It seems “Investor Relations 2.0” is slowly but surely becoming a buzzword throughout the stock promotional and investor relations community. As expected though, it seems many think IR 2.0 is still marketing, but using social media and Web 2.0 platforms like Twitter and Facebook to broadcast a message.
It’s the same message that has been broadcast for many years. They are just doing it from different places now.
What is “the message” anyhow? In the case of Investor Relations, it means to compile information on the company and distribute it to the masses. In the case of promoters, it means compile some information on the company AND the stock and distribute it. In the past, distribution for both promoters and IR types in the Web 1.0 world was via fax, email, “hard mailers” (the kind that find the recycle bin now), phone rooms, research reports and any other means that could be thought up.
Now the misconception is this:
IR and promotional entities are still marketing the same messages but now, with increasing frequency, using things like Twitter and Facebook with multiple accounts on each. This effectively increases the bandwidth of their message. Trouble is though, even with a great deal of bandwidth, if there is no one there to listen to the broadcast, it doesn’t matter how big the bandwidth is… In other words, it doesn’t matter how big the tree is that falls in the forest; if there is no one there to hear it, size really doesn’t matter at all.
Investor Relations 2.0 is far more than registering accounts on social media platforms.
At NetGenPR, the first two weeks of a program is essentially research and development of a campaign. We conduct several online meetings with the management of our client companies and work with them to develop a plan. That plan INCLUDES the building of the company and its management team’s brand, web site design or redesign, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), content development (multimedia and written), distribution and permission based marketing. This is only a small part of what we do. Many hours of thinking and development on our part, and company management team input and participation goes into developing and executing a campaign.
The object of our programs is to facilitate a conversation between the company, its clients, its customers as well as their shareholders and people in the investment community. In the Web 2.0 world we live in now, trust has to be earned by companies. Gone are the days of people blindly buying into companies or stocks. People are buying brands and investing in companies they TRUST and communicate with.
David Finch‘s post- Persistence: The Key to Social Media Strategy at Social Media Explorer pointed out the importance of PERSISTENCE.
He said: The engine that keeps that process moving forward is the discipline of being persistent. Being persistent in your engagement within the communities that you are a part of communicates your willingness to make an investment versus the “get rich quick” approach that always want to “cash in” before they’ve every added anything of value. It’s this approach that is becoming very common as social media is introduced to the masses as an arsenal of tools rather than access points into groups of people, ideas and communities.
How well said this is… There will be many that come along and see an opportunity to make money in social media and will dive in flailing around to create a lot of noise. They will annoy people quickly and these entities will disappear for a time, then, reappear under different aliases.
Therefore, one of the first rules of engaging in the Web/IR 2.0 world is: TRANSPARENCY. Transparency means using your actual name, displaying an actual photo of yourself, and posting a realistic bio of yourself on social media sites, platforms and such. I frequently get “invites” from people wanting to connect with me on social media platforms. If they have some silly avatar and/or a handle instead of a name, I ignore them. Once upon a time, it was cool to have a unique screen name and use a photo of an expensive automobile or boat for your photo or avatar but not anymore. People will not respond and will, by in large, ignore you.
CREDIBILITY and INTEGRITY (or lack thereof) is exactly why we are where we are today. People are sick to death of con men hiding behind handles, middlemen, and company management teams that won’t address shareholder and customer concerns by ignoring them. It is essential for anyone wanting to do legitimate business on the Web to do so transparently. It is absolutely imperative for company management teams to become human beings and come out of their pillboxes and engage the investment community and their shareholders as human beings.
Having said that, I realize too, that there are many company management teams hunkered down in storm shelters and pillboxes hanging on and waiting for things to “return to normal”. They do so at their peril though… One day, one by one, they will emerge out of their fortifications to see an alien landscape that will be totally unrecognizable in any way. They will be so far behind the times and be totally lacking with regard to any of the tools necessary to even survive.
Some scientists say we are entering into another mass extinction. Every so many million years, something happens like a meteor hit or massive volcanic activity that wipes out a large percentage of the animal species on the earth. The scientists say the climate change that is currently going on will wipe out many species in the years, decades and centuries to come. In business and communications we are witnessing a mass extinction too. We are witnessing the mass extinction of mass marketing; the extinction of Web 1.0… The victims include anyone trying to control content like newspapers and television (as we know it), anyone doing push or interruption type of marketing. And, so too will go the companies that do not listen and ignore their customers, clients and shareholders.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.