You can view all of the hilarious posts here: http://investorrelationsthoughts.tumblr.com/ we selected few below to give you a taste.

When I’m adding Cool Features to My IR website.

Me While the CEO Answers Questions on @madmoneyoncnbc

The State of My Emotions Throughout an Earnings Call

At the beginning:

At the end of the prepared remarks:

After Q&A:

And finally my personal favorite:

When I see a Vendor at a #NIRI event.

Happy Friday Everyone!

1. What was your initial reaction to the SEC’s release?

The SEC ruling is positive. It illustrates that the SEC recognizes that social media is a vital evolution of Reg FD and in turn, an essential channel of communication for public companies and shareholders. It’s widely understood that this guidance was issued in the wake of the SEC’s Report of Investigation against Netflix, ultimately prompting the SEC to offer guidance for using social media to disclose material information. However, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.

The SEC guidance explicitly focuses on two areas of social media—Facebook and Twitter. However, there are hundreds of other social media channels that public companies utilize including Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare, to name a few. Our hope is that the SEC continues to issue additional guidelines on how companies should use other forms of social media to eliminate any potential for misinterpretation and/or Reg FD violations.

2. Will the release change anything that you’re doing now or in the future?

No. We are not going to change how we distribute or disclose corporate updates and/or other material information. Small cap companies like Safeguard are constantly working to get in front of as many eyes as possible. Newswire services like BusinessWire help us to achieve compliant, broad distribution in combination with posting material on our website and through social media channels. Our belief is that if we relied solely on Twitter and Facebook we would sacrifice SEO and other online marketing tactics that we employ.

3. What do you see as the value of using social media for IR?

Communications in general has shifted from a push model to a pull model. In combination with trying to get visitors to our website, we leverage social media channels to publish content where people consume relevant information such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, etc. Social media has enabled us to get more views and increase engagement.

We will continue to speak with our clients and prospects on this topic.  We will be sure to share any new interviews and commentary as this evolves in the market!

In the research we are doing at Q4, we are finding that while some early adopters of social IR are continuing to strive for new ways to use those channels further strategically, some others have dropped off the radar. PGi is a power user and have a dedicated investor Twitter account, which is a best practice that we recognize.

1. What is your initial reaction to the SEC’s release?

It is very positive. PGi was an early adopter of using social tools to communicate with the investor community. We are big proponents of leveraging technology – specifically communications technology – to create more full and fair disclosure with our investors. We applaud the SEC for its decision, as clearly, this is bringing investor relations into the 21st century.

2. Will the release change anything that you’re doing now or in the future?

PGi helped pioneer many of today’s common Social IR practices, and that was not without risk for us. We took a forward-looking approach toward leveraging new technologies and embracing new channels of distributing information, and we will continue to grow our social footprint. We want to develop as a thought leader in the space, help drive the adoption of these technologies and build our voice in the social IR spectrum within the investor community.

At the same time, we want to continue to enhance the relationships we have already established in social media. For example, PGi has a small but growing following on our Twitter investor handle (@PGiInvestor), and we are actively trying to build an audience. We also have a rapidly growing community that is following us on StockTwits. We are looking at ways we can actively build that audience as well.

Our goal for social media has shifted from making the information available to investors to now focusing on how we can build our audience and actively engage them in an ongoing, two-way dialogue.

3. What do you think the trend will be going forward for companies using social for IR?

PGi was one of the first to create a separate Twitter handle specifically for investor news. Part of it was that we wanted to make it very clear to investors where we want them to engage with us. It was also important to separate our news feeds to ensure everyone gets the information they are looking for; a lot of information on our general corporate handle is not very relevant to our investors, and vice versa.

One of the reasons why many IROs start using social media and eventually drop out is that they cannot clearly see the value their program is delivering to the investor community. Oftentimes social engagement can be passive, and unless you take an active role, you don’t know how many people are using your social feeds to digest your relevant corporate information. For example, a lot of our investors and analysts don’t follow our updates directly on StockTwits, but they enjoy the updates we post through the StockTwits platform on the Yahoo! Finance Market Pulse page.

I saw in a recent report that almost 40% of public companies are using social as a part of their IR strategy, which is huge growth from when we started. I think a lot of IROs were waiting for some clarity and guidance from the SEC because the IR profession by nature can be fear-based. IROs walk a tightrope of wanting to all play by the rules, but oftentimes, we are faced with regulations that are big and scary and not clearly defined. Reg FD can be difficult to navigate, and when you get into the social world, you are dealing with even greater uncertainty. Many of us had to take a leap of faith and bring along our legal teams and compliance departments when we added a social component to our IR programs.

The recent SEC ruling recognizes that social media is a legitimate way of distributing information as long as you are clear with your investors. It gives us a mandate to leverage social disclosure as part of a comprehensive IR program to drive incremental value for current and potential future investors by building out our communications strategy with these technologies.

4. There are a handful of companies that are filing 8-Ks that are disclosing the social channels that they are using. Are you guys planning on disclosing your channels in an 8-K or just continue on? It is obvious from your investor homepage that your company is quite active on social but do you anticipate having to use an 8-K now?

We want to be inclusive, not exclusive, in how we distribute relevant company information, so at this point we are going to continue to do a bit of everything: press releases, 8-Ks, social media postings, along with other traditional IR distribution methods like investor conference calls. I don’t think that we are going to stop anything we are doing anytime soon.

For me, social IR is less about which technologies you use to distribute information; it’s more about a mindset – a commitment to full and fair disclosure and a willingness to meet investors where they prefer to consume their information. This mindset challenges us to disclose more information and make our business even more transparent, while getting this information out as broadly as possible in the most timely and cost-effective manner. It’s a big challenge, and as a result, we are not going to stop using traditional means of IR communications anytime soon, even if our efforts are a bit redundant.

5. What value do you see in social media for IR?

Social media is where many of us are living our digital lives today. People from all walks of life are becoming increasingly comfortable and savvy at gathering the information they need through social platforms.

IROs are adopting social tools to tap into this growing trend, and because these technologies provide an easily accessible means to broadly distribute information in a timely, cost-effective manner, which is key to an effective IR program.

The fourth and final interview with Heather Hunter, Director, Marketing Communications at Safeguard Scientifics will be published on Friday, May 17th…

1. What was your initial reaction to the SEC’s release?

I was quite happy to see the SEC release acknowledging that social media can be an effective method for disseminating news … as long as it is used appropriately and in conjunction with other, standard means of dissemination and not as a stand alone communication tool (unless previously advertised by the company as such).  Social channels continue to grow in type and numbers.  I believe it is the responsibility of IR, in partnership with their corporate counsel, to determine the most appropriate channels of communication for their company.  (I also recognize this can be a challenging topic for legal teams to embrace.)

2. Will the release change anything that you’re doing now or in the future?

My corporate partner, Keith Eggleton, is the attorney who argued the Netflix case.  Keith and I have a great partnership and he has been very supportive as we discuss new and interesting ways that companies can augment disclosure practices.  We generally view social media as additive to traditional means of disclosure, certainly for a period of time until investors transition to become more comfortable with social content.

3. What do you see as the value of using social media for IR?

Consistency and clarity!  A well-written blog post can save countless hours of phone calls and email.  A video post can deliver facial expression, tone of voice and intent of message much better than an email – and all of this serves to reach investors faster than travel or waiting for the next conference.  By using social tools, I find that our messaging is received cleaner, clearer and quicker by a larger audience than would have otherwise been possible.

Stay tuned for part 3, with Sean O’Brien, EVP Strategy & Communications at PGi

1. What was your initial reaction to the SEC’s release?
2. Will the release change anything that you’re doing now or in the future?
3. What do you see as the value of using social media for IR?

We uncovered some similarities among the responses as follows:

•    The SEC’s guidance is overdue, but is a step in the right direction as it validates that they acknowledge public companies are using social media.
•    In general, the guidance really doesn’t change much for any of the respondents, as they will continue to use social as part of an extension of their communications.
•    All strongly feel that social media helps provide more context around their company and helps foster two-way dialogue with their key audiences.
•    All will continue to develop their Social IR practices, with the goal of refining their program to meet the needs of their investors.

What follows is the first interview in the series from Robert Williams, Vice President, IR, Dell Inc.

1. What was your initial reaction to the SEC’s release?

The SEC should be commended for addressing the issue but they did leave a lot of room for interpretation that causes IRO’s to error on the side of conservatism.  Hopefully they encourage more companies to be more forward thinking in how they deploy social media.  At the very least, it will start conversations at those companies that have been conservative in their adoption of social media.

To that point, it is a definitely a catalyst for companies to reassess their disclosure methods.  You still have to consider your company’s audience and whether they use social media (many financial institutions are restricted from accessing social media).  Once you’ve notified investors of the various channels of distribution, you need to establish a pattern of use so they know where to look for information. We believe most companies will continue to use press releases with social media as a supplement.

2. Will the release change anything that you’re doing now or in the future?

It does not change anything for Dell.  We were one of the early adopters of social media, first launching DellShares in 2007.  We will continue to use social media as a supplemental way to reach our shareholders along with the traditional means of press releases & filings.  We see the value in using a broad range of tools to get our message out.  And we continue to explore new ways to use social media that our shareholders find valuable – such as tweeting earnings releases & analyst meetings, and posting short vlogs with our executive team members.

3. What do you see as the value of using social media for IR?

The value of social media in IR is extending your reach to shareholders in a way that is more conversational than traditional press releases and presentations – democratizing information.  It opens up a dialogue between you and your shareholders.  It allows you to share investor content socially, across platforms where your audience lives.  You are able to share & react to news and insight about your company and address misperceptions that exist.  By developing a social strategy in IR, you are taking a proactive approach and becoming part of (and helping to form) the conversation about your company.

Stay tuned for part 2, with Laura Graves, Vice President of IR, Polycom, Inc.

Pulling in RSS feeds from the IR website or blog to populate Facebook pages

Companies are increasingly configuring an RSS feed to populate their Facebook pages, and there seem to be several ways to tackle this from the company’s perspective. Many companies simply add news items and blog posts to their Facebook wall as they are published, but may also have a separate page for an RSS feed for these, grouping their press releases, articles and blog posts together.

News

Apache Corporation, for example, uses an RSS feed for their corporate news:

http://www.facebook.com/ApacheCorporation/app_23798139265

Using an RSS feed like this on Facebook keeps all of their relevant news in one place, so visitors can more easily weed out other Facebook activity and scan the news to quickly find what they need. By clicking on the title of the news item, visitors are linked to the source, usually the corporate website. Apache also links to their corporate news page, so visitors have a way to easily subscribe to the companies’ RSS feeds. 

The Timken Company uses a slightly different application on Facebook to share their news. They use an RSS feed to show the most recent five or six news items (quarterly results, executive appointments, conference information). It clearly identifies it as a ‘News’ feed, and each news item links visitors back to the Timken corporate website newsroom:

http://www.facebook.com/timken/app_56625786785

Companies that post their press releases only on their Facebook wall feed as opposed to grouping them all in one place (such as a news or RSS page) put the onus on the reader to scroll through pages of threads to find what they are looking for. Having a separate news page with links to the company’s corporate website can help alleviate any frustration visitors feel from having to go through several pages of information.

Below we have provided some other examples of News/RSS feeds on public company Facebook pages:

• Cord Blood America http://www.facebook.com/cbai.usa/app_56625786785?ref=ts
• Dell SonicWall, Inc. http://www.facebook.com/SonicWALL/app_56625786785
• Fiserv, Inc. http://www.facebook.com/Fiserv/app_23798139265

Blogs

A common trend with respect to corporate blogs is to provide a link to them from Facebook.

For example, Rackspace has a link to their corporate blog, but also goes a little further by displaying all the recent entries (see below) in their Facebook account. They include a ‘Follow’ link that lets users subscribe to their blog activity – we especially like how they have each blog post listed that links back to their website. They provide the first few sentences from each one so visitors don’t have to rely on the title alone or click the link to see if they are interested in reading the entire piece.

http://www.facebook.com/rackspace?sk=app_9953271133

Iberdrola does not use a blog link, but posts individual blog entries on their Facebook wall. They provide a title and first sentence of the blog, and link it to their corporate website:

http://www.facebook.com/Iberdrola

Aruba Networks previously used the ‘Notes’ page to gather all their blog posts, but they seem to be moving toward something similar to AGCO’s practice. In July 2012, Aruba Networks added a Note about their new online blog, linking to the new site, directing readers to the source. Notably, they have kept news items separate, sharing them as regular Facebook posts on their wall: http://www.facebook.com/arubanetworks?sk=notes.

The third part in this series, will talk about how companies are using multimedia such as video and photos to highlight particular aspects of the business.

As a Sales Support Specialist you will work closely with an assigned (highly experienced) territory sales director who will lead your team. Your role will be to work with marketing generated leads or identified prospects to coordinate meetings for the territory director. You will attend sales calls/meetings and be responsible for follow up and internal procurement of information required.

The successful candidate will be comfortable working with Salesforce (our CRM), calling prospects, and working closely with their territory director to support and help maximize closed deals. You will share in the success of your team through a commission on total team sales.

The role is best suited for driven, sales-focused individuals that work well within small teams and on their own. The role is perfect for those willing to work hard and get paid well for doing it.

Job Duties:

• Calling prospects and qualifying for sales calls with territory director
• Attending sales calls/meetings, following up with materials
• Managing CRM data and generating reports for prospect campaigns
• Generating and following up on proposals
• Managing sales collateral and updating as new information becomes available
• Facilitating IT due diligence, procurement/legal requirements
• Other duties to be assigned

After Twitter, we have found that Facebook is the second most used channel by public companies for IR. For each report, we take an in-depth look at some of the most common practices of the companies who use Facebook to effectively share information and engage with investors.  Based on these observations, we have come up with a list of some of the trends and developments segmented under the following categories:

• Emulating the look and feel of the corporate website homepage
• Pulling in RSS feeds from the IR website or blog to populate Facebook pages
• Using Notes and customizable pages to provide additional information around company assets, highlight important events or underscore sustainability initiatives
• Precise commenting guidelines and terms of use
• Directing visitors to other social channels
• Linking to financial blogs
• Expanded use of multimedia such as video and photos to highlight particular aspects of the business

So today, we will begin a multi-part series where we highlight best practice examples of companies from the aforementioned categories.

Emulating the look and feel of the corporate website homepage

An emerging trend we saw in our last report was the use of a stand-alone welcome page, with many companies emulating the look and feel of their corporate website homepage. Since that report, however, Facebook underwent a significant design change, standardizing much of the format, effectively giving everyone, company and individual alike, a similar yet customizable format called ‘Timeline’.

The new format, available worldwide as of mid-December 2011, allows individuals and organizations more flexibility, not just with design, but also with content. Companies can now more easily organize, prioritize and resurrect content, as well as choose and highlight what shows up on their timeline, and even hide posts.

To illustrate Facebook’s format change, we have provided a screen capture of Chesapeake Energy’s former Welcome Page (from 2011), followed by their new Facebook landing page (August 2012).

http://www.facebook.com/Chesapeake?sk=app_206670162678585

2012 FACEBOOK PAGE

http://www.facebook.com/Chesapeake

Facebook’s Timeline format allows companies to easily brand themselves – with their logo, tagline, and stock corporate photography, as with the Chesapeake example. Notice how similar the pictures and graphics above are to Chesapeake Energy’s corporate website landing page (below). Visitors will be able to easily and immediately identify the company’s Facebook page.

2012 CORPORATE WEBSITE

http://www.chk.com/Pages/default.aspx

Welcome pages on Facebook have not disappeared, as we can see with this example from Fiat Group below. If visitors go to their Facebook page, there is a ‘Welcome’ tab at the top of the screen, which brings you to this:

http://www.facebook.com/FiatS.p.a/app_4949752878

This kind of summary welcome is a great way to organize all the ways a visitor can connect with your company. The various social media icons on Fiat Group’s welcome page are dynamic, so all a user has to do is click on one of the icons to go directly to the other networking platform.

Old Mutual is another example of a great, well-branded, and dynamic Facebook page. Once a visitor is on Old Mutual’s Facebook landing page, they can click on the ‘Home’ tab and be directed here:

http://www.facebook.com/oldmutual/app_192803134166102

This ‘home’ page on Facebook effectively takes the place of the corporate website, and users can click on any of the links, videos, news announcements. Unfortunately, Old Mutual barely uses Facebook as a social networking site, with no discussions posted on their Timeline at all. However, their presence, as minimal as it is, does a great job of directing visitors to where they can get all the information they need.

In addition, having a Facebook account will help Old Mutual monitor what is being said on this channel. And in the event there is a question posted there, or in any cases of incorrect or malicious information being shared on Facebook, the company can respond accordingly.

The second part in this series, will talk about how companies are configuring an RSS feed to populate their Facebook pages.

For companies looking to use social media as a channel of disclosure we are happy to announce our new Social Media archiving feature in Q4 Web: 3.8.2. Now, all social media published through Q4 Web will be archived along with our industry leading web disclosure records. Social channels supported in this first release include Twitter, Facebook, StockTwits & SlideShare.

Each social media update is recorded in the clients database, including the channel published to the account, the content, and all links included in the content. For Twitter, Facebook and Stocktwits a receipt record is also archived verifying the time it was published on that channel.

Starting back in 2008 Q4 led the market with the release of our web disclosure records, which archives web page content for every change made to any Q4 Web client’s website. Today we’re thrilled to expand this archiving capability to include any social updated published through Q4 Web.

We are big supporters of the use of social media and feel that this new archiving capability will help companies utilize social media in an effective and compliant manner. The new social media archiving will be included automatically, at no charge to all Q4 Web clients starting at the end of May, further details to follow.

For more information please comment below or drop a note to info@q4websystems.

We all know that there has been a slow adoption in the marketplace of the SEC’s 2008 guidance on using websites as a recognized channel of disclosure. Although we had some activity on this front in 2010 and subsequently shared a post about some early adopters. Many IROs had similar concerns about using webcasting during conference calls as they did regarding IR websites. More often than not these issues included regulatory liability, as well as the extra time and effort required in adding another layer to an already lengthy process, whether or not investors are using these tools, and the return on investment.  It actually comes as no surprise that these same issues are cited today by IROs about using social media for IR.

Today, it is unthinkable for a public company to not have a corporate website, as it has become one of the first places analysts, investors and the financial media go to for current company information. One would also be hard-pressed to name a company who doesn’t webcast their quarterly conference call. So just like the market evolved to embrace websites and webcasting as best practices for communicating with shareholders, the SEC’s ruling is also a step in the right direction in encouraging companies to use social media in conjunction with the other tools in their IR arsenal.

We have written many posts on our blog on the importance of companies doing their own analysis to discern whether social media should be incorporated as part of their IR communications. In addition, through our extensive research, our goal has been to show IROs how their peers are using social channels to better their relationship with investors. So we are going to refrain from making any sweeping comments on the pros and cons of using social media for IR.  Here are some of our more popular posts:

• Best Practices for live-tweeting investor events
• How to get the C-suite to embrace social media
• WWE Shares advantage of having a dedicated Twitter account for IR

Q4’s CEO, Darrell Heaps was asked by IR Magazine to weigh in on the SEC’s social media guidance:

When the SEC release came out a lot of people have focused on the black-and-white issue of whether companies would use social media exclusively for disclosure versus utilizing it as an added component of disclosure. Although interesting, I believe this misses the point. I think the important thing about the SEC release is less about the black-and-white disclosure issue and more about the SEC’s support of social media use in the market.

Coincidentally, shortly after the SEC issued its’ guidance on social media, Bloomberg announced it would be including Twitter as a news source into their terminals. And due to a flash crash that occurred due to a false tweet, we saw how intertwined Twitter is now with Wall Street.

Darrell goes on to say:

A case in point is the inclusion of Twitter as a news source into Bloomberg – which I think will have a bigger impact to the market than the SEC release. By integrating Twitter into Bloomberg, companies now have a direct connection to institutional investors, like they’ve never had before. This is part of an overall trend with social media being integrated into institutional desktops and decision-making. Bloomberg is the leader – all other desktops to follow.

Further evidence of this is the recent flash crash based on a fake tweet. This showed us for first time, how deeply integrated Twitter is into computerized trading.

The reason why public companies should be using social media has never been stronger. Combining the awareness and liquidity benefits with a direct connection to the institutional investors, it is clear the social media & IR is here to stay.