers are Google Reader, Bloglines and My Yahoo. Spotting a website that supports RSS is pretty easy just look for the orange icon in the far right hand side of your browsers address bar.

Why does RSS matter to me?
In the ever evolving world of corporate disclosure, RSS provides a way to keep your investors and analysts up to date on your company in a user friendly and efficient manner. Giving your website users the ability to subscribe to a feed of your press releases allows them to be notified of when you update the content on your site and gives them the opportunity to read the press release in there feed reader or to visit your site directly and read the press release there.

How do I get RSS on my site?
If you are interested in adding this module to your installation of Q4 Web send us an email to support@q4websystems.com or call us at 416-626-7829 (press 2 for support) and we’ll be happy to help you implement this new feature.

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RSS Feeds Q4 WEB now includes RSS Feeds for your Press Releases, Presentations and Events. This means you can now offer your web site visitors an easy way to receive updates whenever information changes on your site. Example: http://www.q4websystems.com/AboutQ/RSSFeeds/
Google Maps Embed Google maps to show the location of your operations. Includes all of the features of Google maps, including satellite photography. Example: http://www.baffinland.com/MaryRiverProject/LocationMap/default.aspx
Photo Gallery Using the new Photo Gallery module, you can easily add and manage an unlimited number of photos. Clients typically use this for the large number of photos associated to projects and operations. Users are able to quickly flip between photos without having to reload the entire page. Example: http://www.baffinland.com/MaryRiverProject/PhotoGallery/default.aspx
Directors and Officers Module Adding this module to your site makes it easy to manage the members of your directors and officers and to add them to different groups. This module also allows you to add Low Res and High Res Photos of each management member. Example: http://income.newportpartners.ca/PortfolioHoldings/NPLP/default.aspx
Email Alerts for Reports, Events and Presentations In addition to receiving email alerts for press releases, you can now allow users to sign up for email alerts when you update your annual/quarterly reports, events, presentations or any other type of content you release on a regular basis.

Career Center Expand your web site to include job opportunities. Post jobs and manage candidate resumes. Example: http://www.inmetmining.com/aboutInmet/workingatInmet/default.aspx
EDGAR Filings in HTML If you’re listed on a US exchange, we now offer SEC filings in HTML rather than PDF and automatically update this information as you submit filings to EDGAR. This makes it easier for your users to access all of your filings. Example: http://www.agnico-eagle.com/English/Investors/RegulatoryFilings/SECFilings/default.aspx

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Author “What’s Changed?”
Now Authors can quickly see what changes they have made and are able to compare their current version against all previous major versions.  

Minor Document Versions and Reverting
Authors are now able to track their own minor versions in the quick report. The Author can also now revert to any previous version of a press release quickly. 

Supervisor Role
Users can now be given Supervisor privileges which allow them to oversee all activity on all documents. This gives auditors and/or managers unrestricted to the Quick Report and sends notifications each time a press release is created. 

Secure and un-secure email alerts
Email alerts can now include messages in either a secure or unsecure format. If the message requires more security you can secure the alert so the message can only be viewed once inside Q4 Press. All email alerts also now include the senders name to help you prioritize alerts based on who they are coming from.  

Welcome Page
The new welcome page provides a friendly introduction for new users. It also includes a handy way for it to be dismissed (so you only see it once or twice). 

Easily Invite Users
Any existing user can now invite other people to collaborate on documents and create an account of their own.  When inviting a new user you can also add a custom message to make it more personable.

Joining Multiple Instances
You can now be a part of multiple instances in Press. This is very useful if you work with more than one company on their press releases and other regulatory documents.

Floating Comment Window
Adding comments is now easier thanks to a floating comment window. You can now move the comment input box around and the background is not obstructed by the grey screen.

Exporting to HTML
All documents can now be exported in HTML along with Microsoft Word. 

Cancel and un-cancel Press Release from the Archives
This means that even though the press release is finished you can put the press release in the cancelled bucket so that it should never be published.  You can also now un-cancel the press release put it back into workflow.

Have any suggestions for what you think the next feature of Q4 Press should be? Contact Us or leave a comment. Thanks!  

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One very compelling reason to do so is the fact that material information extends beyond regulatory filings and core documents to potentially any communication. Information is material if its `omission or misstatement could influence a reasonable investor’s decision to buy, hold or sell securities in the company’. (In addition, information not considered to be material may become so when viewed in the context of other disclosures or as elements in a larger picture.)

Considering the threshold for materiality it’s surprising that most companies could not conclusively verify the content of their web site at a given time in order to address a regulatory or investor inquiry. Nor could they demonstrate that the proper approval process was followed in disclosing non-core information on the web site. (See full article for information on additional risks.)

To reduce risk associated to web site disclosure issuers should:

1. Develop comprehensive and practical disclosure controls and procedures to govern both core and non-core communications – including the corporate web site
2. Ensure that accurate, easily searchable records are captured to verify all web site content and associated approvals
3. Make certain that records are stored in a highly secure environment to prevent tampering
4. Ensure that records can be accessed quickly by a number of authorized people within your company

What should your record consist of?

1. Text and images
2. Presentations (PowerPoint, Flash, video, audio)
3. PDF documents
4. Information provided through data-feeds such as press releases, stock quotes, regulatory filings

In addition, it’s important to know not only what was on your site, but also, the context in which the user viewed your information (e.g. links to and from content, information positioned alongside other matter) in order to understand how impressions were formed.

Ways of Maintaining Accurate Web Site Records

There are several ways that one can achieve a web site record. Some methods are more accurate and/or time consuming than others. The various methods include:

1. Manual record keeping of all components
2. Page level versioning (a feature of some content management systems)
3. Site scraping (software that `scrapes’ your site at predetermined intervals in order to capture a record)
4. Integrated, real-time records capture system

The following chart highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Details on these methods and how to make some of them work better are included within the full article.

Technorati Tags: Bill 198, Sarbanes Oxley, MI 52-109, CEO and CFO Certification, SOX 302, SOX 404, Risk Management, Compliance, Disclosure controls, Disclosure, SEC, OSC

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