We’re excited to announce the release of a number of feature upgrades now available on Q4. We’ve been listening to our clients and are happy to provide this set of improved features focused on the real-time integration of social media both in terms of publishing updates to Twitter and Facebook and integrating content into the site from social media content sites like YouTube.
Over the last couple of years we’ve been successful in working with our clients to create a customized approach that drives IR website traffic, expands content distribution and increase investor engagement. Over this time the Q4 platform has evolved and now can provide a true competitive advantage to public companies by expanding their reach, attracting investors and building better relationships.
These new features provide even greater capability for our clients to benefit from the web and the integration of social media into their investor relations efforts AND with the rise of web disclosure coming, our platform provides all of the tools required to be successful in the new world of online investor relations.
The list of upgrades is below, you can also check out our new website at http://www.q4websystems.com to learn more.
We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with Virtua Research to offer analysts and sophisticated investors the Interactive Analyst Center – a new standard of rendering a company’s financial data.
The Interactive Analyst Center was originally designed at the request of Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited with the purpose of providing investors and analysts the most advanced new suite of interactive financials and graphing tools, all embedded in a single, logical location — the investor section of a company’s website.
Some of the KEY FEATURES include:
Excel like Presentation – for ease of use and accessibility
Multiple Annual and Quarterly Data – for simplified, more contextual investor understanding
Export to Excel – statements and data can be exported for simplified model building
Interactive Graphs – build, select and graph interactive operational and financial ratios
Links to Actual Filing Data – right-click any line item to view source documents
Ratio Descriptions – left-click any ratio for more detailed information and formula
There are also many BENEFITS to making this feature available on your company website as it will:
Increase your company valuation with best practices transparent disclosure
Offer the interactivity of exporting to Excel up to 5 years of aggregated financial data
Save time, effort and money educating existing and potential investors
Improve control of your financial message for more consistent investor modeling
Update your quarterly financials in real time for conference call “housekeeping” questions
Provide new methods of visualizing financial relationships with interactive graphing tools
Seamlessly integrates into any corporate or investor website
On April 15th, Google issued an advisory release that instructed people to visit their IR website for their earnings and also included the following statement:
Google intends to make future announcements regarding its financial performance exclusively through its investor relations website.
As we all remember all too well, shortly after this regulatory change the market collapsed and this new channel quickly faded into the background, while most companies fought to survive the worst recession many of us have ever seen.
However, with 2009 behind us and the recovery underway, the first quarter of 2010 has seen the most activity on the web disclosure front yet, with a number of companies testing out new tactics. Let’s take a look at some examples.
On April 8th, 2010 I presented to a group of investor relations professional in Montreal, Quebec. I was fortunate to present alongside Lorne Gorber, VP, Global Comm. & IR at CGI Group Inc. The following is the deck that I used during the session. It contains updated trends and statistics on the use of social media in the capital markets. I also included a handful of examples of companies that I think are doing a good job at using these new channels. Hope you enjoy the new deck!
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!
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.
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.
An 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.
The focus of the paper is how online communication tools, in particular social media, are influencing the communication practices of corporate IR departments at public companies of all sizes. It also examines the question of why corporate IR departments have been slower to adopt social media communications tools than their marketing and corporate communications counterparts.
Dave currently splits his time between teaching public relations in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University in Texas and works as Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for First Financial Bankshares, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIN).
While I highly recommend that you take the time to view the presentation in its entirety (below), I have summarized some of the key findings.
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.
We’re excited to announce the release of a number of feature upgrades now available on Q4. We’ve been listening to our clients and are happy to provide this set of improved features focused on the real-time integration of social media both in terms of publishing updates to Twitter and Facebook and integrating content into the site from social media content sites like YouTube.
On April 15th, 
