Q4 Blog

In a press release issued earlier this week, Newport Digital Technologies, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: NPDT) announced the “formal launch of its Digital Strategy and Social Media program”.  The program was developed by the company’s Digital Strategy team “to leverage the ever-evolving social business networks, bringing NPDT brand awareness to shareholders, investors, potential clients, and industry partners.”

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.

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Polycom has whole-heartedly jumped into the social media pool.  They incorporate Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and LinkedIn into their communications strategy and have several accounts for each channel.  The company prominently displays this information on their website via a dedicated “Connect with Polycom using Social Media” in the newsroom section.

A review of how Polycom uses each channel revealed consistent messaging and current and up-to date information.  Some of the senior management team also regularly tweet and are active bloggers providing additional commentary on an industry-related topic or company specific news. With it increasingly difficult to attract and retain investors in this economy, this sends a very clear message in terms of their transparency and their personal interest in listening to their stakeholders.

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Our latest whitepaper has revealed that Twitter is the most widely used channel for investor-related material. Although in spite of this, the channel is not being used for direct dialogue between investors and companies but rather more like an efficient channel to disseminate information and to provide context to investors interested in their market and business.

This may change in the future, as more investors begin to engage companies through Twitter. So in anticipation of this, there are some effective ways that companies can use hashtags to help get the attention of potential investors on Twitter.

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The following infographic contains most of the charts from the latest whitepaper. Public Company Use of Social Media for IR. This research is based on 362 public companies that have Twitter accounts and how they use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and SlideShare for investor relations.

We hope you enjoy it!

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Download the latest Q4 Whitepaper on social media for public companies.

We’re thrilled to announce our latest report on the use of social media by public companies for investor relations.  If you’d like to get right to the report you can download it here.

Last year we released two research reports on Twitter for investor relations.  At that point, our sample of 350 companies told us that 35% were using Twitter for IR, in the current report you’ll see this adoption is now at 65%.

However, it’s not all about Twitter. So we expanded our research to include Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and SlideShare.  Their respective adoption rates for IR came in at:

• 37% Facebook
• 29% YouTube
• 10% Corporate blog
• 10% SlideShare
• 93% LinkedIn

Social Media Used by Public Companies for IR

We included LinkedIn because company pages are created automatically and now anyone can “Follow” any company.

What impresses me the most about the state of the market is just how many companies are using social media . We’ve included hundreds of examples in this report and we’ve literally just scratched the surface.

The complete report is 96 pages and has tons of stats, charts and web links.

Register on the landing page and we’ll email you the whitepaper right away.

We hope you enjoy it.

Let us know what you think in the comments below! Is social media for IR reaching a tipping point?

We are currently working on our next research report on how public companies are using social media. This research is based on our analysis of over 350 companies and their uses of social media from a corporate and investor relations perspective. We have recently completed the primary research and have decided to share our findings as we go, through a series of blog posts that will highlight various aspects of the report.

To kick things off I thought we’d take a quick look at how companies are promoting their social media channels on their corporate website.

We are only just beginning to scratch the surface on our new research, but are seeing an increase in the number of companies who are providing links to all of the social networks they have adopted as part of their broader communications strategy via a “Stay Connected”, “Connect With Us”, or “Follow Us” approach.

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On May 3rd, Rhonda was interviewed by Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz on http://www.nevillehobson.com/2010/05/05/fir-interview-rhonda-bennetto-tvi-pacific/

In the interview, Rhonda shares some valuable information on how an effective website and increasing their online presence using social channels such as YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook has contributed to an overall increase in awareness about TVI Pacific.

TVI recently adopted Facebook as their official investor forum and I encourage any IRO to tune in as she specifically discusses how they effectively manage and engage with shareholders on this channel.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:42 — 11.3MB)

A topic that’s often discussed on FIR The Hobson and Holtz Report concerning investor relations is the mix of online communication and social media: how does it work for publicly-listed companies with regulatory oversight?

We hear too often how companies can’t embrace such a mix – a toxic mix, as some view it – precisely because of regulators and a belief in what you can’t do.

In this FIR Interview, we hear a story that spells out very clearly what you can do with some terrific ideas, a clear mindset, board-level support and a little courage.

Rhonda Bennetto, Executive Director Investor Communications at Calgary, Canada-based TVI Pacific – a profitable, low cost copper producer focused on the production, development, exploration and acquisition of precious and base metal mining projects in the Philippines –tells FIR co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz what she’s put in place at her firm that enables her to get her story out via online communication and social media that embraces the web, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare and Facebook, the latter including an interactive discussion forum for engaging with shareholders.

Get this podcast:

• Download the MP3 file (11.3Mb, 24:42)
• Get the show on iTunes
• Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

Get the FIR app for your iPhone or Android device

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.

……and much more!

Click here to get the whitepaper now!

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!

Sheryl

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.

Register now if you would like to learn:

1. Which social networks are being adopted by your peers for IR first and why.
2. How these companies are using social networks and deriving value from them.
3. 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.