Q4 Blog » Social Media

Q4 Partners with StockTwits to Offer Public Companies Social Media Management and Distribution

Sheryl Joyce — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:03:53 +0000

We are pleased to announce that Q4 has partnered with StockTwits to address the increasing demand of establishing direct communication and engagement between public companies and their key stakeholders. The partnership will provide Q4′s best-in-class corporate IR website and social media solutions and integrate StockTwits platform for sharing financial information and news directly with investors, and leveraging a broad distribution network where messages are disseminated across the financial web.

Howard Linzdon, co-founder and ceo of StockTwits had this to say about the collaboration:

Public companies are trying to find ways to connect directly with investors, analysts and other key constituencies as the number of potential communications channels expand dramatically. IR professionals at public companies are increasingly facing challenges in reaching all their key audiences in the most effective way, with limited resources. Our partnership with Q4 provides simple, time saving access to our solutions to public companies using Q4 products.

Darrell Heaps, Q4′s ceo added:

By integrating StockTwits Investor Communications Solutions, we help IR professionals build stronger relationships with their stakeholders across the financial web. We are a leader in optimizing investor relations websites and social media strategies for effective communication, and using StockTwits products has become a critical ‘best practice’ in helping companies attract and engage investors.

Companies such as Teekay Corporation, Ryder System, Inc., Shuffle Master Inc, and Vical Inc., all utilize Q4’s customizable IR website system, as well as StockTwits’ Investor Communications Solutions to optimize investor relations activities.

The video below shows how Q4′s platform integrates with StockTwits:

Q4 Web StockTwits Integration from Q4 Web Systems Inc. on Vimeo.

You can read the release in its entirety here:
http://mwne.ws/zHVzvq

Q4 Partners with TMX Equicom to Deliver IR Websites and Social Media Solutions to TSX & TSX-V Listed Companies We are pleased to announce that Q4 has forged a...
Q4 Integrates StockTwits and Expands Real-Time Social Distribution Q4 is the only IR vendor that integrates with key...
SlideShare Partners with Q4 Web Systems to help Bring Social Media to Investor Relations Yesterday, a press release was issued announcing that SlideShare and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

linkedFA report highlights: Social Media for Financial Professionals

Sheryl Joyce — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:09:23 +0000

Advisors understand that social media is one of the fastest growing communications channels in the world. Social networks improve the ability of financial advisors to increase the amount of clients under management as well as increase their interaction and visibility with them. Unfortunately financial advisors still struggle to adopt and maximize social media and its benefits. Our study points out many of the challenges faced by financial advisors in utilizing social media, but it also seeks to emphasize the reasons behind these struggles while offering advice to help the financial community succeed.

From July to November 2011, linkedFA asked 1,599 advisors* 12 questions that sought to answer:

How do advisors spend their time online?
What goals do advisors have for social media?
What social networking tools do advisors find to be the most successful?
What are the biggest stumbling blocks

Here are some of the highlights:

Nearly 80% reported using LinkedIn
Almost 40% are on Facebook
Only 7.6% reported using no social media for business

ROI

43% reported seeing very little to no returns from social media
23% were unsure of their returns of using social media

GOALS

37% sought referrals from current clients and colleagues
24% sought to manage their online reputation
15% desired to register new clients

BIGGEST CONCERNS

According to nearly half of advisors surveyed, compliance is the biggest concern limiting their ability to effectively utilize social media. FINRA guidelines for social media require constant archiving and approval and the possibility of any failures can result in firms being hit with substantial fines.

SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

34.3% reported only creating a social media account and responding reactively to contacts
31% reported logging on only once per week
10.96% reported logging on to a network daily to view and post information
70% reported spending more than half a day looking at news stories online (half reported spending over an hour per day viewing news)
73% reported their primary source of professional news was internet-based (with 49.64% reporting financial news sites as their primary resource)
Almost 30% sought enhanced capabilities with regards to sharing news stories through social media

MOBILE USAGE

Just under 40% reported using their mobile device for social networking as more or more than their desktop
Only 27% reported using mobile social media for more than just browsing

You can download the executive summary and/or whitepaper by clicking here.

* Of those surveyed 34.43% reporting having over 200 clients, while more than 60.15% reported having over 100 clients. The survey reached a wide distribution of financial advisors, with 73.77% associated with independent broker-dealers and 13.73% at bulge-bracket firms. Respondents had an average of $50.8 million of assets under management.

Socialware Survey: Social Media Use by Financial Advisors In its second survey on social media use by financial...
The Impact of Financial Blogs on Investor Relations – Webinar Highlights Last week I had the opportunity to moderate a panel...
60% of Financial Advisors in North America are Using Social Networks to Drive New Business: Study According to a survey by Socialware, over 60% of financial...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social Media Readiness Checklist for Investor Relations

Sheryl Joyce — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:40:29 +0000

We have many conversations with IROs and often get asked: how do I get started with social media? What’s the ROI? How much time is needed to keep the channels populated with content? What are the risks?

All of the aforementioned are important considerations. A recent article I read posed 6 questions for companies to think about before getting into social media: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/01/social-media-ready.html.

The article was not necessarily public company specific, but I thought the ideas presented would be valuable to share with IROs. That said, I’m going to reiterate the ideas the author presents as I feel it applies to IR. As well as some further thoughts to ponder from an IR standpoint. Please note all of the text in bold is verbatim.

1. Do you have a clear reason for being in social media? Before you spend time in social media, ask yourself:

What are you hoping to get from your participation?
What business goals do you want to achieve through social media?

It is not uncommon for marketing or advertising departments to start using social media first. If another department is using social media, ask them what their experience has been and dovetail off of the objectives and goals they have put in place to formulate IR-specific ones.

2. Do you have any reasons for not using social media to improve communications with your shareholder base and improve awareness for your company? (as recommended by one of our many good friends and IR pros @TrevorHeisler).

I think this is a good addition to the checklist. As it will foster a balanced conversation and help bring issues to the surface. This would be a good thing to discuss with management and legal to table everyone’s opinions and openly address all concerns.

3. Do you know which social media sites are for you? For your specific purpose?

Again, if another department in your company is using social media, have a discussion with them. You may very well find out that just because your marketing department has had success with a particular channel, doesn’t mean it’s the right channel to share investor-related information.

You should also check out whether your peers are using social media, paying particular attention to their preferred channels and the information they are sharing on these channels. It is also important to see if the company is engaging with their followers/friends as it will help you get a sense of the kind of conversations (if any) that are taking place.

The author goes on to advise to ‘check your analytics to see which social media sites are already sending you traffic.’ Monitoring is an important aspect of a successful communications plan. So if you aren’t listening to what is being said about your company, you should be. Of course if you (or another department) are already monitoring discussions about your company, you should make sure that the online ones are included.

4. Do you have resources to continue the investment? Social media is an ongoing process. If you’re not going to stick with it, don’t waste time starting it.

Once you decide to sign up for a particular channel – there is no ‘set it and forget’ aspect, so make sure you have an internal discussion of who is going to be the key content person. (It’s also important to have another person trained on using the channel, in the event the main person is unable to do so.)

In addition to populating the channel, the key content person would also be in charge of monitoring the channel and answering any questions. Regular monitoring will also help the company correct any misinformation being shared.

5. Have you carved out a social pipeline? What are you going to do with the information gleaned from social media? If someone approaches you about a customer service issue or makes a recommendation for a new product or feature, do you have a process for how you’ll quickly get that information to the right person on your team so it can be used? Before you enter social media, create that workflow or pipeline for how you’ll disseminate social media information internally. It will help ensure that you’re getting the most value possible from your social media investment.

When it comes to IR, you need to be aptly prepared to deal with questions. If another department in your company uses social media, then it is wise to have a procedure in place where any investor-related questions get re-routed to the IR point of contact in a timely manner.

6. Is there a social media plan on record? When jumping in the water, make sure you grab the life vest known as your social media policy! Your social media policy is an internal document that helps a business to navigate the social media waters. It breaks down rules for engagement, how to handle common occurrences, what you’ll do when negative mentions appear, how to start conversations, how to use the different networks, etc. It’s vital to the success of any campaign and I wouldn’t recommend any business enter social media without it.

We often get asked for examples of companies who have social media policies. Here are a few links you may find useful:

Compliance Building website: http://www.compliancebuilding.com/about/publications/social-media-policies/

socialmediatoday website: http://socialmediatoday.com/ralphpaglia/141903/social-media-employee-policy-examples-over-100-companies-and-organizations

Social Media Governance website: http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php#axzz1jM4WAdnK

7. Can you measure it? Remember, social media is a tool, it’s not a destination. You want to measure your use of social media just like you would measure anything else you’re doing as part of your communications efforts. Based on your initial goal for social media the metrics you use to judge success may differ from others, and that’s okay. You may choose to track Facebook Likes, ReTweets, change in sentiment, number of mentions, engagement, etc. What’s important is that you’ve decided which metrics are important to your business and that you’re using social media tools to help measure them.

Is there anything missing from this checklist? Let me know in the comments.

How Polycom’s Social Media Strategy has evolved to incorporate Investor Relations Polycom has whole-heartedly jumped into the social media pool. They...
Social Media Monitoring for Investor Relations – A Free Q4 Webinar Join us on Thursday, September 17th at 4:00 p.m....
Webinar Replay – Monitoring Social Media for Investor Relations On September 17, I moderated a lively discussion on monitoring...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The State of Social Media 2012 [SLIDES]

Darrell Heaps — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:49:52 +0000

I came across this SlideShare earlier today and I wanted to share it here. It’s quite an indepth presentation that covers all aspects of social media. When you have a few minutes I highly recommend flipping through it. The numbers continue to blow me away, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

A quote from the author Esteban Contreras:

There might be saturation, but social media has changed the way we live. And this means social media is no longer a question for marketers. Companies of all sizes have accepted and even embraced the importance of social media. Investments are starting to increase and companies are now building teams to tackle the new risks and opportunities that social media has created.

The State of Social Media and Social Media Marketing in 2012

View more presentations from Esteban Contreras

Webinar Replay – The Current State of Social Media and Investor Relations On February 14, Darrell Heaps, our co-founder and CEO, and...
Q4 Whitepaper: The Current State of Social Media & Investor Relations In a continuing effort to share how public companies are...
Leveraging Technology: Online Communications and the Role of Social Media Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Deutsche...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Why Web Designers Will Love New JSON Feeds & Q4 Widgets

Darrell Heaps — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:00:19 +0000

Yesterday we announced the release of Q4 Widgets to our popular Q4 Web content management system (CMS). As a follow up to the release we wanted to share some more details about how the Widgets work and what makes them such a huge improvement to the corporate and IR website design market.

The primary change that we made to Q4 Web to make these Widgets possible is to move to JSON feeds for the delivery of all investor and financial content (news, events, presentations, reports). Previously, content would come from the Q4 Web CMS and be displayed using a module and HTML. Q4 has always been the anti-template solution, offering a high degree of flexibility and customization. We have now taken this to an unprecedented level among IR focused providers

Now with JSON feeds, all of this content is pushed out of Q4 Web as a structured data feed – which means web designers can use any aspect of this data and create new ways to display it for the desktop, mobile, apps, etc. In addition, because the content all comes in a JSON feed, clients continue to be able to easily manage everything from the Q4 Web CMS.

JSON feeds + Widgets provide total flexibility with design combined with complete content management control – a perfect combination.

Using JSON Feeds as the source, we then created a JQuery Widget Library that is completely extensible. Which allows our web design partners to create and share new and interesting Widgets for all types of corporate website content.

Our initial release includes Widgets for Financial content such as news, events & SEC filings and social content such as Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. You can also just use an external RSS feed. This is only the beginning, as each time a new widget is created, they are added to the JQuery Widget Library and made available for use by all clients and designers!

Finally, we made Widgets embeddable not only on the company website, but also on 3rd party sites like blogs. Controlled entirely by the company, the embed code for any widget can be shared and used to embed on any other website or blog. We’re very excited about this and look forward to our clients’ widgets being embedded across the web. With all content being all controlled from their Q4 Web CMS instance.

Check out the Live Demo on the earlier post or the new Widgets page on the Q4 product website.

We’re super excited about this release and look forward to working with our many web design partners and our clients in 2012!

Q4 Announces Financial Content & Social Media Widgets for Corporate Websites We are pleased to announce the launch of Q4 Widgets,...
Q4 Web – RSS Feeds Did you know that yesterday (May 1st) was RSS awareness...
Barrick Gold Goes live with Press Release RSS feeds Barrick Gold (TSX, NYSE: ABX) officially launched Q4′s RSS feed...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Q4 Announces Financial Content & Social Media Widgets for Corporate Websites

Sheryl Joyce — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:02:51 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of Q4 Widgets, the latest addition to the popular Q4 Web content management system (CMS).

Q4 Widgets have been created to give public companies and their web designers complete flexibility in how they design corporate and investor websites, while continuing to maintain complete control over content publishing via the Q4 Web CMS.

With this release, using JSON feeds as the source, Q4 Web has integrated a JQuery Widget Library that is completely extensible, and allows for virtually any type of content to be rendered and displayed. This means investor and financial content such as press releases, events, reports and financial data are no longer connected to a specific display, but instead are published as structured data, that can be literally designed in any layout and interactivity.

The new Q4 Widgets provide unmatched flexibility among IR website vendors for designers to integrate financial content and social media into corporate and investor websites.

Widgets are now available to all Q4 Web subscribers and include a complete set of IR financial content, all major social media sites and any RSS feed. Content can also be “mashed together” to create new ways to display content for website and mobile users. Widgets can also be embedded into any website or blog by a simple embed code. Just like embedding a YouTube video. See a live demo of a Financial Reports Widget at the end of this post.

Darrell Heaps, Q4′s co-founder and CEO had this to say about the new widgets:

“Over the last year we’ve worked with hundreds of clients and their design agencies on corporate and IR websites. We asked them how we could take Q4 Web to the next level, and these new feeds and widgets are a result of a collaborative effort to put these tools in place. I’m very excited to see such great work coming out of our clients and their design agencies and I’m looking forward to what they’ll create with these new tools.”

Widgets are available in the following 3 content types (JSON feeds are also available):

Financial Widgets
Financial Widgets are available for Press Releases, Events, Presentations, Financial Reports, SEC Filings, Quotes, Charts, Fundamentals, Institutional Ownership and Financial data. Each financial widget is 100% configurable in terms of how it is displayed, what data is displayed, and what level of interactivity is provided.

Social Widgets
Social Widgets allow clients to aggregate social content from across the web. Supported channels include: YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare, Flickr, Twitter, StockTwits and Facebook. Each Widget can be configured with a specific user account, tags, search terms etc., allowing for unlimited freedom in how social content is integrated in the corporate website.

RSS Widgets
RSS feeds from any external website can now be pulled into a Q4 Widget and seamlessly displayed alongside corporate website content. This allows for external blogs, websites, news sources etc. to be easily integrated and displayed on corporate websites.

Visit the Q4 Widgets Product page for more information and client examples.

Live Demo – Financial Reports Widget

The live demo below is a Financial Report widget pulling content from our product demo site. (Thanks TVI Pacific for letting us use their content). Click on “Portait View” to see the 7 optional layouts that are being dynamically displayed in this Widget. This demo illustrates the level of flexibility of these new widgets.

Why Web Designers Will Love New JSON Feeds & Q4 Widgets Yesterday we announced the release of Q4 Widgets to our...
How Q4 Integrates Twitter and Facebook APIs with Corporate Websites IR Web Report recently wrote a blog post that explains...
How Q4 uses Facebook Social Plugins on Corporate IR Websites With Facebook now counting more than 600 million users, the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing – week of December 12, 2011

Sheryl Joyce — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:22:52 +0000

Six Social Media Trends for 2012: http://bit.ly/u15Uiw

Facebook Timeline Review: This Is the Greatest Thing Facebook’s Ever Done: http://awe.sm/5btZ5

New Twitter: 25 Tips and Tricks for Savvy Tweeters: http://on.mash.to/sY2BBf

Adults Now Spend More Time With Mobile Devices than with Print Media: http://bit.ly/uVtHCG

Twitter Reloaded: What it Means for Corporate Communications: http://bit.ly/vNi2uL

Coca-Cola, Best Buy Shareholder Votes Get Social Twist: http://bit.ly/t7uyFg

Bill Miller bows out: investors reconsider risk, returns, and consistency: http://tinyurl.com/7dsmsug

How Social Media Is Changing The Stock Market: http://rww.to/tOCP1a

Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing on social networks – week of December 5, 2011 A lot of great stuff on Twitter this week, here’s...
Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing on social networks – week of August 8, 2011 Social media has made the sharing of ideas and information...
Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing – week of November 14, 2011 Measuring Social Media ROI: 3 Things to Consider: http://on.mash.to/tdUOe3 Media...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

IR Website and Social Media Best Practices

Sheryl Joyce — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:04:24 +0000

Due to popular demand, you can now browse and download all of our whitepapers, webinars and presentations from our ‘Best Practices’ section on our website: http://www.q4websystems.com/Best-Practices/default.aspx.

Using the social media publishing capabilities of Q4 Web, our market leading website CMS and social media platform, we tagged the videos and presentations so we could seamlessly integrate the content from Vimeo and SlideShare into our website.

We have some new and exciting whitepapers and webinars in store for 2012 – and we’ll update this section accordingly.

SUMMER ’09 LAUNCHED – builds on IR Best Practices and gives Companies a Competitive Advantage in today’s capital markets Read the full release! We officially launched our Summer...
Webinar Replay and Transcript: IR Website Best Practices to Optimize your Online Presence On March 22, Catherine Crofton, Q4’s VP Sales & Marketing...
Webinar Replay – IR Website Best Practices On January 14, Catherine Crofton, Q4’s VP Sales & Marketing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing on social networks – week of December 5, 2011

Sheryl Joyce — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:24:07 +0000

A lot of great stuff on Twitter this week, here’s what we’ve been reading and sharing:

Most young adults go online for no good reason at all: http://shar.es/oAFCO

Twitter Used By 91% Of B2B Marketers, But LinkedIn Generates Twice As Many Leads: http://ow.ly/7LL3f

‘Enforcement wave’ heading for advisers: Ex-SEC official: http://bit.ly/sbf83U

The Latest 15 Facts and Figures on Facebook – Plus Infographic: http://wind.mn/vo9YeY

Apple employee blogging and social media guidelines revealed: http://bit.ly/rYAde1

The Naked Retweet Dilemma: http://bit.ly/sKRkXY

Drafting Better Risk Factor Disclosure: http://ir4.me/zGJzl

2012 Outlook: Analysts See Volatility: http://bit.ly/ssF8qM

The mobile web in numbers: http://ir4.me/zS3hj

Announcing the Launch of StockTwits Direct for Investor Communications: http://bit.ly/vlPqTZ

Schwab Mobile App is Nearing Its One-Year Anniversary: How are you using it?: http://bit.ly/uxbgHx

Think About Developing a Social Media Plan: http://bit.ly/ud2gqa

Employee blogs can provide honest perspective on workings of a company: http://ow.ly/7U79T

Wither Expert Networks?: http://t.co/73hehbj7

The New Startup That Plans To Blow Up The World Of Wall Street Analyst Predictions: http://stks.co/1QZV

Netflix’s CEO Sees ‘Arms Race’ in Streaming: http://stks.co/1PqC

Revolve Debuts Infographic Company Snapshots: http://bit.ly/snJEW8

CEOs follow the money, not the tweets: http://bit.ly/vbfNq0

With TVs, Microsoft is right and Apple is wrong: http://bit.ly/tw7eRw

Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing on social networks – week of August 29, 2011 Here’s this week’s roundup of what we’ve been reading and...
Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing on social networks – week of October 17, 2011 A lot of great stuff was shared on Twitter this...
Trending on Twitter: What Q4 is reading & sharing – week of November 7, 2011 Lot’s of great reading on Twitter this week: Josh Clark...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

100 useful ways to monitor your social media efforts

Sheryl Joyce — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:44:07 +0000

Social media has enabled anyone to be an influencer – and just because your company is not listening to the online conversations, doesn’t mean they aren’t happening.

Online conversations are multidirectional and everyone has a voice which makes it difficult to track everything that is being said. We’ve had many discussions with IROs about how to get started using social media – a key aspect of which is monitoring.

We also often get asked who we recommend to help with monitoring efforts. In general, we don’t like to offer ‘advice’ and say that one monitoring company is better than another as there are many great free and paid-for services out there. However, whenever I think of social media monitoring, Radian6 comes to mind.

On that note, whether you’re new to social media monitoring and engagement or not, I think you’ll find the following presentation Radian6 put together on ’100 Ways to use Social Media Monitoring’ interesting:

100 Ways to Use Social Media Monitoring

View more presentations from Radian6

Social networks have changed the IR profession and the way companies communicate with their key stakeholders. In spite of this, the role of the IRO hasn’t changed – it is still the conduit between the investment community and management. So it is important for you to go where the conversations are happening. Monitoring is definitely an important part of any online communications strategy.

As an aside, we’ve also provided some input on the topic of monitoring for investor relations in one of our free webinars. You can read an overview of the key thoughts from the webinar in this blog post: Social Media Monitoring – Fish Where the Fish are. Near the bottom of the post, we include some links to free and paid-for monitoring services that you may want to check out.

I’d love to hear how your company monitors the online conversations and anything you’ve learned along the way, so leave your feedback in the comments section!

Poll: What role is your corporate website playing in your social media efforts? SmartBlog on Social Media has a weekly reader poll that...
Using Social Media to Mitigate Challenges Raised by Dodd-Frank If you haven’t read this recent post: ‘Social Media and...
Social Media Monitoring – Fish Where the Fish are Last week, I moderated a webinar on monitoring social media...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.