Social media is huge. For example, did you know that in 2021, over 4.26 billion people used social media worldwide? Furthermore, this number is expected to increase to almost 6 billion by 2027. It follows that, social media for investor relations is integral to your investor relations strategy.
Investor messaging and social listening were at the forefront in 2021 when GameStop Corp. saw a dramatic run-up in its stock price. As a result, an SEC special report charted the dramatic rise after bullish sentiments of individual investors filled social media.
Undoubtedly, social media and its top world platforms influence stock markets. Moreover, channels such as Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are seeing an explosion in investment research and conversations that display investor sentiment.
Social Media for Investor Relations: 5 Best Tips
We chatted with Caroline Klukowski from FluidPR to find out how to best use social media for investor relations. Caroline is a long-time corporate communications, investor relations and public relations specialist. As a trusted professional in the IR field, her social media tips are great for investor relations’ strategies.
Your IR department can use the following social media for investor relations’ tips to improve communications messaging.
5 Social Media Tips for IR
Know the Rules of Social Media for Investor Relations
Choose Your Best Social Channels
Post Relevant and Updated Information Regularly
Engage in Positive Conversations on Social Media for Investor Relations
Find Relevant Influencers
Use 5 Social Media Tips to Attract Retail & Institutional Investors
IR leaders can use the five social media tips for investor relations to attract investors. In fact, these five tips help investor relations’ professionals increase visibility, transparency and awareness of companies.
NIRI reports that, awareness and visibility are the most common benefits of social media.
Investor Relations Information to Post on Social Media
company news & announcements
stock market trends
stock fluctuations
recent earnings calls
investment information
press release links
financials
initial public offering announcements (IPOs)
The Retail & Institutional Investor Relationship with Social Media
According to Sprout Social, 55% of social media users learn about brands or companies through social media platforms. Therefore, it only makes sense that companies should be visible where investors reside – online.
A study from Greenwich Associates revealed that 80% of institutional investors use socials for daily work. In addition, 30% of these investors say information obtained through social media has influenced their investments decisions.
Know the Rules of Social Media for Investor Relations
Investor relations helps to disclose, or make company facts and information known to the public. Furthermore, the IR department helps ensure that your company is in compliance. In other words, your company must follow all applicable laws, regulations, standards and ethical practices.
Disclosure & compliance for investor relations
According to Caroline, making sure you always cover your disclosure bases is very important. For example, thorough research, consulting and review of securities compliance rules is necessary.
“Compliance and disclosures are critical when posting on behalf of public companies, so make sure you have someone who is in the position to review the work before it goes live to an audience.”
Caroline Klukowski, FluidPR
Focus on investors & other stakeholders in social media
It isn’t just investors that are on the social media landscape. In fact, you may want to appeal to everyone. Therefore, it is important to align your communications tactics to appeal to all interested and potential stakeholders.
“Investors are only a small part of the audience on Social Media – with the general public, employees, customers, regulators etc. also there, and far more relevant from a numbers perspective.”
Miranda Partners
Choose Your Best Social Channels
Caroline herself uses Reddit, Twitter and a variety of blog pages to stay up to date with industry news, trends etc. In addition, she says that those platforms have the most investor engagement and are where she expects to see information.
A lot of platforms these days are communication tools that have replaced the phone call, adds Caroline. Actually, they play a critical role in engaging with your stakeholders and help create critical feedback loops for businesses.
Investor relations should keep in mind that everyone digests information differently online. At this time, here are a few social channels to consider for investor relations.
Twitter is there for short, quick tweets with its character limits. As well, it’s also mobile-friendly for someone that is constantly on the go and uses Twitter as their source of everything news-related. In essence, you can use this to your advantage to post interim updates with a link to a news release.
You can use Twitter to follow trends, gain insight’s on your brand’s public reputation or use cashtags (eg. $AMZN) to see other Tweets mentioning the same company ticker symbol.
Twitter marketing shows us which brands are the best conversation starters, which brands harness the power of trends and so much more. Indeed, you can use Twitters Best of Tweets 2022 to help shape your Twitter strategy.
Reddit is a community-based program where you can see news and what people are talking about. Also, you can join in open discussions about your interest area and get answers from niche communities or subreddits.
Reddit, according to Sprout, can be used to share company updates that the Reddit financial communities can engage with and to monitor conversations around your company.
Investor relations’ professionals can keep tabs on the investing community. For example, top online subreddit communities that move markets include r/wallstreetbets, r/stocks and r/investing.
LinkedIn has more than 850 million members worldwide. In addition to this, the platform has a specific business focus with a professional network. Furthermore, you can create in-depth posts with images that catch people’s attention as they scroll and highlight accomplishments.
Individual users can create their own personal profiles that act as a sort of online resume. Also, companies have their own pages that highlight key company information. For instance, employees, announcements, offices and other forms of information are housed on company pages.
Finally, you can follow any companies you wish and their posts will show up in your feed.
Post Relevant and Updated Information Regularly
Post relevant and helpful information to aid your potential investors to move down the investment process. Actually, the key is to create great content for each social platform you use.
“Provide people with useful information that you researched or obtained rather than regurgitating information that has already been shared multiple times. It is always better to add to the conversation than to repeat it.”
Caroline Klukowski, FluidPR
It is also important to keep your social media pages updated. That is, the last thing a potential investor wants to see is, “Posted 7 weeks ago” on a page’s most recent post.
Recent data shows that 75% of investors now use social media to inform investment decisions. Therefore, if users notice the company does not update its social channels on a regular basis, they may look elsewhere for investment ideas.
Engage in Positive Conversations on Social Media for Investor Relations
Caroline suggests participating in conversations online and using different platforms yourself to stay relevant.
Social listening & conversations for investor relations
Becoming well-versed and gaining more insight into marketing trends and technologies by engaging in social listening and conversations with potential investors, stockholders etc. is a great hack!
Sprout Social writes that, 68% of consumers agree that social media enables them to interact with brands and companies. Actually, social media empowers consumers to interact with brands/companies they follow and learn about important company information.
Consumers Use Social Media First for Brand Information
product updates
product specifications
feedback, advice
reviews
comments/likes
purchasing information
pricing
According to Sprout, 78% of consumers are willing to buy from a company after having a positive experience with them on social.
Find Relevant Influencers
TikTok came with a force and with it, a new generation of influencers. Gen Z has never been more invested in the stock market. Additionally, social media have been their teachers, especially, with the rise of cryptocurrencies.
A previous Motley Fool survey noted that stocks “are king” for members of both generations, with 73% of Gen Z investors, 66% of millennial investors and 67% of investors ages 18 to 40 overall owning stocks, making them the most common type of investment in this age group.
GOBankingRates
For IR, this means they need to proactively engage this audience on social media with relevant financial information, KPIs and messaging to democratize the investment process.
Lastly, keep an eye on current influencers in the markets to stay in-the-know on what is happening in the investor world.
Social media for investor relations is an integral part of any marketing and communications strategy. Furthermore, with social platform adoptions on the rise, it is more necessary than ever to ensure social media is part of your investor relations strategy.
Ready to get your press release out there? Just leave everything to us!
Feel free to reach out to Newsfile for help with your press release needs at office@newsfilecorp.com.
