May 9, 2017
There’s no doubt that social media is a valuable marketing and communications channel for both B2B and B2C companies. But we often get the question, “Should companies use social media for investor relations?” While the answer is never black-and-white, Dix & Eaton believes there is value in leveraging your company’s existing corporate social media strategy to share your investor-focused content.
Here are three ways to ensure that IR and social media work together for your company:
1. AMPLIFY YOUR IR MESSAGE BY WORKING WITH CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
Social media and IR work best together when they are part of a broader communications strategy. Because of the seasonality of IR news and content, there is not always the steady flow of content that is needed to support a social media channel solely dedicated to IR. However, incorporating IR content into the ongoing mix of corporate and marketing messages provides the perfect opportunity to amplify your message to broader audiences, including employees, journalists and customers. The best way to achieve this is by working with your corporate communications team to create a content calendar that outlines how your IR content folds into your company’s broader social strategy.
2. PROVIDE CONSISTENT DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
Investor communication is highly regulated, and this factor alone can make sharing this information on social media channels scary and confusing for many companies. Despite this fear, social media can be an effective way to ensure consistent information reaches a broader audience. To overcome the fear of using social media, make sure whoever is responsible for posting content to your channels is trained on the SEC’s guidance in Reg FD and other disclosure rules, as well as how they relate to social media.
3. FOCUS ON SHARING CONTENT RATHER THAN ENGAGING WITH USERS
While Twitter, LinkedIn and other social channels are great for distributing information to a variety of audiences, when it comes to IR content, using these channels for engagement carries additional risk and is not a typical suggested practice. Instead, focus on using social media as an additional channel to push content out rather than trying to engage in conversation with followers around these topics.
Examples of IR content to push out over your social channels include:
- Quarterly and year-end earnings, including the announcement about the call date, the earnings news release and content from the earnings call
- Strategic announcements, such as M&A activity, plant openings, etc.
- Other financial announcements, such as dividends and stock buybacks
- Company-sponsored analyst and investor days
- Content from conferences and other events
- Bell-ringing events at NYSE (no link required if just posting photos)
- Annual reports
- Major product launches of interest to investors
MGM Resorts International shares its earnings release and quote from its CEO on LinkedIn
Procter & Gamble tweets information from its presentation to the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) using the event hashtag
While social media can amplify your IR efforts, remember it generally should not replace your existing disclosure strategies. If you’d like to talk more about how your company can use social media for IR, feel free to drop me an email or tweet me at @angelaalmasy.
Stay tuned to the blog for more on IR and social media, including how activists are using it.
