The 25 most valuable Blogs in the US – 2011

Social Media — 4 Trends To Watch in 2012: http://huff.to/uIiBoS

How Investors Select Financial Advisors: http://bit.ly/vVKi5w

6 Reasons Most Infographics Don’t Cut It: http://rww.to/voBYCR

SEC Releases New Draft on EDGAR Filing Manual: http://ir4.me/tBSwZ

Eye-Tracking Study Finds iPhone, iPad Draw More Attention Than Android Devices: http://t.co/5x8Dak71

Social Media Monitoring: You re Doing It Wrong: http://bit.ly/sXAu7q

TMX board recommends Maple Group takeover bid: http://tgam.ca/DC4R

Groupon’s IPO: What you need to know: http://on.mash.to/vHASB3

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The methodology and complete findings of the study can be accessed here: http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesandresearch/2011fortune500/.

Here’s some highlights from the latest findings:

Blogs in the 2011 F500

• 114 (23%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2011 F500 have a public-facing corporate blog with a post in the last 12 months (this compares to 16% in 2008, 22% in 2009 and 23% in 2010).
• In 2011, companies in the specialty retail space had more blogs than companies in the computer software, peripherals and office equipment (who all previously had the most blogs in 2008, 2009 and 2010).
• Almost one third of the F500 blogs continue to come from the top 100 ranked companies.
• In 2011, 91% of the F500 blogs take comments, have RSS feeds and allow users to sign up for email subscriptions (compared to 90% in 2009 and 2010).

Corporate Twitter Accounts

• 308 (62%) have corporate Twitter accounts with a tweet in the past 30 days (compared to 60% in 2010).
• Specialty Retail companies (Home Depot, Lowe’s) have the most Twitter accounts (25), followed by food-related companies (23) (including Kroger, Walgreen’s and McDonald’s).
• Of the 308 companies with Twitter accounts, Google has the highest number of followers, followed by Whole Foods, Starbuck and Southwest Airlines.
• 49% of the Twitter accounts belong to the companies in the top 200 on the list (see chart below).

Corporate Facebook Pages

• 289 (58%) of the 2010 F500 are now on Facebook (compared to 56% in 2010).
• 48% of the top 200 have a corporate Facebook page while 35% of the bottom use this tool.
• Insurance companies continue to be the most company on Facebook, followed by Specialty Retail, and Food, Drug and Consumer Products.
• Utilities companies are the least likely to have corporate Facebook pages.
• Coca-Cola has the most Facebook fans, followed by Starbucks, McDonald’s then Wal-Mart.

The authors conclude that these latest findings may indicate a leveling off of the adoption of Blogging, Facebook and Twitter among the 2011 F500. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues. We’ll be sure to update the next round of findings.

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That’s why we’ve decided to put together a list of some interesting things we’ve been reading and subsequently sharing with our followers for the week of July 18, 2011:

Is the SEC redefining Insider Trading: http://t.co/XMYHB2B

Google+, Investor Relations and Lawyers’ Panic Attacks: http://bit.ly/mOXqND

First Level 1 ADR company gets verified StockTwits Account: http://t.co/JgR0L4S

55% buy-side expect Twitter for Investor Comms to increase over next year: http://bit.ly/o6Yi2S

Why No One Should Believe Apple’s Earnings Guidance: http://t.co/BzymxAj

Trader pleads guilty to threatening financial regulators: http://nyti.ms/nPQMv6

Social Networking Policy: Write Now or Regret Later: twb.io/jQNBP5

CSA finds 55% of issuers reviewed deficient in corporate governance disclosure: http://post.ly/2TvPv

The next five social media trends and their impact on marketing: http://bit.ly/ohNa3l

Happy Reading!

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Outside of some technical problems I had with the laptop, I think the session went really well and there were some great takeaways. The full one-hour webinar is embedded here, followed by what I consider to be the highlights.

The Highlights

When considering financial blogging the first thing to note is that the majority of institutional investors now read blogs and a third of them do so on a weekly basis. And even though only 9% cite Twitter as an information source, 66% of financial bloggers (who’s blogs they are reading) say Twitter is a primary news source. So the key thing to understand is the information “food chain” in financial content.

Rather then provide a complete transcript of the session I thought I would share some of the most insightful questions and answers:

Is the universe of financial blogging growing and if so, why?

Howard – Yes I think it’s definitely growing in size. I think financial blogging has been revised because of Twitter and StockTwits. When I first looked at Twitter I thought “sharing stock ideas would make a lot of sense” ….. The key of blogging growth comes from the fact that people on Twitter and StockTwits can test their ideas.

Well, if you write you become a better trader. Period, End of story. If you read you can become a better trader -not for sure, but if you follow really smart people in an ambient way as I have done for years and I make my own case study and my results have been proven by a thousand percent. Not because I’m a better trader, but because I have better habits. That comes from learning from people that repetitively do things.

Has the universe of coverage increased the number of companies being covered?

Zack – I agree with Howard in that the pie has certainly gotten bigger. A few years ago at Seeking Alpha there was coverage on about 3000 companies, not all with the same rigor, as a sell-side analyst would have, but certainly coverage and ideas. Blogging definitely brings companies to the forefront that could never see the light of day before, because there was no liquidity in the stock. But today things are very different, and because of this I think there is a bull market in financial content now.

In regards to the buy-side, things are totally different. Social media is about two components; one as a communication medium and the other as a learning medium – which is the tradesteam (that Howard was referring to).

The key thing with the buy side is that they are going to go anywhere they can get good information, including the web, blogs, social media, etc. We have a liquid market of information online right now. The buy side is not only consuming information but they are also producing it.

I think (financial content) is a great place to be right now.

How do you see the Yahoo message boards of yesterday as different from the financial blogs of today?

Mitch – People are a lot smarter and there is much more transparency. You don’t always know who the blogger is (in fact many great articles come from anonymous sources). It’s a question of the quality, you have an extremely diligent short position on a blog or something that has been built up over time on StockTwits and points to a longer form of research. There is no ignoring that. If you’re a company that takes your reputation seriously and care about investor relations then this is something you need to take seriously. I think that’s the difference.

Zack – I think we’ve gotten a mix of people trying their hand at it and certainly more people doing it. However, it’s really a long tail concept and there is going to be a lot of junk out there. That cesspool that was the Yahoo! message board attracted most of that, but tools like StockTwits, Seeking Alpha and other social media technologies are helping us to bubble up better people now, than previously.

What is the motivation for why financial bloggers blog?

Howard – it comes down to 4 main reasons: 1. Money 2. Fame 3. Build their brand 4. To push stock (I think there are a lot of fakes out there). On that note, I think people that talk about very small kept stocks are people that cannot be followed on the web. If you were going to talk about small kept stocks then I would say that your reason for doing this is truly not scalable and I have a problem with it.

So why are bloggers doing it? You’re either doing to sell a subscription, for fame, or to build your brand – and some people do it to move stock. People used to use email and 50 cent moved a penny stock because he had a few million people following him on Twitter. There are people that have really sneaky intent. People have to use these filters to sort the good from the bad, but the reality is that it’s ‘buyer beware’.

Was Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings right to respond to a short sellers post on Seeking Alpha?

Mick – I think it was great. A hedge fund manager comes out and presents a rigorous case raising serious issues against your company’s stock. And what Hastings did was a great way to respond. I think it was a model for how other CEOs could respond to intelligent and critical writing about the company.

Zack – He took a lot of flack by traditional media that Hastings responded this way. Originally at Seeking Alpha we brought CEOs in to have a discussion with investors. Providing access to CEOs to smaller investors that they typically wouldn’t have. This venue creates that access which is a good thing for the market in general.

Are investors interested in hearing direct from company CEOs and Executives?

Mick – Smart investors always want access to management and given the opportunity they will certainly look for ways to interact.

Zack – If you look at it as a level playing field in terms of the discourse, institutional investors get access to mgmt. You pick up the phone and get Reed Hastings on the phone and he’ll tell you why Tilson is wrong. With the blog post it provides this level of access to all investors.

Is it true that investors don’t want to access content direct from companies due to spin?

Zack – in general smart investors are interested in hearing all different opinions. Social networks help to bubble up the good ideas. Good investors want to hear from the shorts and the long positions as well as directly from the company. This helps investors to make informed decisions.

NovaGold’s approach to dealing with a short position post on Seeking Alpha. Rather than commenting or posting into Seeking Alpha directly, they posted on their own site and focused on the same topic. Do you think that this tactic is effective? Or should they have commented or linked back directly?

Mick – anytime you respond to something online you should link to it. If you don’t, acknowledge you’re missing the point. I don’t think companies should be afraid to do it on another platform. Today’s web is open, real-time, real-voice. Companies need to be on the platforms as much as their compliance department allows them. To get into discussion mode, the reason why it could be damaging is because it raises real issues about the company. Then deal with it head on and jump in with both feet.

If the post has errors then address them. If there are open questions then state them. “We have other questions and smart people working on them”, etc.

Zack – I agree with Mick. It seems like there is a legacy issue of the wild west and Yahoo! message boards. Where you had trolls ready and waiting to be negative on everything. So I think a lot of issuers still feel the need to control the conversation.

I guess that’s the fear and I agree with Mick that at some point, for everyone’s benefit we need to get over that fear. You can still control the message and who can keep the bad information out and keep everything controlled. More than everything you have to let go a bit and that can be damaging, ultimately the conversation should work out.

Is it possible for companies to improve coverage they obtain through financial bloggers?

Mick – it’s a tough thing to always obtain positive coverage. The first step is to start using these channels. Start sharing content and putting the company out there in an aggressive broadcast mode is where to start.

You’ll find that the blogosphere will pick up on that content, if it’s of quality.

Zack – first is you can’t put lipstick on a pig. So first you need to have a good story. There was a great post by James Altucher (a StockTwits blogger) about a small cap tobacco company of which he did some really good research. The company didn’t initiate it. He did it on his own. I don’t think the company could have seeded a post like that, it had to be discovered and shared on it’s own.

The above questions and answers are only highlights from the session. I suggest you set aside the time and listen to the complete webinar when you have the time. In addition to the questions I’ve hightighted there is truly some great insights.

I hope you liked it and will join us on our next webinar.

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“Readers will still have access to the same great content they have come to expect from our blog“, said Darrell Heaps co-founder and CEO of Q4 Web Systems, “with a continued overarching objective of striving to have the blog serve as a key resource to IR professionals – which is currently accomplished by staying apprised of and sharing news relevant to IROs such a changes in the regulatory environment and online IR best practices“.

We will continue to share findings from our active research into IR website and social media best practices and to inform readers of upcoming Q4 events such as our thought-leading webinars.  One of the goals behind the redesign was to help our readers connect with us and each other easily by leveraging the Disqus’ comment system, enabling sharing with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and through our new Connect with Q4 page.

While the content will continue to be geared towards material relevant to IR professionals, more popular content will float to the surface through our Featured and Headline sections on the homepage.  Some new items have been added to enhance the user experience as well. For example, we have incorporated a few things that don’t require users to have to dig for information by including a listing of popular categories and a new Product Tour page.

Our ‘Product Tour’ page had been updated so visitors can learn more about our products and features through one easy click and give us feedback on new product ideas we’re cooking up.

We also provide a tally of the tweet counts and likes in the upper-left hand of each post so visitors can see what others think and aggregate the latest tweets so readers can stop on top of what we are sharing on our Q4 Web Systems Twitter account.

Our goal with this redesign is to help our readers connect with us easier and get feedback about our products and service offerings, what do think about the new blog?

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In February of this year, Dominic Jones of IR Web Report did a great post that detailed how Dell ‘leveraged an impressive array of popular social media services, including Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare, and its own investor relations blog’, for their Q4 and year-end results.

Recently, Darrell Heaps, co-Founder and CEO of Q4 caught up with Rob Williams, VP of IR and his IR team at Dell that includes David Eagan and Kristy Harris, along with the company’s social media team that is lead by Lionel Menchaca and Susan Beebe about how the began their social media journey, why they decided to increase the number of channels for their financial results and how the two groups collaborated to share and update the company’s Q4 and year-end information on various social media.

You can pick up the interview with the first the question ‘How did Dell get started using social media’ by clicking the play button below.

Q4 Interview – A chat with Dell about Social Media and IR by darrellheaps

The interview reveals some innovative ways the company uses to maximize the efforts they put into their IR blog such as garnering feedback from their institutional investors through regular surveys.  They also discuss concrete results that show an expanded reach that is directly related by using additional channels such as Twitter, StockTwits and SlideShare.

What follows are some of the highlights and key takeaways from the interview:

IN THE BEGINNING

How did Dell begin its social media journey?

[Rob] The social media team here at Dell was instrumental in convincing the IR team to start the DellShares blog. Based on what the social media team was doing, the IR team was convinced that it was probably the right thing to do for our department as well.  Around the same time, we increasingly began using YouTube.

What were your initial objectives in using these tools from an IR point of view?

[Rob] Being a technology company, we looked at this as an opportunity to have a one-to-many relationship where we could effectively broadcast and get our message out in a much more effective and efficient way.

IROs spend a lot of their time talking about their company on the phone with securities analysts and portfolio managers.  Establishing this one-to-many medium made it a much more efficient way for us to get that information out there to the investor and analyst community.  And it actually enhanced the conversations that we were having on a follow-up basis because we knew that we had established a base level of understanding about a particular topic.

How have the results been in using the blog and YouTube?

[Rob] We’ve had really good results.  We’ve done survey work now on a couple of different occasions and found (of the 1,000 folks or so that are on our distribution lists), about 50% are reading our blogs and our vlog; with a breakdown of about 60% buy side and about 36% of the sell side.  Which shows us that we’re getting good coverage and good readership.

EXPANDED USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES

You recently expanded your social media activities to include Twitter, StockTwits and SlideShare.  What was the reason for this and how has that been going?

[Kristy] We considered incorporating these channels before, but we just didn’t have the bandwidth or know if we would have a strong following.  And honestly, after seeing you speak at a NIRI luncheon in November of last year as well as having Lionel from our social media group on the panel, we then decided to take a test on it and see what type of reach we would get. And that’s when David Eagan stepped up and took the ownership of leading the Twitter effort and incorporating it into our earnings process.

TWITTER

[David] Although we did use Twitter before this, in a very passive way to auto-post from our blogs and we actually accumulated 800-900 followers that way. Then once we started engaging them and posting other things on Twitter, our followers have increased to nearly 2,500 now.

[Kristy] So then we decided to do Q3 and we definitely had a large reach in the five million range, and that was actually far greater than what we could get just through using DellShares and sending out an email blast.  So because of that success we decided to start being more active there, not only doing Q3 earnings, but any big announcements that may come out, we would send out a tweet on that.  Or, you know, being more proactive in terms of, hey, we’re going to have a vlog that’s coming up and we’re open to considering some questions during this vlog.  And solicited feedback at that time as well.

Can you give me some more insight into what the five million is based on?

[Susan] We use Radian6 to help us monitor, which is where we got our stats.  We were also able to see an uptick in the traffic and mentions in the conversation during the live tweets – it was very interesting to see that.  And then, of course, after the event was over we saw a continued conversation but it wasn’t a sharp spike, but rather a sustained resonance on the web about this whole conversation. We had great earnings, there also was a lot of conversation about what Dell was doing with IR conversations online.

STOCKTWITS

[Susan] I’m going to let David answer that, as he was actually the brainchild and put forth the effort toward researching how StockTwits works and how we could use this channel as well.

[David] StockTwits is basically a community of investors on Twitter that just only invest.  So by doing that we really were able to pinpoint the people we were trying to reach.  So by using the StockTwits platform we were able to get some of this information out on Yahoo!Finance and on CNN Finance where a lot of either eyes are, as opposed to just using Twitter by itself.

SLIDESHARE

[Lionel] We’ve been experimenting with SlideShare as a company overall, for earnings results every quarter.  It wasn’t until recently we had the functionality to embed a SlideShare post directly into a Dell blog post or any of our blogs.  So the Q4 results was really the first time we uploaded a quarterly presentation on SlideShare and embed it into one of our blog posts.

We discussed it initially and thought, hey, this is just another way to share information that we’ve been sharing on Dell.com and other places already.  So we wanted to see if this was something that people find value in. The presentation has had a lot of views on SlideShare with about 1200 around the time we reported.  As of the week ending March 18, the number of views has increased to 1483 that answers the question for us.

What’s the concerted and the consolidated effort that’s going on here at Dell, is that we’re utilizing the capabilities and the expertise of investor relations of our social media teams of each of the product and the strategy teams and the different, you know, product lines of our businesses.  And we’ve taken the best and the brightest and the best ideas across the entire organization and we’re looking for ways to integrate that into– and use social media as a way to get information out whether it’s strategy, whether it’s about products, whether it’s about our earnings announcements and our results.  Or another topic like, you know, sustainability or socially responsible investing.

I mean, we’re really looking at this as a way to really take the best ideas from across the organization and broadcast it out to the investing community in ways that are very, very efficient and that help to give people a better understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish here at the company.

ENGAGEMENT

One topic that comes up frequently is engagement – especially around social media and the use of all these channels for investor relations.

And I would define engagement being an action dialogue between an investor and yourself through some social media channel.  And there is some perspectives or some– post gets written out there on the web that says if there’s no engagement then the success of the program isn’t there, or that engagement equals success in IR.

And I was wondering from your perspective, if you feel that that’s accurate or how engagement and the objective of engagement fits into your model and how you’re using all these tools?

[Rob] I think you have to take a step back and ask yourself how do you define success with some of these new tools.  Here are a couple of facts and figures to ponder:

• 60% of investors believe that social media will become more important in making investment decisions.  So when folks in our industry and our profession are polled, it’s clear that the investment community is in a broad way using these tools.
• Over 40% today are currently reading blogs and following up on information that they find in blogs and vlogs.  And we find that to be true in our own experiences.
• And 20% have made investment decisions based on information they have read on a blog.

I don’t measure engagement and success based on how many blog posts we receive.  I measure it based on the feedback that we get and the responses that we’re getting through phone calls, through email and through other mediums.

So when I look at what we’ve done over just two quarters with the use of Twitter and StockTwits and these other tools that we’ve begun to use more actively recently, we know that we’ve grown our reach from 1.5 million initially then to 5 million to 12 million.

[Rob] And so these are big numbers.  And I think it’s highly indicative of where this is going and where it can go.  And the last point I would make is that this is the reality of the environment that we find ourselves in today, and if we don’t embrace these new tools and technologies, then we’re not doing the right thing.

If you would have asked someone 110 years ago what they wanted in terms of transportation, they would have told you that they wanted you to breed a faster horse.  Well, guess what?  That’s not where it went.  I mean, today we’re, you know, building hybrid cars and electric cards and that’s where it is today.

And if you look at what’s happening today with communications and disclosure, we’re moving from a world where it was very paper based into a world where it’s very much based in the Internet and on social media.  And we just have to recognize that those changes are happening and we need to embrace that change and drive it forward and do it in a way that’s efficient.  And so we believe the engagement, it’s there, it’s just that the classic measures don’t really capture what’s really happening.

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As it is earnings season there was a very low turnout.  In spite of this, I had a good conversation with @trevorheisler. Thanks also goes out to @fredmcclimans for joining us near the end.

Q1: ‘Is anyone surprised at Microsoft’s move to website disclosure?’

@trevorheisler: ‘Not really. Sure other mega caps will follow.’
@q4websystems: ‘Do u think smaller co’s will still think it’s not for them?’
@trevorheisler: ‘For the most part, yes. They don’t have the same level of awareness in the markets or online.’

@q4websystems: ‘Agree. But what about multipronged approach as suggested by marketwire: http://bit.ly/c4Hvjh?’
@q4websystems: ‘I agree smaller co’s don’t have much awareness in mkt, but dissem. releases over newswires is costly.’
@trevorheisler: ‘I agree that a multi-pronged approach is the way to go for smaller companies needing to generate awareness.’

@q4websystems: ‘Smaller co’s may think it will stymie the reach of their news & Newswires argue won’t get sent 2 Bloomberg, DJ.’
@q4websytems: ‘Investment portals get notified once co files their release with edgar, so argument re: not reaching key media IMO is moot.’
@trevorheisler: ‘Agreed, newswire dissemination can be expensive, but there are ways to minimize that cost.’
@trevorheisler: ‘Companies that include financial statements could save newswire costs by just linking to financials on website.’

@q4websystems: ‘@irwebreport has made a good point here: http://bit.ly/avqaIC re: providing earnings releases in mult. formats and….’
@q4websystems: ‘Using social media 2 increase awareness by posting release & earnings pres on Slideshare (which sld also b posted on IR website).’
@trevorheisler: ‘Don’t forget the IR blog.’
@q4websystems: ‘yes! I liked your recent take on the merits to start an IR blog: http://post.ly/17fHs.’
@q4websystems: ‘Many good examples of co’s using IR blog to provide colour around earnings.’
@fredmcclimans: ‘Question on the IR blog: at what point do you have too many sources of information (diff 2 coordinate)?’
@q4websystems: ‘Hi Fred! I would limit to either CEO or IRO comment. If q’s come in re: product, designate 1 person.’
@q4websystems: ‘I also feel that earnings releases r cookie cutter & providing commentary on IR blog can help to clarify invest, prop.’
@fredmcclimans: ‘Agree – see the value. Thinking that a controlled “few” sources of into plug a wide #SM funnel would work very well.’
@q4websystems: ‘Precisely. Linking to various social media portals essential.’

Q2: ‘Anyone else think the resignation of office depot chairman & CEO too coincidental?

Q2: ‘Interesting article from Harvard law school: ‘The perils of implied messages and RegFD” http://bit.ly/9YCg23.’

Q2: “This just tweeted…timely to #irchat: RT @footnoted: Hefty payout for Office Depot’s departing CEO? http://bit.ly/d0WaDh.’

As you can see, not a lot of discussion was generated around the second question…I would recommend reading the two articles cited above – very interesting!

Don’t forget to join us every Thursday @ 11:00 a.m. EST. In the meantime, if you have any questions you’d like to submit for an upcoming #irchat, DM @meetthestreet or @q4websystems.

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Typically, three or four questions are asked.  But this week, the first question dominated the hour-long session. @meetthestreet asked:

Q1: Institutional Investor recently wrote about social media’s role in equity research: http://bit.ly/94w06K. Do you think this has legs?

Here is a snippet from the article:

Bolstered by the low cost of online publishing and the rising popularity of blogs, discussion forums and commenting, a growing number of niche web sites are creating opportunities for new forms of investment analysis to emerge — and for buy-side professionals, even those at rival firms, to collaborate and learn directly from one another. These social media web sites are supplementing, and in some cases supplanting, the traditional Wall Street information ecosystem that transmits sell-side investment research and stock calls to the buy side.

Here’s a recap of the conversation (a subset of questions evolved from the original question, so I have grouped these together to make it easier to follow along):

• @meetthestreet: “SumZero has attracted 4k institutional investors in 2 years in pure organic fashion. I think that there is something here.”
• @thomasros: “I like the “democratizing of information” idea of SM.”
• @SculptorIR: “Definitely think this trend will continue, as the market wants more information about market drivers.”
• @AVGoldberg: “Intuitively believe SM trend is here to stay but contradictory 2 analysts claim of limited access thru work & not using it.”
• @meetthestreet: “I know the founders of SumZero. I wonder if they can tell if their users are using it from home? I will ask.”
• @mcjennings: “Sounds like buy side analysts do have access to these specialized sites–sumzero, val invest club, distressed debt invest club.”
• @meetthestreet: “If SumZero grows 2 B 20k or 50k buyside they will B able 2 easily move markets & IROs don’t have the same transparency as w/ SS.”

@meetthestreet: “Any thoughts on how they could monetize their offering? This will be important to their long-term viability.”

• @meetthestreet: “Now institutional investors have 2 submit 2 ideas per year 2 gain access 2 the research pool. How can SumZero make $ from this?”
• @trevorheisler: “Implementing a paid subscription service would make sense to me.”
• @mcjennings: “If they are looking for revenue model, charge IROs for access, which will be necessary in some way shape or form.”

@meethestreet: Do you think that closed research networks pose a challenge to IROs as they become more popular?

• @SculptorIR: “Yes”
• @fredmcclimans: “Agree that closed research networks pose a challenge to IROs, but also a potential captive audience at some point?”
• @fredmcclimans: “How locked out are firms/IROs from SumZero? Any access at all? Or is data totally locked for all time?”
• @meetthestreet: “SumZero confirms users & only lets buyside in. Closed network. Plus its a 1 2 many network which can’t B managed/influenced by IROs.”

@trevorheisler: “Would you consider something like Covestor to be in competition with SumZero?”

• @meetthestreet: “I don’t think so. Covestor is a retail product. If you want to invest alongside best investors, then invest in their funds.”
• @trevorheisler: “Right. Guess a better question is, should SumZero go after retail as well, with a paid subscription?”
• @fredmcclimans: “IRO could then pose as retail investor?”
• @meetthestreet: “Agreed RT @fredmcclimans: RT @trevorheisler: Should SumZero go after retail as well, w/ a paid sub <iro could then pose as retail investor?”

As usual, the hour went by quickly.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about the discussion!

Don’t forget to join us every Thursday @ 11:00 a.m. EST. In the meantime, if you have any questions you’d like to submit for an upcoming #irchat, tweet @meetthestreet or send an email to sherylj@q4websystems.com and I’ll pass it along.

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Newport is a technology solutions driven company organized to focus on serving five of the fastest-emerging businesses in the technology space – RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification), WiMax, eLearning, and LED Digital Signage and LED Lighting solutions.

Newport has embraced several social channels including Twitter, YouTube, Posterous and FlickR to broaden the company’s audience.  They also have a Facebook account which we highlighted in our recent whitepaper for their exceptional use of the channel.  For example, the information is current and up-to-date with a good balance of material including recent press releases, links to shareholder conference calls and videos that all help to provide a better context about their business.

So based on Newport’s inclusion in our whitepaper and the “formal launch” of their Social Media program, I contacted Isaac Cruz, the company’s Digital Strategy Manager, to gather some more background information about how this all came to be.

1. How long has Newport been using social media? And what tool did you begin using first and why?
The company launched its social media program in October 2009.  Initially, we saw the power of Google and the importance of SEO, so we created profiles which were verified by Google. We then signed up for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts.

2. What was the original driving force behind the company’s decision to use social media?
In the early stages of the company’s life, our focus was on Research and Development.  As our business progressed and R&D concluded, there was a natural gravitation towards ways to promote the company.  The Board of Directors saw the value of having a presence on the social networks and wanted to leverage those channels to bring the NDT brand to investors, and potential industry partners and  customers.

3. Were you originally hired on as the Digital Strategy Manager?
At a start up, employees have to wear many hats. Originally, I was hired on to manage the office i.e.  assist executives, do payroll and accounts payables for the corporate office as well as our two branch offices.  As our company was progressing, I was asked to be involved with developing the social media program, which was initiated by an external IR firm. Based on my background and passion, this area of marketing and sales is where I really felt that I could use my talents to benefit the company. Eventually, we developed a small, internal team to take over the social media efforts.

4. Were you able to draw on your own experience with social media?
Back in 2003 or 2004, my college football coaches used Facebook to announce practice and workout schedules. After the coaches would dismiss us from practice, they would yell, “Check your Facebooks!” so we all would know what the next meeting would entail.   Twitter was completely new to me. Over time, we developed an understanding of hashtags, searching and how to write effective tweets in 140 characters.  We also wanted to develop an understanding of url shortening services like bit.ly and tiny.url and how to track the clicks on these links.

We started out with a corporate Twitter account and one main Facebook account. Each Digital Strategist had their own Twitter and Facebook accounts.   As we became more familiar with friends on the company’s Facebook account and what they were interested in, we decided to break out the various segments of our business. In order to be Facebook SEO, we developed fanpages specific to technologies we specialize in, such as RFID and digital signage. Whether it is on Facebook, or Google, we want to provide quality content and be easily found by those interested in the industries we are involved with.

5. Are there any channels that are strictly dedicated to investor relations?
The original strategy was to help increase awareness of our overall business.  We wanted to broaden our message and increase awareness about our company to all key audiences which includes potential partners, investors and customers.  As stated in our release by our CEO, Don Danks “Leveraging digital media and implementing this strategic communication program provides shareholders and clients access to NPDT’s most recent developments, technology solutions, and a roadmap for revenue growth.  Digital and Social media are becoming powerful tools for branding and supporting sales efforts.  We intend to make a consistent and serious commitment to utilizing the power of the medium, benefiting our shareholders.”

Our corporate Facebook page is a great forum to connect with a Digital Strategist who is one degree away from the decision makers of the company. We are committed to providing our investors with whatever information we can release about the business.

6. Is there any interaction on any of the social networks with retail or institutional shareholders?
We have shareholder inquiries mainly on Facebook.  We also have a few who DM me on Twitter. They normally always follow up with a phone call, as it is hard to address questions in 140 characters.

7. What prompted you to formally press release your digital strategy and social media program now?
There are several reasons why we issued a press release regarding our digital strategy and social media program now:

The company has really ramped up over the course of the year. We have transitioned from a R&D company to one with tangible products and are now in full sales mode.  As we have press released our progress, we now have sufficient content to share over social channels by providing links from our website which has increased visitors.

We also wanted to make sure we understood our company’s technological capabilities, our audience and the channels we are using first. In the beginning we did a lot of listening in the social communities and wanted to balance the company voice to ensure we were conveying the right messages.

Further, since launching the program in October of last year, we have put together a Digital Strategy Team. Each team member specializes in areas of social media that best suits their backgrounds and skills. We are solely concerned with ROI which we dub “Return on Interaction” with increased awareness of the company. You never know what relationships could be cultivated in the social business networks.

Lastly, we have a unique business that is not yet two years old. For a technology company, we are progressing very fast.  As such, I posted the following YouTube video that explains the functions of the strategtically located offices around the globe: 

Of note, we do all of our videos in-house like the one above. It takes relatively little time and is very cost-effective!

8. What other channels have you adopted over the course of the year?
We recently added a Posterous account where we post press releases and provide news about the business and background information on our products:

We don’t have a lot of comments on there yet, but we have had 6,913 views since adding the account in May of this year.

9. Any advice for other public companies of the value of using social media?
I can’t speak for all public companies because each company is in a specific industry and has their own specific vision and goals, but I do know this. Followers of social networks really appreciate the personal connection they have with a public company when a representative personally addresses a question, or concern they have. We feel that it is important to accurately, and promptly respond to all inquiries that pertain to the business and employees of NDT. We are actively asking for NDT followers to voice their questions and ideas about the business, or technology on our networks so we provide them with what they want to see. We want our audience to know that we are working not only for NDT, but also for our shareholders.

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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.

The fact that the senior management is seemingly committed to the company’s social media strategy and that the company in general was doing such a great job over several social channels, I thought I’d contact them to see how they became to use the social networks they are; which department(s) is responsible for the strategy and who ultimately is in charge of the content.

After doing a scan of all of their social media accounts, I reached out to Caroline Japic (@CarolineJapic), Vice President, Corporate Communications and Customer Marketing as she was listed as the contact on Facebook.  As it turns out, the Corporate Communications team was instrumental in implementing Polycom’s social media strategy.  Here’s what we talked about:

1.    How long has Polycom been using social media? And what tool did you begin using first and why? Polycom employees began blogging several years ago, but we launched the official Polycom Social Media Program in January 2009. We created Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Fan pages, and a YouTube Channel at that time. Yammer was already being used inside the company.

2.    Who was responsible for implementing social media? The Corporate Communications team defined and implemented the program, but we recruited the entire employee base (nearly 3000 strong) to participate in the program.

3.    How did the Corporate Communications team get buy-in? The Corporate Communications team researched social media options and brought the recommendations to our Chief Marketing Officer Heidi Melin. Heidi was our executive champion, helping to gain support and buy in from the Executive team.

4.    Any resistance from legal counsel? Not at all—Polycom legal is very progressive. We worked with our legal team to revise our “Blogging Policy” to become a “Social Media Policy”. Once we agreed on guidelines they were in full support of the Social Media program.

5.    Are there any channels that are strictly dedicated to investor relations? Not yet. We use our main “All About Polycom” Twitter account the most at this point, but are expanding our IR activities using other social media channels for our next earnings call in October. We do host archived video streams from our quarterly earnings calls on Polycom.com/investors.

6.    If no, what would be the determining factor(s) to do so? While we considered a direct channel for IR, we found that those interested in IR are also interested in the other events happening at Polycom such as new product launches and customer win announcements. So, we made the decision to use our existing channels to communicate the IR message.

7.    Is there any interaction on any of the social networks with retail or institutional shareholders? If so, do you have a procedure in place to defer to the IR dept? If we receive any IR requests, they go directly to our CFO Mike Kourey who manages the IR program.

8.    Some of the senior management team has Twitter accounts and actively blog.  How did this come to be?
As part of the initial plan, we had a training session with the Executive Staff and helped them set up their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Other execs, such as our Co-Founder Jeff Rodman, have been active bloggers for years and were early adopters of social media. We encouraged participation by all Polycom employees and continue to do so in quarterly all-company meetings, using employee contests, and through ongoing training.

9.    The content seems synergized amongst all of the channels, is this driven by one person who informs the others of the information they should share on the channel?
The Corporate Communications team shares our main channels so that the burden doesn’t fall on only one person. We discuss social media efforts during our regular meetings and encourage team members to post relevant content on their respective channels.

10.    Do you monitor your social media efforts? Yes, we use Radian 6 to monitor and measure our efforts. We have daily reports that are routed to the appropriate departments for action where needed.

11.    Is it important to measure the success of your social media efforts?  If so, how is success measured? Absolutely.  At Polycom, we measure all of our Corporate Communications programs. For our social media efforts, we measure trends, mentions, share of voice, tone of voice, activity spikes, and we watch our conversation cloud very carefully. Success is measured by analyzing a combination of all of these factors.

12.    Do you have a social media policy? Yes, we do. It covers all employees and their social media efforts.

13.    Anything notable you’d like to share i.e. increased website traffic or other less tangible things such as better consumer relations etc., you have seen from using social networks? We compare the social media results with the results from our Customer Experience program to identify trends. We’ve also improved our customer service efforts–anyone who has a challenge with a Polycom product and Tweets about it will be contacted by our customer service team.

14.    Now that you have been using social media for two years, have you changed your strategy for its use? We haven’t changed our strategy, but we’ve evolved it. A good example is that we are adding more IR activities, but not changing our overall strategy.

15.    Any advice for other public companies of the value of using social media? Don’t be surprised if there are many nay-sayers when you start the program. However, progressive companies need to stay abreast of how their various audiences (media, customers, partners, etc.)  are receiving information, and social media is an important information source for many. Social media creates a unique opportunity for conversation, and that conversation is happening with or without you. As the traditional role of the media continues shifts to social media, those who are listening and participating in the conversation via social media will be the ones who win.

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