More great content from the IR Intelligence Council conference. After this video, I spoke further with Brian Rivel on the subtle nuances of “the ten times.”

To be clear, you do not need to get your CEO in front of a specific portfolio manager face-to-face ten times. But, just like in my world of “product marketing,” your “Buy-side marketing” needs frequent touch points.

The ten touch points need to be high-value and deliver content: earnings calls, analyst day meetings (live and video), annual shareholder meetings (live and video), investor conferences and your overall (transparent) shareholder communications.

Heck, there’s seven touch points right there. ( ...and especially counting video webcasting. Note: clearly I am very biased towards video, however I do believe that recording your live shareholder events will exponentially extend their communication value. You've invested a lot of energy, money and CEO time creating the live, physical event - video record and webcast the presentation so it works harder for you. Make video an engaging 2010 touch point.) 


Have a nice day.

Today's post is yet another blog that wrote itself and a terrific way to launch a very exciting 2010. I (and our clients!) work with very dedicated and talented people.

"Hello, very nice job to you and your colleagues on the call today. Could not have gone better. I can't thank you enough for your patience, responsiveness and helpfulness during this sometimes very tedious project. :)"

"Pleasure teaming up with you and your gang, Alison. You made it smooth and straightforward!"

"Aina, Thank you so much for getting this over quickly.   Everything was absolutely perfect, you guys are hands-down the best conference providers I have used! Thanks for your help"

"Hi Manny, I wanted to thank you for your e-mail and voicemail messages. We had our first GlobeNewswire PR sent out today and had a good experience with the website and the editorial assistance we received. My kudos to you and your team for a first rate service and excellent customer relations."

"I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how great it has been to work with Lisa. When I have a questions or a problem, Lisa is very prompt in getting back to me with an answer or a resolution. Lisa is very reliable and I am at peace knowing that she will take care of it. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate her hard work."

"Thank you Matthew. Seriously, that was super easy and seamless. Thank you for your help and the service was excellent even at 3am. Thanks for the data."

"Hi Mark, I wanted to thank you for all of your help yesterday morning. You were very helpful and patient in trying to solve our problem and provided the information so we could solve the problem on our end...  Again, thank you for your assistance."

"Hello Aina-san. Thank you very for your super work yesterday. I profoundly appreciate your kind support and consideration."

"I met with the IR team from [client] yesterday, they raved about Mike and the service he provides!  Had nothing but great things to say! Nice work!"

"Just wanted to say thank you to you and your team for helping with this event. Everything went very smoothly. The full-screen link worked well in our cafeteria, and everyone is pleased!"

"It was a pleasure working with you on the [client name] meeting.  Based on the raw feed I saw, the video and audio quality looked and sounded very good. Doug was great on site.  He and his team were friendly and easy to work with on the install.  He also worked competently to solve the internet connection issue. I look forward to working with Shareholder.com in the future."

"They also said our advantage was that they really like working with you and would prefer not switching because of that. Your professionalism and your great customer service may win us additional business. Thanks!"

"I wanted to reach out to thank you for your hard work in developing and launching our new investor relations site. This note is far overdue as we launched some time ago but I wanted to make sure you understood from us that we are very pleased with the final product and appreciate all of your efforts in getting the website in a format that most appropriately suits our audience."

"Thanks Brian. Everything went really well yesterday. Michael did a great job on-site!"

"We have received great feedback from investors who find the new site a major upgrade from what we had before with [competitor]. Indeed, I personally enjoy the new site and the ability to find certain information far easier now than on the previous version."

The IR Intelligence Council had a very “passionate” discussion in regard to Social Media’s role for Investor Relations.

Simply, the chasm continues between the IRO and "the SMO” opinion. IROs remain cautious.

I sense the harrumphs from the Social Media devotees and evangelists even as I type. However, please make no mistake about the caliber of the folks in the room. The participants were all very sophisticated Investor Relations Officers…not a gathering of Social Media ostriches. They are all hyper-aware of Social Media’s impact on communications (many do have teenagers at home, afterall).

The observation that received the most heads nods was made by Greg Secord, IRO at OpenText, a company acutely cognizant of online content - “Why are we letting the [Social Media] media pressure us to change our disclosure policy?”

OTHER POINTS, not in order:

• IR is in no position to “experiment” with Social Media. Neither the Street nor the SEC is forgiving.
• Companies must establish a Social Media policy and offer employee’s policy training.
• Social Media is reminiscent of the Yahoo chats rooms from 10 years ago. “We did not reply to rumors then, why would we now?”
• Most companies are blogging, but from their marketing / product groups (like me).
• The PR departments has a good handle on monitoring and have internal triggers in place for IR's involvement.
• Time is a big concern. Departments are small and Social Media takes commitment. It’s not a issue of ROI but of doing a smart job. What is the implication if a direct Tweet is not answered, etc?
• If you stop and start, it will have a negative non-transparent impression - or a harbinger of messaging inconsistency.
• A company’s Retail Investors strategy certainly relates to Social Media.
• IR is proactively placing Social Media into their 2010 strategies but in context to their overarching strategies and their investor mix. 

Rivel Research, the IR Intelligence Council’s architect, (...and our Waypoint partner) had some data on the Buy-side’s use of Social Media. 31% read blogs on the job at least weekly, however, at this point there is no detail about what type of blogs –Street opinion blogs vs. corporate IR/CEO blogs. Seeing how there are veeeeeeeery few IR/CEO created blogs, we can assume the blogs are news and market opinion. Also, it was noted during the meeting that "reading" is not "influencing." Rivel is going to work on this deeper dive for his next Perspectives report.

The audience absolutely understands Social Media’s evolution into overall web communications. However, IR  - and their General Counsel -  are still working out the reward vs. risk. Better safe than sorry is status quo. Cannot fault that, especially in context to the severity of selective disclosure and SEC lawsuits. This ain't no fooling around.

Is IR a conservative bunch? Hell yes. And rightly so. How and what they communicate affects everything at their company.

Have a nice day.