White Papers and Articles
New Media, Sluggish Economy Call for New Strategies in Communication
By Anthony Burke Boylan
Media Relations Manager, Capital Insight Partners
Your investors, current and future, don't get their news from just one source anymore.
Individual and institutional investors now get their financial and market information from many sources: traditional and non-traditional, old and new - reliable and not so reliable. These new media sources represent great opportunity, but more than ever a company needs to carefully consider how and where it distributes its news, and be vigilant about monitoring the variety of news and information sources made possible by the Internet.
This is where a media-savvy consultant - someone with day-in, day-out interactions with the rapidly changing communications landscape - becomes an invaluable resource. With all the communications outlets and opportunities available, it's not enough to put out a release and hope it finds the right channels - if that effort ever was enough. You need a comprehensive strategy that reaches a broad range of investors, sophisticated and otherwise, through different channels.
A successful media strategy involves a combination of direct communication with your most active and interested investors, outreach to traditional media channels, and a cohesive strategy to get your story on the web so that it can be found by even a casual or novice surfer.
Traditional business and financial media, from newspapers to broadcasters to news wire services, once served as the authoritative outlets for news about corporations. They were expected by their audiences to be fair, if not completely objective, and their facts and reporting were assumed to be credible. Media and communications have changed radically. Formal media outlets have diminished. Virtually anyone who can post on the Internet, on the right site and armed with a few facts, can at least appear to be an expert. You need to make sure you are blunting any and all misinformation being circulated in channels that not only are unregulated, but often hard to monitor.
This can include ill-informed but well-intentioned bloggers or contributors posting on boards and chat rooms. Many are self-styled experts who have decided a negative and contrarian opinion is their ticket to notoriety. These can range from people who just don't understand the issue, but pretend they do, to people with a self-serving agenda, to someone who is downright malicious because of a previous employment or consumer relationship with the business.
What they all have in common is that their voices would have been only one in the crowd before the Internet revolutionized communication in an egalitarian fashion that benefits society by allowing the occasional day trader the same online voice as that of a successful hedge fund manager. In fact, sometimes the most uninformed voices are heard the most clearly because they yell the loudest through their use of Internet tools and by perpetuating myths and stereotypes already held by the public.
And new media now shapes what newspapers write and broadcast stations put on the air. The research involved sometimes is no more than getting reactions from the “blogosphere'' as if they have discovered a source the average person doesn't have.
The further from general knowledge a subject is, the more likely the traditional media is to use so-called Internet experts. If your voice is one of the ones available to a legitimate outlet from MSNBC to the New York Times to your local community paper, your story stands a better chance of being told to your satisfaction.
Take the current banking situation. There is a deafening clatter of misinformation being spread. Why else would depositors run on IndyMac AFTER it was taken over by the FDIC? Is there one financial rule average consumers hear more often than that their FDIC deposits are insured? And could there be a safer moment to have your money in a bank than in the day immediately after an FDIC seizure?
Sure, you assume investors in small and micro cap companies to be better informed. But that isn't always the case. Investors who strive to be informed on your company still face obstacles. They might get three different stories from three different sources. Many of these sources are questionable. You might feel confident a reporter from a major news outlet, even when quoting anonymously, actually is using a credible source. Can you be sure a blogger quoting an anonymous source isn't making it up? There are no traditional ground rules in the new media. Even outright defamation, libel or slander can be impossible to enforce when the identities are shielded.
But even if the Wall Street Journal picked up every release you put out, handled the information in a journalistically responsible manner and quoted industry experts who spoke positively about your company -- that still wouldn't be enough. While many established news outlets definitely carry authority and credibility, the sheer volume of alternative information outlets have diminished the importance and impact of traditional media.
Now your investors, and the people who shape their opinions, need your message to be spread across every available platform. It is ironic that these often are the same platforms that “ill-informed but well-intentioned bloggers and contributors” stake out.
Here are the three basic components to make sure your message is heard clearly and in a consistent manner that keeps it relevant to your mission:
Direct communication with investors, media, and analysts:
The primary communications responsibility of a public company still is to keep open lines of dialogue with current and potential investors, as well as the analysts and opinion leaders who help shape perceptions and advise others on investment opportunities. The new media can be a powerful tool in accomplishing this goal, but it requires an expert consultant to guide a company through the maze of options.
Some of the tools that always have worked in this area still do: conference calls, newsletters, earnings summaries and direct or e-mail correspondence. But there are new tools, as well, and those are covered below.
Outreach to established media:
No communication strategy is complete without reaching out to the traditional and trusted gatekeepers of news. Whether it's The Wall Street Journal, respected industry publications, CNN.com or very specific web sites that deal with your business, recognized and respected experts still have a significant role in shaping well-informed opinions, and will for the foreseeable future.
The media might seek out your story - but this usually occurs when it's particularly poor or exceptional. A “good news” story has never been quite as appealing as a juicy “bad news” story. In most cases you have to get your story to them, especially so you have a role in shaping how it's told.
Convincing a publication, financial website, Internet media outlet or a respected online advisor that your story is a compelling one worth telling takes time, expertise and a knowledge of the media landscape.
Various news outlets maintain different standards of newsworthiness. A media expert can guide you through this obstacle course helping to tailor your communications with each outlet and advise you on the potential for difficult issues and questions and how best to address them.
Internet and Keyword SEO:
There are, of course, new tools that help you with this task. Conference calls and executive audio and video presentations can be streamed online where investors can find them. Releases to investors and analysts can be distributed through new media tools and not merely through traditional news wire services. PRWeb, for example, allows your information to reach every corner of the Internet and be seen by anyone who researches your company, products or services.
Simple software allows you to set up blogs or similar communication tools so that your company web site is among the first places people go for information on your company and your sector.
And a consistent effort to use keywords (optimized for search engines) ensures your information will be among the most frequently viewed web hits. This means you can speak as loudly - or louder - than all of the other voices that stand as potential distractions.
The end result is not that you have to change the message you are sending. It is that you have to work more diligently to make sure your message is received by everyone who should hear it, and that they hear it in the way you intend.
While new media does present new opportunities to communicate, it also means new obligations and more comprehensive strategies to take advantage of those opportunities. Companies that don't employ a strategy to meet all of these opportunities risk allowing someone else to define them.
Media Relations Manager, Capital Insight Partners
Your investors, current and future, don't get their news from just one source anymore.
Individual and institutional investors now get their financial and market information from many sources: traditional and non-traditional, old and new - reliable and not so reliable. These new media sources represent great opportunity, but more than ever a company needs to carefully consider how and where it distributes its news, and be vigilant about monitoring the variety of news and information sources made possible by the Internet.
This is where a media-savvy consultant - someone with day-in, day-out interactions with the rapidly changing communications landscape - becomes an invaluable resource. With all the communications outlets and opportunities available, it's not enough to put out a release and hope it finds the right channels - if that effort ever was enough. You need a comprehensive strategy that reaches a broad range of investors, sophisticated and otherwise, through different channels.
A successful media strategy involves a combination of direct communication with your most active and interested investors, outreach to traditional media channels, and a cohesive strategy to get your story on the web so that it can be found by even a casual or novice surfer.
Traditional business and financial media, from newspapers to broadcasters to news wire services, once served as the authoritative outlets for news about corporations. They were expected by their audiences to be fair, if not completely objective, and their facts and reporting were assumed to be credible. Media and communications have changed radically. Formal media outlets have diminished. Virtually anyone who can post on the Internet, on the right site and armed with a few facts, can at least appear to be an expert. You need to make sure you are blunting any and all misinformation being circulated in channels that not only are unregulated, but often hard to monitor.
This can include ill-informed but well-intentioned bloggers or contributors posting on boards and chat rooms. Many are self-styled experts who have decided a negative and contrarian opinion is their ticket to notoriety. These can range from people who just don't understand the issue, but pretend they do, to people with a self-serving agenda, to someone who is downright malicious because of a previous employment or consumer relationship with the business.
What they all have in common is that their voices would have been only one in the crowd before the Internet revolutionized communication in an egalitarian fashion that benefits society by allowing the occasional day trader the same online voice as that of a successful hedge fund manager. In fact, sometimes the most uninformed voices are heard the most clearly because they yell the loudest through their use of Internet tools and by perpetuating myths and stereotypes already held by the public.
And new media now shapes what newspapers write and broadcast stations put on the air. The research involved sometimes is no more than getting reactions from the “blogosphere'' as if they have discovered a source the average person doesn't have.
The further from general knowledge a subject is, the more likely the traditional media is to use so-called Internet experts. If your voice is one of the ones available to a legitimate outlet from MSNBC to the New York Times to your local community paper, your story stands a better chance of being told to your satisfaction.
Take the current banking situation. There is a deafening clatter of misinformation being spread. Why else would depositors run on IndyMac AFTER it was taken over by the FDIC? Is there one financial rule average consumers hear more often than that their FDIC deposits are insured? And could there be a safer moment to have your money in a bank than in the day immediately after an FDIC seizure?
Sure, you assume investors in small and micro cap companies to be better informed. But that isn't always the case. Investors who strive to be informed on your company still face obstacles. They might get three different stories from three different sources. Many of these sources are questionable. You might feel confident a reporter from a major news outlet, even when quoting anonymously, actually is using a credible source. Can you be sure a blogger quoting an anonymous source isn't making it up? There are no traditional ground rules in the new media. Even outright defamation, libel or slander can be impossible to enforce when the identities are shielded.
But even if the Wall Street Journal picked up every release you put out, handled the information in a journalistically responsible manner and quoted industry experts who spoke positively about your company -- that still wouldn't be enough. While many established news outlets definitely carry authority and credibility, the sheer volume of alternative information outlets have diminished the importance and impact of traditional media.
Now your investors, and the people who shape their opinions, need your message to be spread across every available platform. It is ironic that these often are the same platforms that “ill-informed but well-intentioned bloggers and contributors” stake out.
Here are the three basic components to make sure your message is heard clearly and in a consistent manner that keeps it relevant to your mission:
Direct communication with investors, media, and analysts:
The primary communications responsibility of a public company still is to keep open lines of dialogue with current and potential investors, as well as the analysts and opinion leaders who help shape perceptions and advise others on investment opportunities. The new media can be a powerful tool in accomplishing this goal, but it requires an expert consultant to guide a company through the maze of options.
Some of the tools that always have worked in this area still do: conference calls, newsletters, earnings summaries and direct or e-mail correspondence. But there are new tools, as well, and those are covered below.
Outreach to established media:
No communication strategy is complete without reaching out to the traditional and trusted gatekeepers of news. Whether it's The Wall Street Journal, respected industry publications, CNN.com or very specific web sites that deal with your business, recognized and respected experts still have a significant role in shaping well-informed opinions, and will for the foreseeable future.
The media might seek out your story - but this usually occurs when it's particularly poor or exceptional. A “good news” story has never been quite as appealing as a juicy “bad news” story. In most cases you have to get your story to them, especially so you have a role in shaping how it's told.
Convincing a publication, financial website, Internet media outlet or a respected online advisor that your story is a compelling one worth telling takes time, expertise and a knowledge of the media landscape.
Various news outlets maintain different standards of newsworthiness. A media expert can guide you through this obstacle course helping to tailor your communications with each outlet and advise you on the potential for difficult issues and questions and how best to address them.
Internet and Keyword SEO:
There are, of course, new tools that help you with this task. Conference calls and executive audio and video presentations can be streamed online where investors can find them. Releases to investors and analysts can be distributed through new media tools and not merely through traditional news wire services. PRWeb, for example, allows your information to reach every corner of the Internet and be seen by anyone who researches your company, products or services.
Simple software allows you to set up blogs or similar communication tools so that your company web site is among the first places people go for information on your company and your sector.
And a consistent effort to use keywords (optimized for search engines) ensures your information will be among the most frequently viewed web hits. This means you can speak as loudly - or louder - than all of the other voices that stand as potential distractions.
The end result is not that you have to change the message you are sending. It is that you have to work more diligently to make sure your message is received by everyone who should hear it, and that they hear it in the way you intend.
While new media does present new opportunities to communicate, it also means new obligations and more comprehensive strategies to take advantage of those opportunities. Companies that don't employ a strategy to meet all of these opportunities risk allowing someone else to define them.
