Others are sitting on the sidelines waiting for a RegFD violation from those who are using it or direction from the SEC on specific guidelines for its use (I wouldn’t hold my breath).   

Whatever the reason – people are using social networks to talk about your company and you need to get involved in the conversation now.  However, there are many considerations such as specific social networks to use and for what purpose i.e. IR, PR, Marketing or Advertising. 

No matter what department and the social network used, there are an increasing number of articles written by social media experts who recommend that organizations stepping into the social media arena  should have a social media policy in place. 

For example, in a recent post on her blog, hrbartender.com, Sharlyn Lauby, President of Internal Talent Management asks the question “Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?” in which she outlines the Five W’s to adopting a social media policy.

Another example for putting a social media policy in place and some great ideas of what to include is by Dave Fleet, a communications professional based in Toronto with a passion for social media.  In a recent three-part series posted on his website he states that companies should consider having both an internal and external policy when getting started with social media.

A final example is from David Cesarini, a financial services marketing consultant who specializes in social media marketing and organizes social media marketing workshops. He provides an excerpt of a social media policy for a financial services company in his blog “Sample Social Media Guidelines for Financial Services.”

After reading these articles, I thought it would be useful to speak with a company who has a social media policy in place.  As a result, I got in contact with Ruth Cotter, Director IR and Treasury at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).  It was from her participation in a session entitled “The Evolution of Financial Communication” at the NIRI conference in June of this year that I learned that AMD had one.  

What follows is the background on how AMD’s social media policy evolved and some interesting ideas to ensure the guidelines are clear and easily adopted by everyone.

BACKGROUND

AMD’s use of social media began with a blog for product initiatives.  The marketing team wanted a forum to discuss their products in more detail and there were internal discussions with other departments such as legal, IR and PR to find a suitable venue to do this – as such it was decided that a blog would be an acceptable place to start and best managed from a corporate risk perspective.

AMD started using the blog before implementing their company-wide policy.  Interestingly enough, it was their legal counsel who wanted to see where it was going to evolve first.  They say it made it easier to put together a list of guidelines dubbed the “Streetlight System” (which I will outline shortly). 

The policy was tailored specifically to AMD’s needs; keeping all departments in consideration.  In addition, as they have been using the blog for a few years now, they field a lot of questions from other companies and have an understanding of what other organizations are using it for so they have incorporated those insights into the policy as well.

Once the policy was finalized, they formed a social media counsel consisting of legal, IR, PR, Marketing and the Product Business Unit.  The policy is reviewed on a quarterly basis as part of a separate disclosure process to ensure the “envelope” is not being pushed too much.  It also continually evolves as the company adapts and updates their internal “best practices” for its use. 

BLOGGING LICENSES

As employees began reading the blog, all groups wanted to have a chance to address their “key” audiences (there seemed to be an internal realization that using social media helped to find out who their audiences were and how to address these audiences effectively). 

As the blog had been going for a few years now, the social media counsel wanted to ensure that the new “interested” groups were going to maintain a consistent presence.  As there were differing opinions on who should be able to participate, the social media counsel decided to issue “Blogging Licenses”.  All employees who want to blog on behalf of the company have to get proper training on best practices.  Ultimately the license is granted by AMD’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).  In order to assess whether to grant a blogging license, the CMO needs to know:

• The area in which the blogger will blog (work, home, play, developer);
• The topics on which the person will blog;
• How the blog will further the strategic goals of AMD; and
• How the blog is unique.

The license actually came about from an existing employee development program entitled “License to Lead” – in which employees are invited to attend training sessions to move up in the company (unconscious responsibilities are derived from the word “lead” which they felt would resonate with everyone).

The blogging licenses help to keep the number of bloggers under control as well as monitoring the messages to ensure a united voice. AMD has approximately 14 licenses in total today, with the most active voices coming from the product and marketing departments and the server and server/software divisions.  

As a result of the increased use of bloggers, the social media policy has branched out to include personal use of Facebook and Twitter (which I will discuss later).  To ensure awareness and the importance of the social media policy, it is posted on the homepage of the company’s intranet and highlighted in employee newsletters.

AMD SOCIAL MEDIA STREETLIGHT SYSTEM

All blogs must comply with the General Guidelines and the AMD Streetlight System – which was put in place to help employees better understand the areas of risk and when to enlist the help of the legal and IR departments.

As mentioned the social media counsel meets regularly to discuss areas in which the company may engage in social media.  These areas are assigned a “streetlight” colour (i.e., green, yellow or red) based on the perceived risk to AMD.

The meaning of the streetlight colours are as follows:

• Green light – PR and legal review is NOT required
     o Example: Previously approved statements of fact related to publicly available AMD products
• Yellow light – PR and legal review not required if the writer sticks to approved AMD talking point guidelines.  Otherwise, legal and IR review is required with respect to strategy or actual content
     o Example: Positioning of AMD products
• Red light – No social media engagement allowed
     o Example: Financial guidance

ADDITIONAL AREAS ADDRESSED

Social Networking Tools (Facebook/Flickr/YouTube)

The company recognizes that more than likely employees will have some kind of social media account which they use for private and personal networking. Some employees may use these accounts to promote AMD’s products and technologies. If that is the case, some additional rules apply:

• Be careful not to post pictures, videos or articles or “test messages” which might embarrass you, fellow colleagues or the company.
• Posts made to social networking sites must adhere to the General Guidelines and the AMD Social Media Streetlight System.

Twitter and Company Intranet

The policy also covers off micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.  It also includes the company’s intranet which allows employees who work in different locations to talk amongst one another (e.g. design groups use it to talk globally) and in general helps manage efforts to keep conversations that should stay internal, internal. 

Whether you are just starting out using social media or have been using it for quite some time, if you haven’t already, you should seriously think about putting together a social media policy.  Now bear in mind, a social media policy is not meant to be cookie cutter so just like implementing social media tools into your current communications program, it should be specifically tailored to your organization.  A good starting point may be to review employee, communications and disclosure policies that already exist within your organization and of course enlist the help of your legal counsel.   

As  a point of interest, here are a few links to other companies who have social media policies:

IBM’s social media guidelines

BBC’s editorial guidelines

I also came across this presentation on SlideShare that conveys the merits of having a social media policy.

Related posts:

1. Social Media, Investor Relations and Web Disclosure I recently read an interesting article entitled “Corporate Tweets and...
2. Summer ‘09 Preview bring social media and xbrl to IR websites Summer ‘09 Preview Earlier today we released our Summer...
3. CIRI Ontario Seminar – Using Advanced Technologies Effectively CIRI Ontario opened the fall season at the Albany Club...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Register here to learn innovative ways to:

1. Improve your discoverability so your company is easier to find, exposing you to new investors and markets.
2. Package your content so it can be shared, disseminated and republished across the web to millions of retail and institutional investors.
3. Start using free monitoring tools to listen to what is being said about your company.

Related posts:

1. Examples of small and large companies using Social Media in Investor Relations They may differ in their size and sector, but Canada...
2. Social Media, Investor Relations and Web Disclosure I recently read an interesting article entitled “Corporate Tweets and...
3. M.O.M. knows what’s best for IR and Social Media As more companies begin to slowly dip their toe into...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

By reading their reports and following their guidance, any IRO in North America can improve the standards of their company’s stakeholder communications.

To familiarize you more with their work, I have provided an overview of their most recent study, Corporate Reporting to Stakeholders.

Many of you may be familiar with the CICA’s annual Corporate Reporting Awards (CRA) – a program that honours excellence in financial reporting, corporate governance disclosure, electronic disclosure and sustainable development reporting. This high profile event is now in its 57th year. (Darrell and I have volunteered as panel judges in the Electronic Disclosure category of the CRA for 5+ years and through this experience; have come to highly respect their work).

The CICA’s Research Studies Department examines all aspects of corporate reporting, and document their findings in detailed, thoughtful publications. (For a list of publications relevant to this topic, see Performance Reporting).

The purpose of our presentation to the group was to provide input and spur further discussion regarding the implication of Web 2.0 (social media) on corporate reporting for their upcoming research publication, Using the Internet for Corporate Reporting (a first draft is expected to be completed by Fall ’09).

Our presentation turned into more of a conversation as we discussed the growth of social media in investor relations, the factors driving this growth, the various ways that issuers currently use social media to expand their reach and ‘participate in the conversation’, the ways in which stakeholders are consuming information online and our thoughts on future trends. (We’ll cover much of this in an upcoming webinar on social media in investor relations, so drop us a line sherylj@q4wbsystems.com if you’d like to attend).

The group was so engaged in their work that I decided to reread their 2008 publication Corporate Reporting to Stakeholders and highlight a few things.  I encourage you to check it out.

The document examines practices and important trends in corporate reporting by looking at 125 companies across a number of years and considers various reporting formats, including corporate/IR websites.

It begins by examining the purposes of reporting, the various audiences, their information requirements and the priority of this information.

The report identifies and defines all required content types that comprise each information category (e.g. Corporate Overview). It documents the percentage of the companies studied who provided this specific content. It references and quotes existing research relevant to the topic. It then provides the study group’s deliberations and conclusions on the priority of content types within each category, and also lists specific examples of companies who exemplified the specific requirements in their reporting. Appendices for each category provide guidance for those responsible for corporate reporting and include a series of questions that “merit consideration if corporate reporting is to more effectively meet the information needs of investors and other stakeholders”.

In my mind, this format gives the IRO everything they need as a benchmark for their own improvements.

I have listed the various categories here and have pulled out a comment for each to provide a flavour for the document, but in no way does this represent a complete summary of the information included in the report.

• Corporate Overview – the areas where companies scored lowest were in providing information on company ownership and control as well as management committees.
• Social Responsibility – defined as “measuring, disclosing and being accountable for organizational economic, environmental and social impacts”. Although increasingly relevant to stakeholders, there are no standards for reporting in this area although “New global reporting standards are being developed to provide assurance on matters such as financial implications of climate change.” Scores indicated that many companies were still not reporting on social or environmental responsibilities.
• Review of Operations – interesting that only 66% of companies provided information on competitive conditions in their market or industry while only 12% provided a ‘response to change’ – information on how the company has responded or plans to respond to changes in the operating environment and external factors.
• Financial Summary & Analysis – the majority of companies included the required content types for this category with scores being in the mid to high 90s. Analysis of cash flow and historical summary were the areas where companies fell short.
• Supplementary Information – fewer than 46% of companies provided a glossary of terms even though it was considered important to “facilitate the assessment and interpretation of an organization’s activities”.

Additional topics included:

• Enhancing Corporate Reporting – moving beyond the numbers and dense, jargon ridden text. This area included a number of findings and recommendations including:
  o Readability – most corporate reports did not include enough white space, photos, illustrations, graphs and charts.
  o Delivering Key Messages – reports need to maintain a narrative thread to provide investors with a clear linkage from markets, to strategy to key performance indicators, to future goals.
  o Communicating Effectively – must be mindful of all audiences, recognizing the various levels of financial literacy, diverse interests and disparate needs. The first four pages of the report continue to be key – “many casual readers do not look beyond this point and even sophisticated analysts need a reason to read on”.
• Summary Corporate Reporting – Information overload is a big problem in corporate reporting. Research referenced in the report indicates that “Decision-making performance can be impaired by heavy data loads”. Consequently companies need to access not only the information requirements of each user group/audience, but also the level at which you need to address each piece of information.  Paul-Emile Roy, a principal in the Research Studies Department, said that communicators need to evaluate whether a piece of information, “Simply requires ‘commentary’ – 1 or 2 sentences; an ‘explanation’ or a detailed ‘analysis?”. A seven-step process was provided to address information overload. The group concluded that the three most important criteria for Summary Reporting. In order of priority these were:

1. President/CEO letter

2. Financial and operating objectives

3. Performance compared to objectives

• Corporate Reporting on the Internet – In an analysis of corporate investor websites, 90% of surveyed companies did not include more than 8 of the 24 essential information items. Five essential items were not included at all. This led the group to conclude that the majority of companies use the corporate website only as a library to store company reports.

The 202-page report is filled with interesting observations and recommendations and is available as a free PDF download or $47.50 for a hard copy. I highly recommend this report and suggest that you keep the CICA and its publications on your radar screen.

The study group on Corporate Reporting to Stakeholders has committed to three remaining reports that will include:

• Using the Internet for Corporate Reporting – the corporate/IR website is now recognized as the primary source of investor information.  As the reach, immediacy and speed of the Internet continues to grow – along with the variety of online formats and applications, a detailed study covering corporate reporting on the Internet will be a welcome resource. A draft of the study is expected this fall.
• Corporate Sustainability Reporting – I found the group’s perspective on sustainability a telling sign of how far we’ve come in this area. “We see corporate sustainability as a key driver in the health of an organization and an important aspect of a company’s strategy. It sits at the centre of how a company conducts business”.  As most companies use the  website for reporting on sustainability matters, there is quite a bit of overlap between this topic and Using the Internet for Corporate Reporting. But the group will be separating these two topics as much as possible to isolate specific recommendations. It is expected that a draft of this report will be available in the spring of 2010.
• Governance Disclosures – again overlap exists between this topic and the previous two. Governance is clearly tied to sustainability. The group has not determined a release date for this publication.

IROs would be well advised to explore the work of the CICA and its research department. Their in-depth analysis conducted by IR professionals and industry experts and summarized in low-cost reports offers a tremendous value to companies looking to improve their corporate reporting to stakeholders.

Related posts:

1. CICA 2008 Corporate Reporting Awards - Winners As a panel judge in the electronic disclosure category, I...
2. Transparency and next-generation reporting Article from Don Tappscot from the first day of the...
3. Online Reporting Best Practices As we all know, the Internet and the Web continue...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

UPCOMING WEBINAR - Learn innovative ways to integrate social media into your IR program!

Mark Thursday, July 16th in your calendar and join our free webinar to learn innovative ways to integrate social media into your IR program! Official invite to follow soon.  Or you can drop me a line sherylj@q4websystems.com to reserve your spot now!

Related posts:

1. Social Media and Investor Relations - Free Webinar Join us on Thursday, July 16th from 4:00 – 5:00...
2. Summer ‘09 Preview bring social media and xbrl to IR websites Summer ‘09 Preview Earlier today we released our Summer...
3. IR Website Best Practices Webinar - Register Now! Join us on Thursday, April 30th from 4:00 –...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mike McDonald of WebProNews cites an interview with Tarla Cummings, Social Media Manager from Location3 Media from the SMX Advanced Conference recently held in Seattle, WA.

When looking at your social media campaigns, Tarla discusses the acronym M.O.M. which stands for Monitor, Outreach, Measure.

MONITOR

Companies should make it a top priority to be in tune with who is saying what and where about them.  They should know exactly where they are being discussed across blogs, wikis, forums, tweets and any other social forum they can think of.

Mike points out “we used to refer to this practice more in terms of reputation management than we did marketing.  However, if there is one major takeaway about social media here, it’s that marketing and reputation management are getting closer and closer to being synonymous.”

Keeping track of everything that is being said in public forums sounds like an onerous task!  There are services out there, both free and paid – for example you can subscribe to free Google Alerts for mentions of your company.  Also, recently during the Trends in Media and Technology Session at the NIRI Conference in FL, Serena Ehrlich of Start-up Army cited a few more free monitoring services such as www.search.twitter.com or www.socialmention.com.

Dick Johnson of IR café was also on the panel with Serena and after the session, put together a list of monitoring sites and services he incorporated in a broader IR 2.0 menu he compiled for IROs learning about new technologies and connections in web and social media.  You’ll need to scroll almost to the very end of the document – the list is a good starting point.

In the context of monitoring social media, Brian Solis in his recent article “Unveiling the New Influencers” states that “…we need assistance in order to hear and see relevant conversations and the related people and communities where they emerge and inhabit.”

He then provides a comprehensive list of the “tools available so that we can start the process of uncovering the unknown and plotting our next courses of action which starts with the heading “Searching the Social Web”.

OUTREACH

Once the social forums are identified, companies should become active participants.  In particular, if someone has posted something negative about the company make an effort to win them over.   This can be beneficial in that it reflects well on a company to have made a public attempt at rectifying a negative situation – although he notes not everyone can be swayed to come back as a loyal consumer of your brand.

Please note that he is referring to this in a marketing context in which someone is unhappy about a product or service.  From an IR perspective, I would tread cautiously when responding to upset investors in a public forum.  I would assess each post on a case-by-case basis and would respond for example, if someone has posted something blatantly incorrect.  As in my view that would be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders to do so.

It is logical to want to respond to and correct any erroneous information about your company.  However, as previously stated, keeping track of everything is a large undertaking.  So as an IRO how do you go about staying on top of and addressing everything (in particular negative comments) being said about your companies online?  Serena (from the same panel cited earlier) points out a very valid consideration –  that it is not necessary to address all of the negative comments, as they may be coming from people who are not widely followed anyway.  Instead, she suggested investigating how much traffic some of the negative bloggers get first through sites such as www.compete.com, www.quantcast.com and www.alexa.com to help determine whether it was necessary to respond.

MEASURE

Okay, now for the crucial part – how do you measure all of this effort?

Mike feels that social media is not as difficult to measure as one would think – he states that a decent analytics package will provide a good idea about where the information is coming from.  One sure way to be precise is to  “simply make sure everybody is on the same page about your goals for these campaigns before you get things rolling.”

Further to this, Ben Straley from Meteor Solutions in this interview states “when you set goals for your social media campaign, you need to ask yourself what you want to accomplish and then measure your efforts. The type of business you operate actually determines what you should measure. Ultimately, the value of social media is not determined by how much money you make. Instead, it is determined by how your business receives value from it.”

I completely agree with Ben when he states you need to ask what it is you want to accomplish.  One way to help you do this is to put together an IR plan in which you set measurable short and long-term goals and objectives, identify target audiences, develop strategic messages and tactics and activities to deliver the program.

Of course, the plan must be monitored to measure its effectiveness and fine-tuned as needed.  In my experience as both an in-house IRO and consultant, a typical IR plan is measured on an annual basis, but like anything, this can differ based on a company’s particular business strategy.

Some examples of what to measure may include new institutional investors or an increase in holdings by existing investors, analyst coverage (increased coverage, improved recommendations), investor perceptions, media coverage, number of face to face contacts made through roadshows and meetings with targeted investors, website visits etc.  This is by no means a comprehensive list and again the specific objectives you set, will drive what is measured.

If you do use social media as part of your IR program, the resources I outlined above should give you a good starting place to keep track and measure what is being said and even give you insights on how to appropriately respond when necessary.  It will also allow you to proactively report back to management and the board keeping them apprised of what is being said about the company and nipping any potential issues before they get out of hand.  After all, there is nothing worse than getting a phone call or an email asking you about a situation in which you don’t know about.

If you are currently using social media and measuring your efforts, I’d love to hear what services both free and paid you are using.

Related posts:

1. Examples of small and large companies using Social Media in Investor Relations They may differ in their size and sector, but Canada...
2. Social Media and Investor Relations - Free Webinar Join us on Thursday, July 16th from 4:00 – 5:00...
3. Social Media, Investor Relations and Web Disclosure I recently read an interesting article entitled “Corporate Tweets and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

From my discussions with IROs whose companies have not yet taken the plunge with social media, the likely reasons for CEOs abstaining are concerns about disclosure risk, lack of time and quite frankly a discomfort with technology beyond email and browsing. This is not a slag but rather a reflection of the feedback we’ve been given with respect to senior executives adopting new technologies – oftentimes they simply prioritize other things.  Their social networks happen in other arenas and they may have other senior executives within their organizations actively involved in social media.

The topline results taken from UberCEO’s blog post reveal that:

• Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts.
• 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections.
• 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page.
• Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information.
• Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog.

In reading the Uber post, be sure to scroll down to the comments. There are references to some interesting articles there as well, such as Doug Cornelius’ of  Compliance Building who shares his compliance risk perspective in ‘Corporate Blogs and Tweets Must Keep SEC in Mind’ and another by Dan Haugen of the Minneapolis Post on Best Buy’s new CEO, “Is Best Buy’s Brian Dunn the Most Socially Networked CEO?”

Should CEO’s get involved in social media? Those that do send a very clear message in terms of their transparency and their personal interest in listening to their stakeholders. Where there’s a willingness to get involved even a busy CEO will find the time with the support of a good team and the use of mobile devices. But the answer to the question in my opinion is really, “it depends”. Most organizations can benefit from involvement in social media but whether it happens with the CEO or other senior level executives really comes down to corporate strategy, division of labour and who would be most effective and committed to continuing the conversation.

Related posts:

1. Study says Canadian Regulators are far behind US counterparts in enforcing the compliance regarding disclosure controls and procedures. A study recently released by the Queen’s School of Business...
2. M.O.M. knows what’s best for IR and Social Media As more companies begin to slowly dip their toe into...
3. Trends in Media and Technology - From NIRI 2009 Yesterday I attended a panel discussion that primarily focused on...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Chairman, XBRL International

Panelist(s)/Co-Speaker(s):
Michael Becker, VP, Global Disclosure & Financial Reporting Services
Business Wire

This session was quite comprehensive, so I thought it would be useful to discuss the agenda that was put forth:

WHY IS THIS RELEVANT?
Public companies push out a lot of IR content such as earnings releases, quarterly reports and annual reports.  Once disseminated into the public domain, third party information intermediaries distill, transcribe and structure the company reported information into their proprietary taxonomies and sell that structured information to the analyst community.  This third party intermediary information is also available through sources such as Yahoo! Finance, Google and MSN Money.  From these publicly available sources IROs can directly observe the omissions, errors and other communication problems created by the third party intermediaries such as changing disclosure concepts and/or omitting key company specific unique disclosures.  This intermediary distortion in turn can lead to inquiries that don’t make any sense or worse, no inquiries at all – which means the investment community is solely relying upon the data transcribed and rendered by third party sources, thereby diminishing the company’s opportunity to correct any errors.

If you are skeptical of the degree of errors and omissions to your company reports please take a minute right now and go to the public sites and review the data available for your company and compare that information to your company reports.  “The data provided by intermediaries is incorrect as often as 30% of the time and incomplete 100% of the time“. The typical omission is the unique company specific disclosure, which is highly relevant to company IROs.

This is unfortunate, as preparing and finalizing material documents is typically a very time consuming and costly process, largely due to manual assembly and review processes that draws upon a lot of internal resources such as the finance, legal and IR department’s time to compile, review and publish – not to mention the costs associated with filing with the regulatory bodies and mailing out hard copies.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?
As some of you may know, in January 2009, the SEC introduced a phased mandate for filing in XBRL starting with the largest companies with a worldwide public float of greater than $5 billion – periods ending on or after June 15, 2009 and then extending to all sizes of companies over the next three years. The rules require companies to provide their financial statements on their corporate websites in an interactive data format using XBRL at the same time their financial statements are submitted to the SEC.

Content Requirements
In the first year of filing in XBRL format, issuers are required to tag each unique disclosure concept in the company primary tables (balance sheet, income statement, cash flows, changes in equity) and “block” tag (e.g. one tag per note) the financial statement footnotes and schedules.

In all subsequent years of XBRL formatted exhibits, issuers are required to tag the financial statement disclosures and also individually tag each significant accounting policy, table within a footnote and each quantitative amount within a footnote.  It is this second year requirement that significantly enhances the volume and accuracy of company disclosures available to the analyst community in a very cost effective, accurate and timely manner.

The XBRL Exhibit is required to be filed concurrently except for the initial report in each of the first two years which would be due no later than 30 days subsequently.

For purposes of the company SEC exhibit, the MD&A, executive compensation, or other financial, statistical or narrative disclosure outside the financial statements is not permitted to be tagged.

Corporate Website Posting Requirements
The XBRL filing is to be posted on a company’s corporate website by the end of the calendar day submitted or required to be submitted to the SEC.  The XBRL exhibit must remain on the website for at least one year; however, legal liability provisions are phased out over a two-year period with no “required” involvement by the auditor.

The US SEC rules will apply to public companies and foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP), and foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

WHAT IS IT?
XBRL is a freely available international information standardized format specifically designed for business information.  As such, it is specifically designed to provide supply chain standardization to address pervasive process problems.  XBRL is applicable to business information, related business rules, formulas and controls to not only to make financial information easier for investors to analyze, but also to assist in automating regulatory filings and business information processing.

As an Internet standard, XBRL can be used to create a common language for disparate proprietary software applications to more seamlessly communicate.  This is sort of similar to html but in a more granular manner and specifically for business information.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE ISSUER?
There are many implications of using XBRL to improve processes.  For example, issuers can implement using the bolt-on approach in which filings and reports are created following the existing process and converted to XBRL once finalized, either in-house or by a third party.  There is also the embedded option, which would enable companies to map their disclosures to the XBRL US GAAP Taxonomy directly within their report writer or consolidation application.  Pushing standardization further back into the business information supply chain provides structure for automation of downstream processes including the accurate rendering of XBRL-tagged SEC filings that can be accessed via your website with many interactive features.

Embedding XBRL in corporate reporting processes enables:

• Seamless exchange of information between software applications like your website and your analysts’ modeling applications,
• Automation of manual processes = lower costs, improved quality & timeliness like for your summary tables and graphs provided on your website,
• Enhanced transparency, access and control of information contained across a wide range of disparate internal data stores similar to the wide range of internal data stores that you are trying to access to address performance related inquiries,
• Improvements in data quality and access, and
• Better access to more relevant information for better decision-making, enhancing business intelligence and performance management information.

XBRL is more than a trend that IROs must be cognizant of – it will soon be mandatory for all U.S. based issuers and there is a voluntary program currently taking place in Canada to help the Canadian marketplace gain a greater understanding of this information standard.  Therefore it is essential that there is a full understanding how communication between the investor community and IROs evolve with the XBRL standard.  So stay tuned for additional blogs and presentations on XBRL.

Related posts:

1. XBRL mandate is coming Although XBRL has been around for 10 years now (...
2. Canadian securities regulators launch XBRL voluntary filing program Yesterday the CSA formally launched their XBRL voluntary filing program that...
3. XBRL continues to expand In case you’re not familiar with XBRL – it stands...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Panelists were:  Timothy Carey, Managing Director, Digital Media, ICR, Inc; Ruth Cotter, Director, IR and Treasurer, Advanced Micro Devices; Eileen Cassidy Rivera, Vice President, Communications & Investor Relations, Vangent, Inc., and Darrell Heaps, President, CEO & Co-founder, Q4 Web Systems.

Michael opened the session by asking each panelist to introduce themselves and to describe their involvement /perspective on social media.

Eileen was a new user of social media and referred often throughout the session to the need to get one’s message down to 140 characters. In looking at the Vangent Inc. site, I didn’t notice any reference to Twitter. I searched Twitter for both Eileen and Vangent  Inc. but didn’t find anything, so I assume that Eileen is in the very early stages of adopting social media. Her newness in the area may have served as an inspiration to attendees who were thinking of also getting involved.

Eileen felt that IROs needed to look at getting information out in more new and creative ways in order to reach audiences who might be looking outside of traditional media. And to give these audiences better ways to access information. She said that brevity of message was important in social media.

Ruth said that “Content is king and even more so in social media. It’s a challenge for IROs to adapt their content for social media.” The AMD site was chock-a-block with all kinds of social media - in fact, I had to pull myself away in order to get back to writing this post. It’s obvious that the AMD culture has embraced this new technology. This page in their corporate section includes links to FriendFeed, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, Videos, Blogs. Other than one video for an Executive speech , social media hadn’t penetrated IR communications to the same extent but it’s likely that the road has been paved for Ruth to more easily expand the role of social media for investor relations.

Darrell said that “social media has added another layer to communications - it doesn’t replace the old. It just gives you one more way to get your information out to people who want to access it through social channels.”

Tim agreed and said that “a lot of the tactics that IROs use are still important. It’s not about replacing the old, it’s about having the right strategy to integrate social media into the investor relations program.” The entire panel concurred.

Darrell referenced a panel that he attended the day before on Trends in Media & Technology, where Robert Williams, Director Investor Relations at Dell Inc., had mentioned his surprise the volume of internal responses he received when he solicited questions for his quarterly earnings call. Darrell said that, “Social media drives more internal dialogue as companies respond to things that happen in the market. This can have a positive effect in bringing divisions closer together and in getting input from other areas of the company.”

Mike then asked each panelist what they felt was the largest trend or change in communications that new technology was leading to - was it social networking? Blogs? Enriched content such as video, photos and audio assets?

Ruth said that one of the greatest changes in communication was the ability for social media to address issues in a much faster way than traditional media. She had a great example of how social media helped to solve a market misperception about her company. AMC’s valuation had been discounted by the market because of perceptions about battery longevity. This problem actually stemmed from inconsistencies in the way that battery longevity was measured. Her CEO started a blog that ultimately resulted in changes in how battery life was measured, which soon dispelled this misperception.

In speaking with numerous issuers Darrell has heard many of them express concern about rogue comments in social media and their hesitation to get involved in blogging. Darrell felt that a good place for issuers to start, was to think of SM as a notification system, “60% of web users are using social media - issuers should think of it as an additional way to get information out. Today that means using your existing content, information that has already been vetted through your disclosure controls and procedures to give broader dissemination to this information”.

Tim felt that video had a key role to play, “Video makes things more personal. It puts a face to a name and helps viewers get to know a company better.” (This perspective supports a lot of what we heard the day before from both Laura Graves of Cisco Systems and Dell’s Robert Williams, who also both felt that video didn’t always have to be high production.)

Mike then asked Ruth about challenges she faced in incorporating blogs into IR communications, despite the fact that as a culture, the company seemed to really embrace blogs for product initiatives. He also asked her what IROs should be looking at before jumping in - what rules should they be thinking of.

Ruth, admitted that it was a challenge to get the company to accept blogging for IR. She said that issuers really needed to train their employees on using social media on behalf of the corporation and that employees also needed to be mindful of what they were communicating in their personal social media channels. She gave an example, of an employee had once mentioned on his Facebook page that he was going to be away and the specific location he mentioned led to a market perception that a deal was in the works (which it was). This resulted in movement on their stock. (I heard a very similar story from another executive in a social media webinar I attended last year - different company, but essentially the same story.)

In terms of what companies should do to prepare for their involvement in SM, Ruth felt it important to have a social media policy in place.  She also said that AMD provides in-depth training for their employees on social media and that employees needed to get an internal license in order to use SM on behalf of the company.

At this point, numerous questions came from the audience - it was clear that attendees were very engaged in topic. One person asked how to monitor who was talking about their company?

Darrell said that there were numerous ways that one could automate this, including subscribing to Google alerts for mentions of your company. (This same question came up in the Trends in Media and Technology and Serena Elrich of Start-up Army offered a number of free monitoring services.)

Another person asked, “How do I keep up with responding to all of the mentions?”

Ruth said that, “The purpose of social media is to spur a conversation so we don’t usually respond. You have to consider how important it is to respond on a case-by-case basis.”

The next question asked by an attendee was, “How many big institutional investors are involved in social media?”

Darrell said that as an example Seeking Alpha, a portal for financial blogs, was visited by 4 million unique users per month, and that 1 million of these were institutional investors.

Following this, someone asked, “How do I get my information out to analysts and institutional investors?”

Tim responded by saying that short videos were a good format - again largely because they expose other people within the company. Ruth agreed with this and said that her company found them very valuable.

Darrell said, “You need to repackage your content to make it easier for them to consume both on your site and in social media. For example, instead of just providing your presentations in pdf format, also use Slideshare, which makes for a much better user experience and makes it easier for others to share your content.” He felt that it was, “Important to get involved in social media and be a part of the conversation so you know what’s going on. You can’t ‘control’ the conversation, forget about that, but you can help set the tone.”

“You also need to look at your corporate/IR website and consider the role that it plays. Right now, with current budget cuts, public companies are focusing more on face-to-face meetings, but what does that analyst do before he goes to your meeting? He looks at your website for context on your company. And what does he do after he leaves your meeting? He goes back to your site to verify the facts that came up in the meeting. You need to understand this and stop using your site as a filing cabinet - you need to use it as a strategic tool to provide more context.”

Tim agreed and said, “If you have a good vision, a good leadership team and strong performance you should bring this all together to help users understand why they should invest.” (I talked about this very topic and gave some good examples in an IR Website Best Practices webinar we ran a few weeks ago. )

The topic then turned to using social media for issues management.

Ruth said that using social media could get the word out so much faster than traditional channels. (See reference to Dominos versus Wendy’s in my June 10 post as a great example of this.)

Tim felt that issuers should have a strategy in place for issues management through SM, before a situation arose, so that when an incident occurred, they knew how to respond.

Darrell felt that it was important to be proactive - if a company knew that a situation was going to be contentious, it was better to be out in front communicating about it before a problem arose. He said that Barrick had done a good job of this related to a specific mining site, where they anticipated community backlash. By being upfront, they were able to address concerns before they became problems.

Questions were still being asked as the clock ran down and the time was up.

Clearly this topic continues to be of great interest and companies need to find ways to get involved that suit their cultures and their comfort level.

As I was using TwitterBerry to tweet the session live, I may have omitted something, so if you attended or were a panelist, I look forward to your comments.

Related posts:

1. Examples of small and large companies using Social Media in Investor Relations They may differ in their size and sector, but Canada...
2. Trends in Media and Technology - From NIRI 2009 Yesterday I attended a panel discussion that primarily focused on...
3. Darrell Heaps, interviewed at NIRI 2008 The folks over at zu.com were doing interviews with some...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Companies using our  Q4 web platform will be able to easily embed SlideShare presentations into any area of their IR websites and publish directly to both their IR website and SlideShare.com. Additionally, SlideShare is launching a separate Investor Relations category. Companies will also have the opportunity to promote their investor relations presentations to SlideShare’s 18 million visitors in a targeted manner.

Related posts:

1. Social Media, Investor Relations and Web Disclosure I recently read an interesting article entitled “Corporate Tweets and...
2. Notice-and-Access Press Releases; An interview with Jason McGruder, VP Investor Relations at BGC Partners On Feb 23, 2009 BGC Partners became one of the...
3. Summer ‘09 Preview bring social media and xbrl to IR websites Summer ‘09 Preview Earlier today we released our Summer...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Robert said that Dell uses social media primarily to reach out connect with people who are interested in their company and want to access their information in different ways. He said that it was important to socialize SM internally with legal, finance and other executive positions, who may be concerned about risk, in order to help them understand the importance of being involved and the fact that you just can’t vet everything through the same DC&Ps. “The IRO is in a perfect position to handle social media because they understand the risks, they understand the story. And it’s not like they’re monitoring every phone call I make or every conversation I have with an analyst.”

One has to remember that when it comes to blogging there should be no material statements, no material events and no material omissions.

Laura admitted that at recently as a year ago she was saying, “Social media is not for me” but now she avidly uses it to reach both existing and new investor audiences. Laura said that it’s very important to get your internal people on side, which may be more difficult  with an older established company – you may have to do more work to bring them along but a few quick wins should help.

On this note Laura talked about the contract between Dominos pizza and the employee YouTube debacle, which was quickly addressed and quieted through social media and the Wendy’s ‘severed finger in the chili’ where the issue was addressed through more traditional channels and continued to haunt their brand for many months. (That story alone should be a wake-up call to most senior executives.)

Serena gave specific advice throughout the discussion. She said that it’s important to monitor what’s being said about your company online through sites like www.search.twitter.com , www.socialmention.com , or through RSS feeds. You can even index whether mentions are positive or negative. Serena also felt that issuers should have social media policies that include who represents the company on Twitter, Facebook and other SM. Serena also mentioned a number of other sites as information resources on social media and IR best practices including IR Café and Q4Blog.

Both Laura and Serena said that getting involved in SM doesn’t have to take up a lot of time for a busy IRO and instead, suggested finding someone with the company who is active in Twitter and excited to represent the company online.

Dick said that coordinating SM efforts between IR and PR was very important. He also said that investors are more likely to look for information on your corporate website than any other source and that it should be considered your primary source of information for investors. He offered a checklist as a handout, which he also provides on his site. He then said that a checklist is just the starting point, that a website should not be a filing cabinet and that issuers should look to provide more context for their investment proposition. (Q4 covered this topic previously in an IR website best practice presentation.)

Laura described a scenario which often happens and how social media provides a powerful tool to address misinformation. In the truncating of headlines by the media, often a message is dramatically altered which could significantly alter your stock. A company could issue a press release saying something like, “XYZ reports that sales are soft in Q1 but are expected to be strong in Q4”. The media shortens this headline to read, “XYZ reports that Sales are Soft”. A buzz begins and you can see your stock spiraling down – social media gives you a powerful voice to address these issues and correct the information. And if your company is actively involved in SM, people will know where to go to verify the misinformation.

She also suggested having a section on your site called “Hot Topics” where things like this can be flagged for investors to access further information.

Following this one of the delegates asked how she could keep up with addressing everything negative that was said about her company online. Serena responded by saying that this wasn’t necessary, and that sometimes these negative comments are coming from people who are not widely followed anyway. She suggested to measure how much traffic some of these negative bloggers get (before determining where it was necessary to respond) through sites like www.compete.com , www.quantcast.com , and www.alexa.com

Both Robert and Laura said that V-logs (video logs) were very good ways to address issues and to put investors in touch with more people inside the company. (In fact Dominos CEO addressed their issue through a video.) Robert said that they use V-logs to address 5-6 questions on the quarter and this has been a very effective strategy for them. 

How to get started – read Reg. FD with a ‘blog mindset’, and find a mentor. Put a calendar together to ensure regular blog posts. You’ll find that you won’t have to spend a lot of time thinking up things to blog about as issues will come up that provide blog topics.

There were a lot of good points made in the session, some of which I may not have captured in this post. I welcome comments from any of the participants or panel members to provide additional information.

Related posts:

1. M.O.M. knows what’s best for IR and Social Media As more companies begin to slowly dip their toe into...
2. From NIRI 2009 – The Evolution of Financial Communication On June 10 I attended a panel discussion at the...
3. Q4 Is Attending the NIRI Conference The Q4 team is off to the NIRI National Conference...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.