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 told us that 35% were using Twitter for IR, in the current report you’ll see this number is now 65%.
However, it’s not all about Twitter. So we expanded our research to include Facebook, Linked, Blogs, YouTube and SlideShare.  Their respective adoption …

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 …

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.
Recommend …

In 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” …

Social networks are having a dramatic impact in helping marketers and public relations professionals increase brand awareness and build new relationships with consumers.  But how have these tools been adopted in the highly regulated world of investor relations?
To answer this question Q4 analyzed 80 public companies and their use of Twitter during the Q2 2009 earnings season.  Some of the findings of the report which can can be downloaded here revealed that:

55% are using Twitter for investor relations.
48% are using Twitter to engage with their audience.
34% of the companies were …

In spite of the increasing importance of the Internet as a primary source of gathering information, I hadn’t really given much thought about its influence on how analysts form opinions and/or build their models around a specific sector or company to generate research reports.  That was until I listened to Robert Passarella’s webcast “Equity Research in the Age of the Web”.
Robert has spent about 20 years on Wall Street in various roles in equity research, trading operations and sales.  In light of the current economic meltdown (and some inquiries from his family …