(This blog post was inspired by insights Peita Diamantidis shared at “Amplify Your News: Using Digital Media to Grow Your Investor Following,” a recent IR event presented by IRM and Computershare.)

Digital media can help you engage with your investor community and advance your business. Particularly if you’re an ASX-listed small cap company. This means of communication will provide you a unique opportunity for personal connection with your investor audience.

(This blog post is part of a series discussing 10 Success Factors for Online Investor Relations. Read the previous post — “How to Attract Investors to Your Website” — here.)

When was the last time you bought a mobile phone or laptop? Remember going through a decision-making process before buying it?

Like most consumers, you didn’t immediately buy the first thing you saw, right? You must’ve Googled the product several times to study its features. Compared it to peers. Or maybe checked reviews. What were others saying about it?

What was the first thing you did when you woke up this morning? Checked your email? Twitter or Facebook?

Digital media, a combination of technology and content, is so much a part of our daily lives. Whether or not we choose to tap into it first thing in the morning, we turn to it one way or another at some point during the day.

We guess you’re as passionate about your online investor relations presence as we are. Reaching investors online, at the touchpoints of their choosing and at the time they choose, is the main challenge of online IR activities. We’re happy to help with our suggestions, specifically tailored for you.

Perhaps your email strategies need a lift, or your social media presence needs to work harder for you. Does your home page help people like you, get the key messages through, and “Sell” the first click?

Maybe your Investor Centre could use more pages? You’d want your current dividends or capital structure to stand out, right?

(This blog post is part of a series discussing 10 Success Factors for Online Investor Relations. Read the next related post — “How to Appeal to Investors through Your Website” — here.)

So you have your website all set up and running. All the necessary elements are there — design, imagery, style and key messages. All the facts about your company and who’s running it. Your business summary and your investor proposition are in place. Got your latest news and reports. The works.

Some readers of ASX Announcements containing links to web pages (or email addresses) have been frustrated with an apparent inconsistency in whether the links are clickable or not. This note provides some guidance on a way to include links in a PDF document so that they will (almost always) work on the recipients’ technology.

A few months after going public through an IPO or RTO, people responsible for investor relations learn how much effort is involved in being public. It’s probably harder to be public than it was to go public.

Everyone has a website, right? But does everyone have a consider online presence for investors?

Whats the difference?

A website is a place where you put stuff. Brochureware, directory information, news, reports, contact details. So that when people turn up at the site they might be able to find what they want.

There’s a whole world of marketing experts focusing on helping businesses acquire new customers.

There’s a whole world of investor relations people focusing on helping businesses acquire new investors.

From the investors’ perspective, perhaps purchasing some shares is not much different to buying shoes, or a car?

Is your investor website one of over 500 ASX listed company sites that is not yet mobile friendly?

Investors are mobile these days. We’ve all tried to look at that tiny print of a non-friendly site on our phones. It’s simply easier to look elsewhere. Your investors are mobile, too.

IRM tested 1305 ASX listed company websites (with market cap over $5m) in May 2016.

We are pleased to advise that IRM developed websites outperform the ASX averages in all categories. This is just one more way the IRM assists its clients to stand out from the crowd.

As mobile service providers improve their networks and mobile phone giants continue to push out new devices, customers are now browsing the web more from their smartphones and tablets rather than traditional computers. It is also becoming important for businesses to tailor-fit their websites to mobile users to increase and improve search engine ranking results.

In this post we will get to know what a blog is, what blogging for business could mean for your business, and how ASX listed company peers are blogging now..

First and foremost…

A blog is an easy-to-use platform for connecting with and sharing relevant information with your audience. It is a simple direct communication channel.

Understanding the key success factors for online investor relations will assist companies to make sure their online IR strategy is best helping investors move through their investor journey.

In earlier posts in IRMatters, we discussed the Investor Journey, and the touchpoints investors use.

Information and impressions gained at various online touchpoints is used by investors as they progress on their journey from identifying needs to becoming a shareholder that will recommend the stock to others.

In an earlier post in IRMatters, we discussed the Investor Journey and how it is important for the IR communication strategy to understand the journey the investor takes, and the touchpoints investors use.

Investors go through a buying process as they decide whether or not to invest in a particular company. This article explores the similarities between the investor journey and the consumer buying process and outlines our thinking on how to engage for better success.

Consumers who are buying a product go through stages of engagement before their buy decision. Similarly, when making an investment decision, investors take a journey.

In the recently published summer edition of Listed@ASX magazine, IRM’s CEO, Martin Spry contributes thoughts on what makes an effective online IR communication strategy.

Key to success with online IR is understanding the investor journey – the stages investors progress through as they learn about, engage with and become shareholders in a listed company. The online communication strategy needs to relate to investors at each stage of their journey.

Did you know, that in a world driven by communication, the need to express oneself is clearly vital? As the interconnectedness of the international community becomes much more intertwined and close-knit, the possibility of needing to communicate to someone in a language other than one’s own becomes highly likely. This need is even more pronounced when it comes to company communications.

Some time back, following the trend set by #stocktwits, #twitter introduced a $cashtag.  For those daunted by the concept of Twitter (let alone the $cashtag) we take a moment here to demystify the cashtag feature and provide some simple tips on how to be more across what’s being said about your company on twitter, because despite whether you’re participating in social media conversation about your company, it’s most likely occurring anyway.

Here we look at the value in online reporting and the variety of online annual reports that IRM clients provide for their investors.

In our previous annual reporting posts, we provided some tips on how to best plan for the annual report process, and the important checks and balances to consider when creating reports.

In today’s post, we consider the value of online reporting, and the different sorts of reports IRM clients are choosing to adopt.