Social media is the newest fad: Guest Post by Collean Toupin

Social media is the newest fad, for everything, for everyone. New platforms are being developed to try new and interesting means of communication, but one important factor remains: you can no longer avoid social media. Social media is even crossing over into our work lives, with its use in the professional world becoming more and more apparent. With the SEC’s blessing on using social media for fair disclosure (you can read more here in a blog written by Dennis Walsh explaining the new rules, the VP and director of Social Media for Sharon Merrill - http://blog.investorrelations.com/2013/04/08/sec-gives-social-media-for-ir-its-blessing/), the business community has seen social media has move into the spotlight over the last few weeks. Companies are finding all sorts of different ways to use social media to help develop maintain and strengthen their brand.

One way some companies have been using social media, is to involve their CEO. While it has been found that only 16% of CEOs are currently using social media to connect with their constituents, IBM predicts a 256% increase in the use of social media by CEOs in the next five years (http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/en/c-suite/ceostudy2012/infographic-01.html). Some CEOs, like Peter Aceto (the CEO of ING Direct Canada - https://twitter.com/CEO_INGDIRECT), are ahead of the ball-game and have been using social media for quite some time, and have used social media very well to develop their brand. He uses his Twitter page to connect to users on the daily, frequently replying back to tweets, about all different sorts of topics. Much of the content developed by Aceto is business related, but he makes sure to disseminate pieces that are relatable to the everyday person, such as a tweet posted on April 15, about having the how-to-save-money talk with your teenager. In an article written by Forbes magazine, Aceto is quoted as saying “Being open, sharing more about ourselves, showing a relatable side, are all extremely valuable and can be real competitive advantages,” when commenting on the type of content he tries to deliver through his social media use” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2013/01/30/a-bank-executive-they-call-the-social-media-ceo/). Aceto understands that social media provides transparency for his constituents. His constituents, by reading his page, can see and read about him being a father, posting about guiding your children to save money, can see and read about him being a citizen, his comments on different social events that are occurring and can see and read about him being a professional by reading the business posts. Aceto also warns against some risks that come with social media as well, here.

The risks pointed out by Aceto are real, and with the SEC allowing social media to be used for fair disclosure, they will become even more apparent as the social media trend develops. Companies choosing not to partake in social media may find themselves facing criticism for not extending the lines of communication with their constituents. Aceto also states that if posts are not authentic and real, there is a reputational risk. We all know that lying doesn’t get us very far, ever.

But, with some social media training (and common sense- what is acceptable in public, is acceptable on social media, what is not acceptable in public, is not acceptable on social media), social media will drive business results. There are plenty of different resources that can be used to learn how to use social media effectively. One, a video blog by Tim Howard, the CEO of IRSmarttInc provides guidelines for a personal profiles online and how to use them effectively.

Another great resource is Peter Aceto’s Twitter page, it will show you different examples of topics to use
to interact with the public. Twitter searches will provide great results for social media guidance. Resources are readily available all over the web. It is important to have a full understanding of social media, its risks, benefits and how-to’s before you dive in and use social media. But it is important to learn quickly, smart social media use gives your business a very competitive edge.

SEC Guidelines on Social Media: Guest Post by Erin Mannix

On April 2, 2013 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules regarding the disclosure of key information. The SEC gave the OK allowing companies to use social media as a main source of communication among their investors. However, with this change to section 13(f) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 comes several ethical rules that companies must abide by.

Before releasing company information, companies must inform all of their investors where the information will be posted. If companies do not follow this important rule, using social media as a form of communication will not be worth it; it will only be able to be seen by certain investors. Investors must be alerted of the release of new information, and they must be alerted at the same time, giving no one investor a leap ahead of the other. If information is only released to certain investors, it leaves others behind on the latest news and updates. One group of investors or shareholders should not be given an advantage just because a company is selectively withholding important information from others.

Due to this new change to section 13(f) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, business communication will never be the same. With the constant changes and improvements with technology and social media sites, companies will have to continuously change and adapt to keep up. If companies are serious about using social media as a main source of communication, they must use it consistently and remember to continuously update, inform, and monitor what is being said about them. Using social media can jeopardize or improve a company’s reputation. If a company only posts a minimal amount of information, investors may begin to question how invested they are. With that being said, if companies take advantage of this new rule, posting information and constantly updating, social media sites can also gain something. Companies can help social media sites to grow and become bigger than they may be already. Companies can exchange information and feelings on how one site may work better to release certain information over others. If companies work well with the social media sites, both can advance and grow.

Social media is a quick and easy way for companies to spread important information as long as they are doing it correctly. Companies must be aware of what they are writing on social media sites and letting the public into. Whatever you place online is public information; it is how investors and the public perceive you and your company.

Hoping that all of the company’s investors are on the social media sites to obtain this information, companies should take advantage of this new change in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Using social media can be a great way to improve a company’s image. It can show what the company’s views are on certain topics, while releasing fast information for all of its investors to obtain.

No one can know what may come with the future and companies using social media. The future of company’s and the use of social media to release information is entirely up to the company and if they can quickly adapt and change with the technology. If they choose to take advantage of this new rule, they should not forget to interact with their audiences.

IR APPS: Is Investor Relation adequately using their technological resources? Guest Post by Kellie Duffy

If you need to check the correct conversion of money during your trip to Italy, there’s an app for that, want to block the number of your ex so you will stop calling them, yup there’s an app for that, too. From checking the weather and traffic, to checking your bank statements most things you need are all in the palm of your hand, but has Investor Relations (IR) reached their potential with using these applications?

Surprisingly, IR has yet to make any ground breaking effort to full integration of our app filled world. An industry reliant on getting information to a vast number of people at the same time, you may assume, would have apps being widely used and developed.

There is a website, theIRApp, focusing on quickly creating App’s for publicly traded companies in order to have information such as stock information, fact sheets, audio conferences calls, etc. available to whoever downloads their apps. The resources for companies to create and manage a smartphone app are available; it is up to the companies themselves and possibly the profession of investor relations as a whole to jump on board with creating the applications.

With most things involving Investor Relations, a big question and problem is with the regulations in place and making sure Investor Relations professionals and companies are abiding by them. If these IR apps were to become apart of the culture of publicly traded companies, I believe it would affect the way companies can disseminate their information while keeping in mind Regulation FD. These apps could potentially be the sole way to get information out to their shareholders and potential shareholders. Nowadays, most people have a Smartphone and the large majority is beginning to also acquire products like tablets that also rely on applications to draw in customers. App’s are what make these highly sought after products worthwhile, and companies as well as Investor Relations professionals should be aware that their current and potential shareholders have these products and use App’s for a lot of their day to day activities.  Keeping this in mind, they should push to make app’s for their companies a go to for information regarding potential investment and stocks.

As IRwebreport.com highlights, there are definitely some companies using apps to get information about their companies out there. One app is a Mexico based cement company, Cemex. I downloaded the free app for Cemex to see what it was all about, and it is a good example of what companies may look to focus on when designing and app with Investor Relations in mind. The home screen has all the fundamentals with tabs linking to “my needs, best practices, product documents, and contact us”. The Cemex app, which was created in 2010, is a positive framework for what an app can provide to potential and current shareholders.

Although there is some prevalence of these apps for IR, there still remains a lot of room to expand. With a focus on Relational Investing as well as importance of intangible assets, an app for a company with information on stocks, decisions companies are making and how it could affect shareholders, could no doubt, assist with creating relational investors in a company which in turn can create a more profitable and successful company as a whole.

The Rising Use of Twitter in Investor Relations: Guest Post by John Muzzy

The business world has come to embrace social media and investor relations seems to be the next big field to do so as well. In just the past few years the impact Twitter has had on IR has gone up dramatically. While investors still primarily rely on the companies themselves for information, Twitter has become increasingly important.

The Brunswick group recently conducted a survey of over 500 investors and sell side analysts in Europe, US, and Asia and the results showed 30% use Twitter, which is a 19% increase from the last time this study was conducted two years ago. One eighth of those surveyed say they made an investment decision based off something they saw on Twitter. Twitter has also proven to be a very important first step for investors. 28% of those surveyed said they searched for information on an issue they originally saw on Twitter. Stocktwits, the IR specific Twitter related social networking site created in 2008, now has a community of over 200,000 investors, marketing professionals, and private companies.

While the usage of digital media continues to rise traditional media sources are become less and less used. The number of investors who see the importance of traditional business media online was down 13% from where it was two years ago. However, even with these changes in the media landscape, getting information directly from the company is still the preferred information gathering method for investors. While that is currently the norm, the future of social media is not lost on those investors. Social networking sites like Twitter are constantly growing industries and 56% of the investors in this survey see the role of digital and social media increasing as time goes forward. Here is the infographic from Brunswick on the left.

Right now the more common practice is to use Twitter as an information gatherer rather than an information distributor, but both practices are on the rise. One plan some companies have developed is creating a specific Twitter account for IR. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has the most followed company specific IR Twitter account with over 11,000 followers. For them it was all about understanding their audience and the correct way to direct their message. WWE’s proactivity in this field is what has led to their success. They quickly and effectively advertised the creation of their IR account which helped garner followers. Their investors have enjoyed having one simple source to gather information and it’s made their lives easier, something that investors always appreciate.

The WWE has become the example for other companies on how to establish and execute an IR specific account. Those managing these IR Twitter accounts continue to find ways to utilize them including but not limited to sharing stories, providing links to previously disclosed materials, live tweeting meetings, directing followers to other social media outlets, and engaging with followers. As companies continue to understand the ways in which they can utilize social media the use of these resources will continue to rise, especially Twitter, which has the potential to become a highly used intermediary between companies and their investors. This is still a fairly new medium for companies to apply and all signs point to a continuous significant growth in the utilization of Twitter in the coming years.

Guest post: Crisis communications and public relations by Meghan Murphy

The viral YouTube video of Domino’s employees in 2009, the BP oil spill of 2010, and the more recent Costa Concordia cruise ship accident (shown above with a link to a great article on predicted ramifications from the accident) can each be easily remembered by many, especially by public relations professionals. With crises such as these (and more) occurring every year, it has never been more important for public relations professionals to keep up with innovative tools and trends in the field. Being knowledgeable of new practices and strategies contributes to a better understanding of the field and helps improve the quality of our public relations activities. There are a number of resources professionals can rely on in order to stay up to date with new tools and trends, including MarketingWeek (for example, the article “Brands can’t afford to #fail when it comes to social media crisis comms”).

The area of crisis communications is extremely intriguing to me. Crises can occur at any given time and we (public relations professionals) need to be fully prepared for that moment. In my personal research of the specialization, I have found that there are a plethora of opportunities for crisis communicators to teach companies and organizations about the best practices during a time of crisis. It is more astounding to me that, while some companies or organizations have mastered the art of public relations in times of calm, they fail miserably at communicating with the public during times of chaos.

Graduate students of public relations, such as me, have the unique opportunity to continually expand the knowledge base and skill set that we have already acquired. We also have the chance to apply these skills and knowledge to real life practice. Personally, I intend to learn as much as I possibly can about crisis communications, then move forward and begin applying it in my future career. Check out my blog to track my exploration of the world of crisis communications and public relations.

Guest post: Public relations and new media by Vivian Dennis

Everyone has weighed in on the Costa Concordia disaster since the cruise ship ran aground Jan. 13 off Giglio, Italy. The partially submerged ship is a constant reminder that the accident has claimed 17 lives, with 15 missing and presumed dead.

Earlier this week, National Geographic presented a documentary with passenger, crew, and emergency worker interviews and video taken aboard after the ship struck a reef. Lost in the stories and sound bites is the presence of the ship's operator Costa Cruises and its parent company Carnival Corp.

There has been much criticism of the cruise lines' PR efforts and the low-profile of Carnival CEO Micky Arison to, as some say, distance Carnival from the disaster. Arison has issued statements on Twitter.

“Twitter has granted the media and the public visibility into the personal and professional lives of many executives, athletes and celebrities,” Aaron Kwittken, chief executive of Kwittken & Co. Worldwide, wrote in Forbes. “However, the platform is no surrogate for devoting personal time and attention to address questions that the victims’ families deserve answers to.”

Kwittken is right. Even in the internet era, social media networks are among the tools – not the only tool – to be used in handling such a crisis. Not everyone is plugged in and the personal touch, even if symbolic, can go a long way. It is bad enough to have Costa Concordia mentioned in the same breath as the Titanic, which sank 100 years ago, or as a new standard of failure. But now Carnival's crisis communications brings to mind BP's public relations disaster in the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill.

For more on public relations and media, visit: viviandennis.blogspot.com

Students-experts

New semester, new students... This time students of the capstone Campaigns class have a challenging assignment of becoming experts in some field of public relations, marketing, corporate communications, etc. and talk about this field online. However, they are not going to be graded based on how many posts they blog or how many tweets they send, but on the actual conversations they engage in with the online community.

I know at least one already picked investor relations!!!

Retail investors? No, thank you very much.

Last week our class discussions focused on different publics investor relations officers communicate with. We talked about sell-side, buy-side and retail investors. We decided that investor relations officers should concentrate much of their efforts on the institutional buy-side. Yet, a recent article I found claims a different position.

An article on IR Alert blog gives 5 reasons why retail investors are an important audience for an IRO. Yet, the article misses a significant reason about why IROs are not actually focusing on retail investors as much as the article's author wants them to. Or, to be precise, the article misses all five of them.

Let's review.
1. The article claims that retail investors like to talk among themselves and with the management. Well, this is true, but this is exactly why they are a nightmare for an IRO. Would your CEO rather meet with 100 retail investors who together own 0.5% of your stock or with 1 fund manager who owns 3% of your stock? I think the answer is clear. And I am not even talking about managing and organizing the event.
2. The article interestingly enough claims that retails investors are smart. Some - maybe, but some are definitely not. And some - are not even close. I had a pleasure of dealing with retail investors when I worked as an IRO - most often, it was not fun.
3. The article claims retail investors purchase stock in small amounts and thus do not cause any change in stock price. Well, that's in my mind a reason to pay less attention to them rather than more.
4. The article claims that retail investors in comparison with fund managers are not measured by monthly or quarterly performance and thus they can hold your stock longer. Well, although retail investors are not formally measured against some metric, there are different retail investors as well as different institutional investors. Some trade stock on any smallest movement, while others can hold it for years. The issue, at least in my mind, is that sometimes the logic in retail investors' behavior is missing or at least hard to predict. I can understand what moves the pension fund with a known investment strategy, but what would case a retail investors to suddenly buy or sell my stock is more difficult to understand and thus predict. And since each one of them owns a tiny percentage of my stock, I typically would not have time to figure it out anyway.
5. I read the article a couple of times, but I cannot find the reason number 5 for paying attention to retail investors despite the fact that the title of the article claims that there are exactly five reasons.???

Overall, I am not saying that retail investors are not important, but I doubt they can be more important for an IRO than institutional investors. There is a chance they can smooth out volatility in the market, there is a chance they will hold your stock for long time, there is a chance they will ask smart and intelligent questions, but there are probably as many chances that their behavior will be quite the opposite. And then again, how much of your stock do they actually own?

Important issues in investor relations

What are the most important issues in investor relations today? Well, I have my opinion about that, but since I now have 22 students learning about investor relations in my class at Quinnipiac University I decided to let them choose the most important issue for themselves.

As a result, each one of them, based on our class discussions and assigned readings, will pick an issue important to the investor relations profession and will try to learn as much as possible about such as issue. The issues students are considering range from StockTwits and IR on Facebook to ethical codes of investor relations officers. Students will launch their own blogs dedicated to these issues and share their insights on them at least weekly.

I will share links to students' blogs on investor relations issues next week.

Don't confuse investor relations with publicity!

On a blog of one highly respected investor relations practitioner I was shocked to read the following:

"As an investor relations person, I’m not part of the negotiating process for corporate deals. Folks who do negotiate the deals earn the big bucks – but that’s OK. My job is to communicate a deal once it’s done."

My shock was even stronger as the person writing these words was a long time member of NIRI and a president of a successful investor relations agency.

However, I have to conclude he is not an investor relations officer. Maybe a publicist. Maybe a journalist-in-residence. But not an investor relations officer.

Because if he were an investor relations officer, he would be part of a negotiation process. Investor relations must be involved in making a deal, representing the company's investors and defending their interests before the deal is carried out rather than simply communicating about a deal "once it's done." Maybe in this case the officer will deserve earning "big bucks" as well...

Are investor relations officers management's advocates?

I am back from my trip to Russia and trying to catch up with all the readings and emails I missed during three weeks without accessing the Internet (well, to be honest I did look and respond to some emails).

Anyway, I came across an interesting post at the Investor relations musings blog: What makes for great investor relations? There, John Palizza writes: "Some people like to think of investor relations as an advocacy position, similar to the way our trial system works." This phrase caught my attention because this is exactly what I was finding when I was conducting my research on the history of the investor relations profession. I identified three periods in the IR history, the second of which spanning from about 1970 to 2000, is exactly that: advocacy. IROs try to explain, defend and advance the management's point of view.

Summarizing my research results for the Institute for Public Relations I concluded that this second era of the history of investor relations was characterized by financial expertise heavily dominating investor relations: accountants and financial analysts often with no expertise in strategic communications were hired to perform an investor relations function.

However, I suggested that today we are already in the third period - synergy era. Now investor relations is not focused on advocacy, but rather on understanding: the goal of the investor relations function is the improved understanding of the company and its business model among investors and analysts. This investor relations does not try to achieve a "high" value of stock but tries to achieve a "fair" value of stock.

Here is the summary of my review of the investor relations history.

Should bloggers be allowed to talk to IROs?

Dominic Jones provides an excellent discussion about the influence of bloggers on investor relations and the way that some investor relations officers seem to lack understanding how much influence blogs (especially financial blogs) have in stock purchase decisions.

Needless to say, that the influence of blogs is only going to increase as the work load of financial analysts increases leaving them less time to do research and try to understand the company and the industry. It is not a surprise then that these very analysts and professional investors use blogs to acquire information to substitute their own research.

So, what Dominic concludes is this: "The time has come for investor relations departments to open up their earnings calls to finance bloggers." What I conclude is as an educator I must teach my students to deal with bloggers in the controlled environment of the conference call as well as uncontrolled environment of blogs, discussion boards, and chat rooms. Investor relations education must prepare students to track issues in the blogosphere, and be able to measure and manage the discussion on relevant topics.

Read more here: http://www.irwebreport.com/daily/2009/02/25/investor-bloggers-influenc/

Investor relations wiki: Comments open

The Institute for Public Relations' Essential Knowledge Project now has comments feature. Anybody can comment on the information published. This interactivity ideally allows professionals and academics to make sure the information is correct and up-to-date.

Here is the link to my part, investor relations. Go ahead, tell me what I did wrong or perhaps right. So, what are you waiting for?

Investor relations professional wiki

Well, it's been a long time since I posted here, but I was not slacking off. I presented at a couple of conferences and now am getting ready to travel to San Diego for next week's NCA conference. But another thing I want to share with you is the Essential Knowledge Project organized by the Institute for Public Relations.

The goal of the project is to provide "a guide to existing public relations research and translates this knowledge into practitioners' language." As such, EKP provides summaries of research about crisis communications, fundraising, ethics, etc. One of the areas is investor relations.

I was honored to be selected to write the introduction to the investor relations page. However, no single person can be an authority on investor relations. So, I encourage you - academics, professionals, students - to contribute. I think of this project as a Wiki page where together we can summarize the knowledge for young practitioners and identify the missing pieces where research should be directed. Feel free to add the information that I missed, correct the mistakes that I made, ask the questions that I did not asnwer, and simply share your thoughts.

So, welcome to the Essential Knowledge Project: Investor Relations.

Shareholder Forums

Internet keeps marching on into the domain of investor relations. Following emails, Web sites and even blogs, companies are now considering launching online forums, where shareholders, financial analysts and other interested parties can chat with the management and with each other about whatever they want to.

Or, to be more specific, whatever the management allows them to chat about. This is an important caveat because hosting its own forum gives the company a complete control over the content - including moderation and pre-moderation of every post and comment. Seems like a lot of extra work with a potential for disaster.... The question is: Is it worth it?

The answer of Mike O'Brien is: Definitely, yes. He is the leader behind eShareholder forum, a turn-key solution for such shareholder forums. I spent some time on the phone with him trying to figure out how it works and it seems like a well-designed product.

However, I have hard times trying to imagine an analyst from Calpers going to the forum to have his questions answered. Would not they pick up the phone? Unless the situation in investor relations changed a lot since I returned back to academia, I, as an investor relations officer, knew all the analysts covering my company (and covering my industry) and they knew me. The same was true for the large investors. We communicated quite often via phone and email and I would not see much value in shareholder forum back then.

Now, the situation might be quite different for a company that has a large private retail shareholder base. Do we still have companies like that? I do not know. Statistics tell me that the U.S. market is highly institutionalized, but who knows what we will have at the end of this current financial crisis. We might return to the golden times of 1950s when retail ruled the market and financial intermediaries hardly existed. We might, but I doubt that.

Another user of eShareholder forum might be a start-up with no analyst coverage or the one just trying to lure in some big investors. Again, I am not sure if that would be the best strategy to use, but maybe one of the strategies.

Here is the article that thinks shareholder forums can provide "an innovative and cutting-edge way of distinguishing itself from its peers and competitors." Again, I am not sure how much value investors and analysts will add for this "cutting-edge" unless it has different information (unlikely) or provides it faster than a phone call (unlikely). Can the interaction between investors themselves on the forum create additional value for the company? Once again, I am not sure.

So, in conclusion, I think eShareholder forum is a great forum product. It is well-designed and includes all the neccessary controls and components. But how much companies today need any kind of shareholder forums I do not know...

The Dark Side of the Internet

What can make your company stock crash from $12.50 to $3 a share within 15 minutes? The answer: An article in a local newspaper... from 6 years ago.

Wall Street Journal reports a truly amazing story (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100794359017593.html) that reads almost like a science-fiction. Here is a possible chain of events:
- Hurricane is near Florida
- People search online for plane delays in Florida
- In search results they stumble upon a six-year-old article about bankruptcy of United Airlines published in Florida's Sun-Sentinel newspaper
- Since it is Saturday night, not many people are on the site of the newspaper, so even a few hits make that old story move up into the list of popular stories
- Google's crawler, that checks popular stories every 15 minutes or so, notices the change and picks up the old story
- Being old the story does not have proper tags that would identify it as a 2002 story
- Monday morning, a financial research firm notices the story on Google and assumes it is current
- The story is supplied to Bloomberg
- Wall Street traders see the story and... stock plunges down within 15 minutes!

Wow! I just wonder what other old story will make it big on the stock market...

And what can IRO do? Should we search for our company name in variety of word combinations? Maybe not even stopping on the first page of search results, but looking through the first ten pages or so?

Blogging - a new addition to the investor relations syllabus

Much discussion has happened in the blogosphere (see IR Cafe's SEC clarifies guidelines for IR on the Web or IR Web Report's SEC OKs websites and blogs for Reg. FD) as well as in other media recently regarding SEC's new guidance on using corporate Web sites. In short, disclosure nowadays does not necessarily have to equate with a press release. Investor relations professionals now join public relations practitioners, fundraisers, and political campaigners, who have utilized Web sites, as well as blogs, discussion forums, bulletin boards, RSS feeds, and even Facebook, for quite some time already.

Investor relations is just making a small step so far, but today's students who enter the industry four years from today should prepare for how this step will change the industry 5, 10 or 25 years into the future. No doubt, investor relations sections of the corporate Web sites will be used more heavily. More corporate blogs might also appear (perhaps similar to Dell's investor relations blog).

All in all, I would do a disservice to my students if I do not add a certain component to the course covering writing for the Web sites, evaluating Web sites' usage, managing blogs, and monitoring and particapiting in discussion forums or conference boards.

Investor Relations on the Web: Blogs

Since I am teaching investor relations, I would like to compile a list of resources about investor relations available on the Internet. Let's be honest, students are more likely to read something on the Web rather than go to the library.

I will start with blogs. I will try to create a list of blogs focused on the investor relations profession. I would really appreciate any help from the professionals and academics - if I miss a blog, please feel free to point it out to me. No single person can be a final authority on investor relations (or anything else for that matter!); my five years of professional work in investor relations and another five years doing academic research in investor relations, perhaps, qualify me to teach investor relations to students, but they do not make me all-knowledgeable about the profession.

Investor Relations Musings. A blog written by John Palizza, a practitioner and educator in investor relations, who now runs his own consulting company. A blog is updated about once in two weeks. The blog has a general focus on various aspects of investor relations. Texts are written in "plain English" and are highly readable.

IR Web Report. A blog managed by an investor relations consulting company. The focus of the blog (and the company) is online investor relations and online corporate communications. The blog is updated almost daily, written very well and has a lot of useful information.

Neville Hobson. A personal blog by Neville Hobson, a public relations and corporate comunications practitioner from Great Britain. He is a pioneer in using new technology, so the blog pays much attention to the online communications and virtual reality. The main focus is various aspects of communications, not just investor relations. The blog has a very busy design, however, tags can help readers find the information they are looking for. A blog is updated daily (or several times a day!). Easy-to-read, great source of information about European investor relations.

Dix & Eaton Corporate Blog. A corporate blog by an independent communication consulting company Dix & Eaton. The blog has a general focus on various investor relations issues. It is not updated very regularly, but there is a post at least once a month. However, the posts are usually valuable and provide good summary and analysis rather than just a link to information.

TheCorporateCounsel.net Blog. Now this is the destination to discuss everything related to legal aspects of investor relations. The main focus is legal environment of corporate governance, corporate communications and securities regulations. The texts are, perhaps, not as user-friendly as some other blogs, but subject matter is probably to blame for that. The blog is part of The Corporate Counsel web site, a provider of educational and consulting services. The blog is updated daily.

CR Blog. A blog by David Philips, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. The blog focuses on corporate reporting and originates in the United Kingdom. The blog is not updated very often, once or twice a month, but I do not know any other blog where we could learn what one of the top-auditors think about corporate reporting.

DellShares. This is NOT a blog about investor relations. This a blog by Dell and about Dell. However, it is an example of how investor relations professionals can use blogosphere to communicate with investors and other financial audiences. The blog is run by Dell's investor relations team under the supervision of Dell's VP of investor relations Lynn Tyson, perhaps one of the best investor relations professionals. The blog is updated about once a week.

MindShare Blog. This is the official blog of the National Investor Relations Institute. Access to this blog is restricted: only members of NIRI can post or even view the blog, thus making it useless for my students, who are typically not members of NIRI.

IR practices: Data summary

In the spirit of academic transparency, I would like to post a summary of data from my dissertation. I shared this information with my survey participants previously and now I would like to make it available to everybody.

My dissertation surveyed investor relations officers in order to develop theory in the investor relations research. Now, for theory-development part I would have to refer you to my actual dissertation, but I would be happy to share here the actual data summary:

Click here for PDF.

The blog lives on!

I defended my dissertation.

So, this blog changes its administrator - Alexander Laskin is leaving. Everybody, please welcome Dr. Alexander Laskin :)

Anyway, I decided to keep this blog. Although initially it was intended just for the class I was teaching, I think I might have something to say about investor relations, investor relations education and investor relations research, as a new Assistant Professor, specializing in investor relations. Especially since now I would have to earn tenure and that means... oh, yes, more research projects!

I think I deserve the summer off, but in the fall my goal is to post at least weekly. Let's see how it will play out :)