IR Website Best Practices – FREE Webinar

January 8th, 2010 by Sheryl Joyce
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IR_BPs_Jan14_10_imageTimes have changed but have your web communications kept pace? Today’s more discerning investor is more open to portfolio diversification – which may mean that you need to provide different information than you are offering now.

Join us on Thursday, January 14th at 4:00 p.m. ET as we share top IR Website improvements to meet today’s challenging economic environment.  If you’re involved in your company’s IR website, this webinar will show some great examples of best practices from the world’s leading organizations as well as innovative small cap companies and how you can apply them to your own website.

Register now and learn 3 critical improvements to make to your website in 2010:

  1. Key information to include for potential new investors in this economy.
  2. Using social media effectively to increase your reach (and website traffic) and to protect your share value – with case stories and examples.
  3. New interactive technologies – what kind of technologies increase user engagement and add value.

If you have any questions that you’d like us to address please leave a comment below and we’ll be sure to answer during the webinar.

IR Community Weighs in on Valuation placed on Good vs. Bad IR programs

January 5th, 2010 by Sheryl Joyce
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valuation_imageEvery Thursday @ 1:00 p.m. ET I participate in #irchat on Twitter.  It is a weekly event hosted by Dan Dykens, CEO of Meet the Street, an online matching network for non-deal roadshows, which electronically schedules meetings between the buy-side and corporate executives.

The session only runs an hour so Dan asks one question every 15 minutes which gives us time for usually about three to four questions.  He does a fantastic job of stimulating the conversation by asking thought provoking questions which creates a lot of debate among the experienced IR professionals who participate each week.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM Q4 WEB SYSTEMS

December 23rd, 2009 by Sheryl Joyce
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happy-holidays150Best wishes from everyone on the Q4 team for a wonderful holiday season!  We will be taking a short hiatus from our blog and Twitter to spend some time with loved ones.

We look forward to connecting with you in early 2010!

Leading IR Firm at Forefront of Developing Social Media Strategies for Investor Relations

December 16th, 2009 by Sheryl Joyce
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EQU_logoOver the course of 2009, I have connected with a lot of smart, seasoned IR professionals on Twitter. I have met IROs and IR consultants alike.  One great contact I have made is Trevor Heisler, an IR consultant at TMX Equicom (a TMX Group company).

With experience as both an in-house IRO and IR consultant, I know the day-to-day challenges that IR professionals face.  One newer challenge has been the question of whether to embrace social media as part of the broader communications strategy.  Although I am not a practicing IR professional anymore, I was curious to hear how consultants were dealing with this rapidly emerging topic.  With that, I asked Trevor to be interviewed with the goal of compiling tips that would help consultants handle client inquiries about social media.

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Equity Research Analyst Weighs in on the Social Web – podcast

December 14th, 2009 by Darrell Heaps
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Versant PartnersIn early October, I had the honour of partaking in an IR Think Tank session “Spotlight on Social Media” (put on by IR Magazine) in Toronto.   It was at this event that I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Liston an Equity Research Analyst and Director of Research at Versant Partners http://twitter.com/VersantPartners, a boutique investment dealer located in Toronto who was also sitting on the panel with me.

Since the think tank, I have had several conversations with Tom and learned how he leverages social media to gain a “first mover advantage” and how he (and other analysts) use Twitter, blogs, facebook and various other channels to gain a more detailed mosaic of the company.  I found it quite interesting to learn that in a number of cases Tom has read information on a blog or social network that caused him to dig in further.

Seemed the best way to share Tom’s views was through an interview.  Last week we spent about 25 minutes talking about the capital markets, research, investor relations and social media.  I encourage you to listen or download the audio file:

Download MP3 File (11 MB)

During the interview you’ll hear Tom’s thoughts on:

  • How his daily research activities have been affected by the social web
  • How he manages risk when obtaining information on financial blogs and social networks
  • Whether the use of social networks by a company influences his intent to cover them
  • What kind of content companies should be sharing
  • How financial blogs such as Seeking Alpha have changed the financial landscape

Hope you find it interesting.  Please let me know what you think.

Q4’s CEO Discusses all things Twitter, Social Media and Investor Relations

December 3rd, 2009 by Sheryl Joyce
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ir-alert_mainpage_dec_091An article in IR Alert featuring an interview with Q4’s CEO and Co-founder, Darrell Heaps, was issued today. The interview includes Darrell’s commentary on the increased adoption of Twitter by public companies and how they are specifically using it for Investor Relations (IR). He also provides his thoughts on the future of Twitter within IR and other social media developments he foresees on the IR horizon in 2010:

The social nature of the Web will continue. Facebook, Twitter, blogs and so on will continue to dominate and affect how the Web is used. Looking into 2010 and 2011, we will see more companies and IR departments embrace these tools and drive value from them. Those companies will benefit by taking early steps once the risk side is addressed. We will see a greater adoption rate of these tools, and there will be a lot of companies coming out to provide tools to help companies get the most out of the Web market.

There are a lot of great insights as well as what he deems as the three biggest mistakes a public company can make on Twitter and social media in general. Click here to read the entire article.

Case Study: Westport Innovations Shares Tips, Wins & Pitfalls of Using Social Networks

December 2nd, 2009 by Sheryl Joyce
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More and more public companies are adopting social networks as part of westport_logo_squaretheir communications strategy.  Of these early adopters, we are seeing some emerging trends.  For example, we found that 48% of the 350 companies analyzed in our recently issued report on the use of Twitter for IR are using Twitter to engage with their audience.

Some other trends we found include tweeting the earnings call, providing a link to a video on YouTube of the CEO talking about recently issued financials and reaching out to followers to submit questions they would like answered on the quarterly earnings call.

Westport Innovations was also included in our recent study.  While the company has only been using social networks for a short period of time they have already implemented some interesting ideas, had some early wins and realized some of its pitfalls.

We felt it would be useful to speak with Westport to learn more about their early experience with social media to help increase awareness for those who are still sitting on the sidelines.  So Q4’s CEO and co-founder Darrell Heaps and I recently spoke with Darren Seed, the company’s Senior Director of Investor Relations and Ryan Thompson, Multimedia Manager to learn more about their social media strategy.

The interview was recorded and you can Listen or Download:

Download MP3 File (1.5MB)

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Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight – use your ‘Voice of Authority’

November 30th, 2009 by Darrell Heaps
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knife-gun-fightOn Nov 11th, I had the pleasure to speak to the NIRI Tri-State chapter outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. The topic of the discussion was about social media and investor relations. During the Q&A portion of the session we focused on dealing with rumors and misinformation on blog posts and social networks.

The initial reaction by many IROs is to ‘not engage’ with these individuals and to simply ignore these tweets or blog posts. This approach is based on policies forged years ago related to message boards and chat rooms. The challenge with these boards is selective disclosure. It is difficult to answer one comment and not another because the non-answer may be seen as acceptance. So companies need to either answer all comments, or none. It’s not surprising that companies choose to not respond to any of the messages.

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Report Reveals 175% Increase in Adoption of Twitter for Investor Relations during Q3

November 18th, 2009 by Darrell Heaps
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We’re thrilled to release our latest quarterly report on the use of Twitter in investor relations.

In August 2009 we issued a report which analyzed 80 public companies and their use of Twitter during the Q2 2009 earnings season. Today we’re happy to announce some of the key findings from our Q3 2009 report.

pubcos-use-of-twitter-q3-20091
Since issuing our Q2 report in August, the growth in the number of public companies who have a Twitter account has grown by 270 or 338%. Of the 270 public companies the number who are using Twitter for IR increased by 77 or 175%. Although still small in terms of the potential universe, this report indicates a clear trend in that IROs are realizing that social networks are an effective medium to reach out and interact with stakeholders.

Here are some other key stats from the report:

  • 35% of our sample is using Twitter for investor relations.
  • 68% of the companies who use Twitter for IR are located in the U.S.
  • 53% provided a link to their earnings release only.
  • 48% actively engage with their followers through @replies and Retweets.

Get the FREE report today and you’ll learn:

  • Innovative ways public companies are sharing content.
  • How companies are engaging with their followers.
  • What sector the majority of early adopters are from.
  • What country has the most public companies using Twitter for IR.

Twitter and Investor Relations Research Report
Fill out the form below and we’ll email you the full PDF report. We will never share your information with anyone.