The founders of Agoracom are set to appear in front of the OSC at the end of April, where we assume we will all hear more details of the allegations and the defense of Agoracom. I, like many others, await more details before passing judgment on what really happened and to what degree fraud was committed (if at all).
In light of this recent situation, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the problems with message boards and the importance of transparency and trust and being successful online.
In her article “Should CEOs lose sleep over analyst recommendations” Clare Harrison, IR Magazine’s Deputy Editor, poses the question “How much attention do investors really pay to analyst recommendations?”
I think she raises some interesting points in answering the question. So much so that I’d like to reinforce and provide my two cents from an IRO perspective on those points here. I’ll also provide some suggested tactics IROs can use to foster relationships and gain credibility with investors, and ways to help them make informed investment decisions about your company.
In a continuing effort to share how public companies are using social networks, Darrell Heaps, Co-Founder and CEO took a large audience of IR professionals on a guided tour of “The Current State of Social Media & Investor Relations”.
Participants were provided with over 50 examples and case studies of how companies are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and IR blogs to mitigate share value, dramatically increase web site traffic and broaden their reach to potential investors.
Social media success takes work and things don’t happen overnight. So, based on the plethora of information discussed during the webinar, we compiled all of the company examples, links and the questions and answers into this whitepaper as a reference guide for IR professionals.
If you’re thinking about if, when and how to integrate social media with your investor relations program, download the FREE whitepaper today and you’ll learn how companies are:
Interacting with shareholders and managing their discussion boards on Facebook.
Proactively soliciting questions in advance of quarterly earnings call on Twitter.
Using feedback from the institutional community to make their IR blog a valuable resource to learn about their company.
Repurposing video content to increase discoverability across all channels.
On February 14, Darrell Heaps, our co-founder and CEO, and one of North America’s leading authorities on social media for IR hosted a guided tour of “The Current State of Social Media” webinar in which he walked through a current snapshot of what’s happening in the use of social media for IR and why it’s important to your investor relations program. Here is the full replay of the session and the Q&A, it’s 1hr15mins long:
During the session participants were provided with an interactive demonstration of how social media is helping other public companies mitigate share value erosion, dramatically increase their website traffic and broaden their reach to potential investors. As part of his guided tour he also revealed:
Which social networks are being adopted by companies for IR first and why.
How these companies are using social networks and deriving value from them.
Tips to enhance engagement and streamline quarterly reporting.
Darrell’s presentation was loaded with over 50 examples and case studies of how public companies are using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and blogs to enhance their IR program.
If you’re thinking about if, when and how to integrate social media with your investor relations program, you should watch the video version of the presentation.
I’ll also be providing an overview of the session with lots of links in an upcoming blog post…stay tuned!
Join us on Thursday, February 11th from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EST for a guided tour by Darrell Heaps, CEO of Q4 Web Systems, and one of North America’s leading authorities on social media for IR. If you are thinking about if, when and how to integrate social media with your investor relations program, you can’t affords to miss this interactive demonstration of how public companies are using the social web for IR.
Which social networks are being adopted by your peers for IR first and why.
How these companies are using social networks and deriving value from them.
Tips to enhance engagement and streamline quarterly reporting.
Register today for this free webinar and learn how social media is helping other public companies mitigate share value erosion, dramatically increase website traffic and broaden their reach to potential investors.
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.
Last week, Catherine Crofton, Q4’s VP, Sales & Marketing hosted a second webinar on IR Website Best Practices. Interest was high as we had another great turnout with people from around the globe in attendance. I also tweeted the event so if you were unable to join us, you can do a search on Twitter #Q4BP for a feed of the conversation.
This presentation was a follow up to a webinar Catherine conducted on this topic in April of last year in which she discussed five common barriers that block potential investors from understanding a company’s investment story. Click here to view last year’s presentation and listen to the audio.
On January 14, Catherine Crofton, Q4’s VP Sales & Marketing hosted an IR Website Best Practices webinar. Her presentation focused on how to build investor confidence through effective online communications. The presentation includes a lot of great examples of companies using best practices and how they can be applied to your own IR website.
In particular she outlined some critical improvements to make to the IR website in 2010 including:
Key information to include for potential new investors in this economy.
Using social media effectively to increase your reach (and website traffic) and to protect your share value – with case stories and examples.
New interactive technologies – what kind of technologies increase user engagement and add value.
If we weren’t able to get to your question during the webinar, please feel free to post it in our comment section below or email sherylj@q4websystems.com.
“My sole objective, and the only bullet on my job description, is to get the share price of TVI to a fair and sustainable value, PERIOD. I decided the way to do that would be to use all things social media and set some benchmarks for Return on Investment (ROI) so I could measure the results. Indicators such as increased web traffic, improved liquidity, increased institutional holdings and improved investor sentiment, would all result in a fair share price.” – Rhonda Bennetto, Executive Director Investor Communications, TVI Pacific Inc.
TVI is still a relatively new user of social networks and in conjunction with the launch of their new website in mid-November 2009, they have reaped some interesting results thus far:
Website visits are up from 100/mth to 4,000/mth;
83 followers on Twitter (as of Jan 11);
Photos have been viewed on Flickr 1,519 times and they have 696 views of their videos on YouTube;
Average daily trading volume has increased 55%; and
Their share price has risen from $0.06 prior to launch to $0.12.
Times 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:
Key information to include for potential new investors in this economy.
Using social media effectively to increase your reach (and website traffic) and to protect your share value – with case stories and examples.
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.
Every 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.
Welcome to the company blog of Q4 Web Systems. Here we talk about Q4, Investor Relations websites, web disclosure, IR 2.0, online reporting, xbrl and our products. Subscribe to our RSS feed or email alerts.
On Thursday April 1st, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) – the Canadian equivalent to the SEC, put forth allegations against Agoracom.com an online investor relations forum for seeding fake conversations throughout their investor message board community. The allegations describe a scenario of more than 24,000 fraudulent posts made by 670 different accounts. The papers filed by the OSC go into detail on how employees at Agoracom were required to posts under several different aliases and on occasion, conversed with themselves on the forums using different aliases. Agoracom has denied the charges and says they are without merit.
