Polycom has whole-heartedly jumped into the social media pool. They incorporate Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and LinkedIn into their communications strategy and have several accounts for each channel. The company prominently displays this information on their website via a dedicated “Connect with Polycom using Social Media” in the newsroom section.
A review of how Polycom uses each channel revealed consistent messaging and current and up-to date information. Some of the senior management team also regularly tweet and are active bloggers providing additional commentary on an industry-related topic or company specific news. With it increasingly difficult to attract and retain investors in this economy, this sends a very clear message in terms of their transparency and their personal interest in listening to their stakeholders.
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On April 15th, Google issued an advisory release that instructed people to visit their IR website for their earnings and also included the following statement:
Google intends to make future announcements regarding its financial performance exclusively through its investor relations website.
Google is able to do this based on the SEC guidance from Aug 2008 regarding the use of websites for disclosure. This guidance states that under certain circumstances, companies can rely on their websites and blogs to meet public disclosure requirements under Reg FD.
As we all remember all too well, shortly after this regulatory change the market collapsed and this new channel quickly faded into the background, while most companies fought to survive the worst recession many of us have ever seen.
However, with 2009 behind us and the recovery underway, the first quarter of 2010 has seen the most activity on the web disclosure front yet, with a number of companies testing out new tactics. Let’s take a look at some examples.
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Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post that recounted a discussion that ensued on #irchat regarding one of Rivel’s research findings in late 2009 regarding IR’s role in a company’s valuation.
An interesting discussion developed when Dan Dykens, CEO of Meet the Street and host of #irchat asked “What do you think about Rivel Research’s buy-side survey which suggests that the valuation differential between good and bad IR is 35%?”
This question stirred up quite a debate, especially since no one had access to the methodology or a definition of what constitutes “good” vs “bad” IR. So the responses were based on the information we had.
Shortly thereafter, Brian Rivel, president of Rivel Research Group, the firm specializing in perception research for public companies posted the following comment:
Glad to see that this data sparked such a debate! One of our most popular findings, as you might imagine. Just as an FYI, the study goes on to define what IS superb IR, according to the buy-side. That result can’t be looked at in a vacuum. I would be happy to provide more flavor to anyone who is interested.
With that, I jumped at the chance and contacted him for an interview:
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In a recent edition of IR Alert, Jeffrey D. Morgan, CAE, President and CEO, National Investor Relations Institute cites “the top challenge facing IR now is regulation including moves to have companies become more transparent, governance changes and generally looking at corporate practices. Regulation is one of the key challenges right now. It’s evolving rapidly and where we’ll end up is not quite known.”
What follows is some of his advice to IR professionals for keeping pace in this rapidly changing regulatory environment. He also discusses current challenges and opportunities and ways to address them.
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I have spoken to many IROs about their use of social media. Some are exploring their options (and even have their own personal Facebook or Twitter account) to help them decipher what will fit in best with their company’s communications and overall business strategy. If they decide to move forward with some kind of social network, they are taking it slowly to see what evolves and how much of their time it will actually take up (see my recent blog about two companies who have gradually integrated Twitter and Facebook into their corporate strategy).
Others are sitting on the sidelines waiting for a RegFD violation from those who are using it or direction from the SEC on specific guidelines for its use (I wouldn’t hold my breath).
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As usual, there were a lot of great sessions to choose from at NIRI’s Annual Conference from June 7-10 in Florida. The Q4 team attended as many as we could which meant we didn’t always have the time to do write a blog post that day. What follows is an overview of a session I attended on Tuesday, June 9th entitled “Understanding IR Strategies Behind XBRL – IROs Evolving Role”.
Moderator/Lead Speaker:
Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Chairman, XBRL International
Panelist(s)/Co-Speaker(s):
Michael Becker, VP, Global Disclosure & Financial Reporting Services
Business Wire
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On June 10 I attended a panel discussion at the NIRI annual conference in Hollywood Florida entitled The Evolution of Financial Communication, which centred on social media. Michael Nowlan, President & CEO of Marketwire, the event sponsor, did an excellent job of moderating the discussion.
Panelists were: Timothy Carey, Managing Director, Digital Media, ICR, Inc; Ruth Cotter, Director, IR and Treasurer, Advanced Micro Devices; Eileen Cassidy Rivera, Vice President, Communications & Investor Relations, Vangent, Inc., and Darrell Heaps, President, CEO & Co-founder, Q4 Web Systems.
Michael opened the session by asking each panelist to introduce themselves and to describe their involvement /perspective on social media.
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Yesterday Catherine Crofton delivered our first webinar regarding removing the 5 barriers to an effective investor relations website. I come from a web development and media background so I was a bit green to all this IR stuff when I started at Q4 a couple of years ago. Needless to say I’ve been schooled the hard way and have learned internally and from our customers what issuers need to say to their investors.
One of the questions that stood out to me from yesterday’s webinar was when an attendee asked if we had any samples to show how small cap companies are leveraging the IR website best practices Catherine was speaking about. Catherine had shown great examples from some larger companies, namely, Nexen and Potash and explained how they have done a great job of conveying their messaging as well as making it easy for their audience to find information quickly. Read more…
On Feb 23, 2009 BGC Partners became one of the first widely known companies to utilize a ‘Notice-and-Access’ release for their quarterly earnings. This approach was based on the SEC’s guidance regarding using websites for disclosure under Reg. FD.Leading up to and following the announcement, a lot of online discussion took place about potential pitfalls. The day after the event, Dominic Jones of IR Web Report provided detailed commentary as to how the event unfolded.
As a follow up to this, I contacted Jason McGruder, VP Investor Relations at BGC Partners to find out why his company decided to utilize notice-and-access, how the process went and what the feedback had been from the market. Finally, I also asked what best practices Jason and his team could share so that other companies considering this approach could learn from their experience.
**Interview**
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Since the SEC released new guidance permitting public companies to (forgo using newswire services and) disclose material information on corporate web sites and blogs, it has been a wait and see period. Many of the issuers I spoke with across the US (as well as inter-listed Canadian companies) are intrigued at the prospect of reducing newswire costs, but do not want to pioneer the web disclosure model.
Instead some are taking steps to transition and ensure that they can meet the SEC’ s criteria (which contrary to what some people would have you believe, doesn’t mean you can just bury information in the bowels of your site and never tell a soul).
So for those of you who take comfort in knowing that others have gone before you, here’s a bit of news on some who are leading the way as well as thoughts on how to improve their approach:
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