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IR Café: one year & counting

June 12, 2009 – 2:05 pm

iStock_8241130_CupcakeToday marks one year since I began writing IR Café. The blog is a way to contribute to the conversation in the investor relations profession, exchange ideas with colleagues, clarify my own thoughts, and reach out to IR people I might not otherwise meet.

How very gratifying! Among the results:

  • Experimenting with social media – and the interrelationships among blogs, search engines, Twitter, websites and so on – is an exciting learning experience.
  • Just over 9,000 visitors have looked at IR Café to date. It’s averaging 30 a day in 2009. Not big numbers by web standards – but a lot more people than I normally see in a day or a year.
  • I’ve spoken or traded emails with IR people across the US and Europe – as well as Brazil, India, Israel and Russia. And I’ve met some in person, a warm affirmation that “the network” actually consists of real people.
  • While I’m still a newbie, I am having some fun.

Thanks to each of you for reading, commenting or reaching out to get in touch.

And now I’m going to sip on a mug of coffee and think about what’s next. Please send me your thoughts or suggestions for IR Café.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , | Comments Off

The website: your front door

June 8, 2009 – 9:11 am

As investor relations professionals, we need an audience-centered approach to communicating with investors. And the audience, more than ever, is online. So we need to think strategically about our company websites and their IR sections.

Do they deliver what investors need and want? Do they accomplish what we want?

Think of a corporate website as a place that people experience. When an investor comes to your home page, it’s like a prospect stepping onto the front porch of a house you’re trying to sell. The investor looks in the front door, takes it all in, and prepares to go in and walk around. Other sections of the site are the rooms.

An investor has three kinds of experiences when he or she visits your website:

  • Finds information - which, of course, is why he’s there.
  • Forms impressions - your company brand comes across in many ways.
  • Interacts in some way - which may be your one chance to engage.

We should evaluate our websites in terms of these experiences for our audience – what they’re looking for and what drives value in their minds.

Over the years, I’ve worked on corporate websites to benchmark best practices for what IR content should be there, and I’ve done a good deal of writing for the web.

In a panel discussion today at the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) 2009 Annual Conference, I’m sharing some ideas on websites in a workshop called “Trends in Media and Technology.”

The strategic IR focus for a website looks at whether we are delivering the right information for investors in easy-to-find, usable forms, creating the right impressions of a company committed to creating value for shareholders; and inviting investors to interact with the company in convenient and helpful ways.

The IR purposes of the website must integrate with other goals – marketing, recruiting and retention, public affairs – because all of these audiences overlap. A corporate website must integrate with offline sources of information – the print reports, SEC filings, product promotion, media releases and so on that all of these audiences also see.

Tactically, we can do a great deal to maximize the value of our websites to investors. My own “audit” checklist for IR websites has about 40 potential features or content items.

But checking off information items isn’t the main point. The experience of the investor when he or she comes to this place – your front door – is the main point.

Some resources to guide IR people in maximizing our websites:

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , | Comments Off

A resource menu on IR 2.0

June 7, 2009 – 9:46 am

We’ve prepared a sampling of resources & websites on web media and interactive investor relations for the “Trends in Media and Technology” session at the NIRI 2009 Annual Conference in South Florida, June 8, 2009.

Because it’s a long list, you’ll find this in a separate blog page linked here or at right under “IR 2.0 – A Menu.”

This menu isn’t all-inclusive … just a starting point for investor relations people exploring new technologies and connections in web and social media. Hope it’s useful to you. Please share any thoughts, comments or questions.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged | Comments Off

Twitter for IR? Think before tweeting

June 3, 2009 – 11:38 am

twitter_logo_headerTwitter tops the list of hottest social media and is generating lots of “gee whiz” stories in the press. But is Twitter the right bird for investor relations?

We should think before tweeting. Take Twitter seriously, but think strategically.

In case you were dozing, Twitter is the rapidly growing 3-year-old networking site where users “microblog” in 140-character messages. Tweets range from “Taking the cat out now” personal chat to “Buy, buy, buy!” self-promotion. Lots of links to articles and blog posts. Some spam and porn. Some actual conversation, where two or more people talk to each other instead of at each other.

Twitter users connect to one another and can send direct messages, which seem close to taking the place of email among some devoted Twitterers.

Twitter doesn’t disclose the exact number of users, but Compete.com, a web monitoring service, estimated 19 million unique visitors to Twitter in April. By a wide margin, Twitter is the most talked-about brand in online chatter, according to Social Radar, a social media monitoring service.

The Harvard Business blog published an interesting study on Twitter this week. Analyzing a sample of 300,000 Twitter users, HBS found that a typical Twitter user contributes very rarely – the median user has made 1 lifetime tweet. The most active 10% of users generate 90% of the tweets. The authors comment:

This implies that Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

Companies use Twitter to market their brands, listen to people’s uncensored comments on those brands, search for consumer complaints and respond proactively to help people deal with product problems – and to disseminate news.

Are investors – our audience in IR – using Twitter? Certainly, though the evidence is anecdotal. The financial newsbyte service @stocktwits claims 75,000 followers. The SEC is on Twitter @SEC_News. Companies are using Twitter to provide news – and attracting followers, some of whom are investors, to connect on this platform. Tweeting a link to a news release seems like another form of email alert.

Corporate activity on Twitter remains experimental. Some companies are hitting just the right voice – moving from announcing new products to resolving customer service issues to linking to earnings releases. Twitter is playing a role in the viral spread of nasty news or complaints, and in corporate responses to crises. One company live-blogged its annual meeting in 140-character snippets, which didn’t compare too well with actually hearing it on a webcast. Some posts are very casual in tone, some formal. A corporate user needs to find a good balance, I think.

On the other hand, a part of our audience is gathering information via Twitter – and potentially having conversations about our companies. Certainly, we should listen in (designating someone to search Twitter, or hiring a web-monitoring service).

And we should be addressing strategic questions: Would this help us connect with our audience? What would we say? How could we integrate a conversation with investors and outreach to other audiences ? Do we have the people resources to do this? Would Twitter as a tactic add value to our IR strategy? 

I’d love to get your reactions – here or @StrategicComm on Twitter.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Tiptoeing into 2.0

April 28, 2009 – 2:46 pm

A growing number of companies use blogging and social media networks like Twitter to reach out to investors and other audiences, but many are moving tentatively amid legal concerns about disclosure, The Wall Street Journal reports (”Corporate Blogs and ‘Tweets’ Must Keep SEC in Mind,” April 27, 2009, p. B4).

Among the Fortune 500 companies, 81 now sponsor public blogs, and 23 of those use Twitter to blast out 140-character corporate tidbits, according to the Society for New Communications Research.

IR 2.0 participants include old-economy giants like Wal-Mart, Chevron and General Motors, the WSJ says. Last week Johnson & Johnson distributed 23 news fragments – excuse me, Tweets – from its annual meeting via Twitter.

But getting out there comes with some concerns. the story notes:

Such efforts raise thorny questions. Blogs and tweets can run afoul of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations on corporate communications. But sanitizing such posts risks hurting credibility with online audiences.

‘This is all new to companies, and they’re not sure where they can go,’ says Dominic Jones, editor of IR Web Report …

Companies are taking different tacks on interactive IR issues.

Although several tech companies are in the forefront of social media for IR, chipmaker Intel has stayed away from blogs and Twitter because of concerns about SEC disclosure rules – and a desire to avoid sponsoring what can be negative comments from online followers – the WSJ reports.

On the other hand, tech company EMC likes Twitter’s ability to gather instant commentary and diverse opinions from employees, investors and other outsiders.

Online auction house eBay is balancing these concerns – using its corporate blog and Twitter updates to report on earnings calls and other business topics, while adding regulatory disclaimers to some posts to protect itself.

We’re in a great time of change. If you missed yesterday’s WSJ story, it’s worth going back to read. And taking a look at some of the blogs and Twitterers it mentions.

In different ways that fit our own companies, we should all be tiptoeing into 2.0.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Social media strategies: Talk, listen or … ?

April 17, 2009 – 6:03 pm

I had a good conversation today with three friends who work in social media. (This was an old-fashioned conversation, sitting around a table at a coffee shop and chatting). One topic was how do companies use social media, or how should they use it?

Three strategies we’ve seen in businesses using Web 2.0:

  • Talking. Some companies are using Twitter, for example, to issue 140-character summaries of press releases or marketing pieces (with links). I heard another social media maven say recently that getting comments from other people isn’t the goal – it’s about getting your message out. He said the communications platform is what makes it “social.”
  • Listening. Other companies are listening intently to chatter in blogs and social networking sites, gleaning from these online conversations feedback about their product or service – and then fixing it. Or they’re hearing about the unmet need of consumers that could become their next big market.
  • Engaging. And then there are companies who really are creating a conversation. (”Conversation” is the social media buzzword that not all participants actually do.) These businesses are talking and listening. They may be systematically listening, which goes by the sinister-sounding verb “monitoring.” They answer questions. When they see someone complain about their company in a networking site, they reach out and offer to help. Almost like an old-fashioned conversation. 

So what’s your opinion: In the world of investor relations and corporate communication, what is the goal of blogging, Twittering and other-2.0-ing? Should a company talk, listen or engage with financial or corporate audiences online? 

And now you can engage: Click where it says “comments” at the end of this post. No name needed. And, of course, there’s no right or wrong answer – at least not in my book.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Swatting a gadfly with a cannon

April 14, 2009 – 5:19 pm

Keeping a sense of perspective can protect you  from embarrassment, and this holds true in the chaotic world of social media. Goldman Sachs seems to have lost track of what’s important by sending its lawyers after a blogger who is criticizing the company – a “corporate gadfly.” 

A gadfly, you know, is a little person with no power but a big mouth (or pen). He complains of some perceived wrong, and pretty much no one listens, unless … well, you can be the judge of the complaints in this case.

This story starts with Mike Morgan, a Florida investment adviser and real estate broker, setting up a blog in March called GoldmanSachs666.com. The name tells you where he’s coming from. Many of America’s corporate giants have spawned critics in the blogosphere – it’s a place outside the control of corporate giants.

But who would have read the 666 guy’s blog? I don’t see anything too interesting. He has posted about 30 times in the three and a half weeks it’s been up, offering conspiracy speculation and links to other blogs and news stories. I can’t find a disclosure of his personal or business agenda, why he’s going after Goldman Sachs.

Then Goldman – actually, its Wall Street law firm – threw down the gauntlet by sending him a cease-and-desist letter claiming he’s violating their trademark by using the company name in his URL. I’m no lawyer and don’t know the legal merits of their position. But this comes across like trying to shut up a critic.

That salvo encouraged Morgan to go into full attack mode. Besides encouraging blog readers to alert the media to his story, he’s filed a pre-emptive suit claiming the GoldmanSachs666 blog is posting news and commentary, not infringing their service mark. Some financial bloggers and the UK’s Telegraph are covering the case. Morgan is recruiting volunteers online, planning a media conference call and so on. He’s campaigning to become a cause celebre.

I don’t know the behind-the-scenes story of Goldman’s contacts with the 666 guy. In general, companies should do one of two things about a corporate protester, online or on the street outside the office:

  • Look for a way to engage and mollify the critic. Go the extra mile in person or by phone to see if there’s a grievance that can be solved, meet with him, offer respectful and factual answers or see where he’s coming from. Or if he seems intractable … 
  • Ignore the gadfly, while preparing message points to rapidly respond to the criticism. If the negative chatter spreads to other venues or threatens the company’s business or reputation, provide your message points quickly but one-on-one. Don’t issue a press release or file a lawsuit (both of which just turn up the volume). Answer reporters’ inquiries in a noncombative way. And perhaps comment directly on other blog or Twitter posts as they arise, especially if they overlap into your own social media constituency.

But taking aim with the legal cannons seems to be the surest way to make a big noise and get the wrong kind of attention. It’s like calling the police to arrest someone carrying a picket sign outside the office – guaranteed to make the evening news. Goldman Sachs, with all else that is on its plate these days, has more important things to do.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations, Media relations | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Companies are adopting IR 2.0

April 7, 2009 – 3:45 pm

In an excellent  NIRI webinar today on “Trends in Technology and Disclosure,” investor relations officers of three real-life companies tell their nitty-gritty stories of implementing corporate blogs, financial news releases via website (as opposed to sending the numbers out over a wire service), and enriched company IR websites:

Sun Microsystems has developed a rich portal of investor information. On this IR page the investor finds a wealth of data, including a complete array of traditional data such as news releases, SEC filings and so on. Attractive graphics guide your eye through the page and call attention to the most important items, such as recent earnings. Also, investors can sign up to get IR news via RSS feeds or Twitter. The portal is a best-in-class example for IROs to benchmark against in evaluating their own websites.

By the way, Sun IRO Paul Ziots noted on the call that the web portal was not called into action for the past week’s media speculation about takeover talks between IBM and Sun. That falls under a strict policy of “not commenting on rumors or speculation,” in person or online, he said.

Microvision has created a corporate blog, “The Displayground,” a word play on the company’s product focus on miniature video and display gear. It’s a multi-author blog that mixes marketing and corporate information – from videos showing off gear at a recent tech conference to direct investor communications. 

An example of the latter: One week before a Microvision earnings call, IRO Tiffany Bradford posted to the blog asking investors for questions to address on the call. Good tactic – and it drew about 40 responses. The management team addressed those questions on the call, and Tiffany followed up with another blog post giving a written FAQ from that exercise. She sees the blog as an efficient way to provide nonmaterial information to a far-flung base of individual investors.

And BGC Partners, an electronic inter-dealer brokerage, has taken the SEC at its word by directing investors to the company’s website for earnings and other financial announcements in satisfaction of Regulation FD. (See July 30 post on IR Cafe and the SEC’s August 2008 guidance on use of company websites.)

BCG announced in early February that it would discontinue sending out the numbers via wire services – and send only a short release announcing that investors can find the earnings at the BCG website (with links to the full release). 

IRO Jason McGruder noted that the company took considerable care to make the full-text and full-number release accessible at various landing pages, available through search engines and the like. BCG lawyers kept the company’s full safe-harbor disclaimer, even in the release-announcing-there’s-a-release.

So people out there are implementing IR 2.0 approaches. The webinar is well worth listening to – a replay should be available soon at the NIRI website. I found it useful to hear how these three companies worked through questions of how interactive tools help them carry out their strategies for communicating with investors.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

What’s up with live blogging?

March 20, 2009 – 11:43 am

One of the strange inventions of our new media era is live blogging of conference calls by financial media. What’s up with that? 

Today, for example, The Wall Street Journal is live blogging the Goldman Sachs conference call on its AIG risk. The odd thing is, of course, it’s a conference call - an investor could be listening live to get the news personally in real time.

Live blogging is minute-by-minute, as fast as a reporter can type a summary of what he’s hearing. You read things like this from the WSJ:

10:56: The hold music is Mozart. One of the better symphonies.

11:04: The conference call starts.

… 

11:12: If AIG failed, GS would have been able to collect on its hedges. That is why the company said it had no material exposure to AIG.

11:12: Viniar on AIG collateral: “We also have taxpayer money at GS and it’s our responsibility not to lose it.”

11:13: If GS was fine if AIG failed, how was it fully hedged? Viniar defends not returning some of AIG’s collateral or taking the discount. “We had about $7.5 billion of collateral, and if we had to take a discount on it, then GS would not be fully covered.” …

All well and good, but live blogging reminds me of play-by-play commentary on a basketball game - it lacks something if you don’t watch or hear the game itself. Live blogging is in print, with no video or audio. It’s a step removed - almost live, but not quite.

My thought: An investor who wants to be in the know would listen to the Goldman Sachs call. An investor could follow the live blog at the same time, but there isn’t much value without hearing or seeing the actual event. 

In fact, it’s spring break so I am watching - right now on TV - the University of Kansas play its first-round game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The game is live, and I’m seeing it first-hand.

Wouldn’t it be silly, it occurs to me, to follow the game through a live blog? But wait. Going back to the WSJ.com home page, I see there is a live blog on the KU game … Lagging a few minutes behind what I see on TV, there’s the play-by-play. But I’ve already seen each play before it’s reported. I could multitask and read this almost-live blog for additional commentary - or I could just watch, get all the information I need and enjoy the game. Then, I might read a news story or column in the morning paper to find well-thought-out commentary on what happened (in sports or finance).

News media are in a period of experimentation, and live blogging is part of that. For my money, live blogging of a conference call does not provide a good substitute for listening live. Even then, the value depends on the blogger’s ability to add insightful explanation in real time.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Update your website

February 2, 2009 – 10:05 pm

Getting caught with stale information on your website is an embarrassing - and usually preventable - moment. Investor relations can lead the way in protecting the company reputation by keeping that website up to date - or ensuring that someone is tasked with monitoring the corporate site.

The latest slap at a company website comes from Thomas Brown, a hedge fund guy writing on the BankStocks.com blog. Brown has been on the warpath against Bank of America and its CEO, and he takes another slap today in a post called “Ken Lewis’s Web Bio: Update Urgently Needed.” 

The B of A executive bio Brown cites gives Lewis implied credit for big increases in revenue, profit, assets and shareholder value …

During his tenure, Bank of America has improved customer satisfaction significantly across every major line of business; annual revenue has increased from $33 billion to $66 billion; annual profit has increased from $7.5 billion to $15 billion; assets have increased from $642 billion to $1.7 trillion; market capitalization has grown from $74 billion to $183 billion; and total annual shareholder returns (including stock price growth plus dividends) have averaged 13.3%, doubling peers, the KBW Banks Index, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same period.

… except that it doesn’t cite a time period for those stellar results.

Anyone who hasn’t been lost at sea knows that shareholder value in the banking biz - and for B of A - hasn’t been growing of late.

Brown refutes the rosy results point by point. That $138 billion market cap for BAC? It’s dropped to $38 billion, says Brown (closer to $30 billion after today). And the 13.3% annual total shareholder return? Brown calculates average total return as negative 18% per year during Lewis’s tenure as CEO.

I’m not into kicking a bank when it’s down, or siding with the hedgies. Generally, blending financial metrics into corporate descriptive material seems like a good idea - perspective and all that. But letting it go stale? Let’s just say it gives ammunition to the critics.

Best practice would assign responsibility for monitoring web content to someone who’s part of the company’s messaging process, whether it’s a person in IR, corporate communications or an outside firm. (The task should not go to a tech person or web designer, whose skills are not in financial communication.) 

This has to be an ongoing maintenance commitment. And you must decide a comfort level for how often to check and update the site: quarterly would make sense, at least, maybe monthly or a continual loop process.

By Dick Johnson | Posted in IR 2.0 - the Web, Industry Blogs, Investor Relations | Tagged , , , | Comments Off
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