Social Media for Investors

Social Media for Investors is Here!

No-one disputes the amazing increase in the use of social media generally. But is it happening for investors?

Before Twitter started using their $cashtags in 2012, the answer was probably, no. Companies were saying, well no-one is listening, and investors were saying, well no-one is talking.

In the USA, where there is no ASX centrally controlling announcements, listed companies have begun using Twitter for their earnings calls. It’s cheaper than the newswires, and it’s pervasive. Using their $cashtags, they can reach investors worldwide and instantly. This is driving US investors to Twitter. And non-US investors in US companies.

Want to reach US investors cheaply and easily? Consider Twitter.

Some Australian brokers, journalists and news services have begun using $cashtags. Some bots are posting ASX Announcements automatically to increase their seo ranking for their own commercial purposes. Don’t believe us? Take a look at Twitter, search your own $cashtag.

Like it or not, Twitter is now an active touchpoint for investors in Australia, and for overseas investors in Australian companies. IRM Newsroom makes it easy for ASX listed companies to have a basic presence on Twitter around their ASX Announcements and other news, and to be first with the news about themselves.

Read our IRMatters blog post “So you think you’re not on Twitter”.

How to use Social Media

Once there’s a basic presence on Twitter for company investor news, it spreads virally to other platforms. Individuals will make comments and post things on LinkedIn and companies more and more have Facebook pages targeted at investors.

YouTube is a great place to host a company’s video library, offering search capabilities, improved SEO and better technology. There’s many other social media channels to think about.

There’s also compliance and disclosure risks, with ASX listed companies required to first publicise news on the ASX platform. So comments on social media from the company can’t contain new news. But they can be used to amplify existing news, to provide reinforcement of existing stories, and a bit more explanation of different aspects.

Many companies have news that investors might be interested in which is not necessary for disclosure to ASX.  Social and environmental news, industry comment and opinion are all candidates for social media amplification.

Individual executives in companies often have their own social media accounts, providing another opportunity for the company news to be amplified through their personal networks.

Company Pages

 A corporate social media presence starts with a  company page. IRM can set up a professional company page on a number of social media channels, based on the information on the relevant pages of your website, with appropriate imagery and website links to reinforce the presence.

We’re looking to find automated ways to keep Company Pages up to date when the relevant website pages change. We’re sure there will soon be API’s to let us do that.

IRM and Social Media

IRM provides tools to easily publish news to Social Media. We can comment on basic social media strategies and help set them up. We can also help set up social media accounts and company pages. We can’t help with writing your stories or responding to people‘s comments, that needs a full understanding of the business. But we have tools and ideas to help.

IRM’s focus on social media is at the basic level. If you want a full scale elaborate professional social media strategy, we’re not the ones, but we can recommend others who can help.

IRM is also busy establishing its own social media presence with its own news, including client stories within the IRMatters blog. We post these stories (with the client’s $cashtag) to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn at the moment. Our target audience is different to a listed company’s target audience, providing reach for our clients to people who may not otherwise become aware of the company and its news.

News Publishing

IRM Newsroom can automatically publish your news from any source to social media channels, under your direct control.
Read about IRM Newsroom and Social Media news publishing here.