Q4 Research: Public Company use of social media for IR - Part 3 YouTube & SlideShare

Summary Presentation: Download Complete Whitepaper
October 2012

Q4 Whitepaper: Public Company Use of Social Media for IR
Part 3: YouTube & SlideShare - Summary Slides
Why Social Media Matters For Investor Relations
• Social media has become one of the key methods for companies to
engage in discussion, share information, and connect with their
audiences.
• The number of users communicating on social media platforms is
compelling. Over 900 million on Facebook, 555 million users of
Twitter and over 150 million people on LinkedIn1.
• Research shows that:
– 49% of professional investors are reading blogs and 27% use YouTube2
– 3 out of 5 financial bloggers use Twitter as their primary news source3
– 63% of institutional investors believe social media will become
increasingly important to them4
Sources: 1. All Twitter Blog (Mediabistro), 2012 | 2. Rivel Research, 2010 | 3. Financial Media Conference, 2011 | 4. Brunswick Group, 2009
Download Complete Whitepaper

Overall Social Media Findings
• Q4 performs year over year reviews of social media is used for
Investor Relations by the companies in our sample. Our findings in
2012 reveal:
– slight increases in Twitter and Facebook use
– significant increases in use of SlideShare and corporate blogs
• Our study includes some new measurements for 2012:
– 64% of companies are listed on StockTwits
– 65% of companies have their social media links on their corporate
website
– 32% of companies have a social media summary page to help users
find the appropriate feed or page

2012 Research Sample
• Q4 research sample size for social media research has grown from
80 public companies in 2009 to a total of 807 in 2012.
Airline, 16
Automotive, 12
Consumer
Goods, 114 Exchanges, 4
Financial
Services, 67
Industrial
goods/Basic
materials, 67
Media, 8
Natural
Resources, 134
Pharma/Healthca
re/Biotech, 43
Real Estate, 13
Services, 120
Technology, 139
Telecommunicati
ons, 30
Utilities, 40
Companies Included in Study by Sector

YouTube
• While both Twitter and Facebook have higher use for IR, YouTube’s
sheer size and reach as a social platform cannot be ignored.
– Largest and most popular online video forum in the world, with
over 800 million unique users each month.
– 70% of user traffic is from outside the US.
– According to the Burson-Marsteller Fortune 100 Social Statistics
Report: Percentage increase of Fortune 100 companies using
YouTube is 39% in the last year.

YouTube For Investor Relations
• Q4’s 2012 sample shows that 68% of companies have a YouTube
account, slightly up from 2011. Of these, 29% use YouTube for
Investor Relations.
– By Sector - Top three sectors using YouTube for Investor Relations are
Natural Resources, Technology and Pharma/Healthcare/Biotech.
– By Region - North American companies in our sample significantly
outpaced the rest of the world, with European companies, led by the UK
and Germany, as the next highest.
– By Market Capitalization - Large cap companies lead in use of
YouTube for IR, followed by Small cap and then Medium cap.

SlideShare
• Primarily used as a business tool, SlideShare is an ideal platform for
public companies to easily share presentations and documents with
investors, analysts and other interested parties.
– Largest online presentation sharing community in the world, with
over 60 million visitors and 130 million page views monthly.
– Recently voted #9 in a list of the world’s Top 10 tools for
education and e-learning by the Centre for Learning and
Performance Technologies (Twitter and YouTube were voted #1
and #2, respectively).

SlideShare For Investor Relations
• Q4’s 2012 sample shows that 25% of companies have a SlideShare
account, down slightly up from 2011 (but up from 2010). Of these,
44% use SlideShare for Investor Relations.
– By Sector - Top three sectors using SlideShare for Investor Relations
are Utilities, Natural Resources, and Financial Services.
– By Region - North American companies in our sample significantly
outpaced the rest of the world, with Sweden, Germany and Brazil the
next highest.
– By Market Capitalization - Small cap and Large cap companies were
virtually neck-in-neck for use of SlideShare for IR, followed by Medium
cap.

YouTube & SlideShare Usage and Content
• Companies use YouTube and SlideShare to share visual materials,
providing consumers and investors with information about their
organization, their industry and their markets.
– YouTube – Used for sharing product and promotional videos, Corporate
Social Responsibility videos, executive interviews (including the CEO or
CFO discussing results or acquisitions), and videos detailing corporate
strategy, assets, etc.
– SlideShare – Used for sharing presentations and documents
concerning Corporate Social Responsibility, annual reports and general
meetings, corporate performance, merger and acquisition details, and
more.

Best Practices
YouTube and SlideShare are different social channels, but best
practices for companies sharing visually oriented IR material is
consistent.
1. Providing greater context on investor-related information
2. Emulating the look and feel of the corporate website
3. Directing or linking visitors to corporate website or other social
channels
4. Organizing content for easy and targeted access
5. Consistently delivering content

Best Practices
1. Providing greater context on investor-related information
http://www.youtube.com/user/erstegroupbankagchk.com
Erste Group (left) posted a
video on YouTube of their CEO
announcing 2012 results. It is a
fairly common YouTube
practice for IR, and gives
investors an easy way to gain
greater understanding of the
company’s leadership and
operation.

Best Practices
1. Providing greater context on investor-related information (cont.)
Arc Resources has used YouTube to
provide updates on their construction of a
new gas plant in Alberta.
In a series of five videos, the first (right)
was posted in October 2011 to outline the
project, their goals, strategy and projected
completion date. The last, in April 2012,
shows the successfully commissioned
plant, delivered on time.
This kind of practice keeps investors up to
date on the company’s progress, showing
they are doing what they said they were
going to do.
5 video playlist - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A58E9B609F65DFA&feature=plpp

Best Practices
1. Providing greater context on investor-related information (cont.)
Ferrovial added a presentation
deck on SlideShare (left) after
its Annual General Meeting, so
if any shareholders missed it,
or would like to refer back to it
or get a closer look at the
numbers, they can easily do
so.
It is a simple and effective way
to put the information at
investors’ fingertips.
http://www.slideshare.net/ferrovial

Best Practices
2. Emulating the look and feel of the corporate website
It is important to ensure that all social media
channels adopted by a company have the
same corporate look and feel that the rest of
their communications tools have.
Investors and other constituents need to be
able to identify the source of the information.
http://www.youtube.com/iberdrola?DCSext.siguenos=youtube
http://www.slideshare.net/Iberdrola?DCSext.sig
uenos=slideshare
Iberdrola does an excellent job of this on both
YouTube and SlideShare, making it obvious
to any visitors that these channels are part of
their overall communications strategy

Best Practices
channels
Social media can be a powerful
informational tool, but it is at its most
effective when visitors can move back
and forth across platforms easily,
accessing the content they want, and
in the format they prefer.
Best practices for videos and
presentations are similar to that of
other social media; on all platforms,
wherever possible, companies should
be providing links.
To the left are some examples from
Ferrovial, Arc Resources and Erste
Group.

Best Practices
channels (cont.)
Another effective way to direct visitors
back and forth between a company’s
social channels, and make it much
easier for them to share, is to embed
that video and presentation content.
Arco Resources (right) does this on
their corporate home page, where
they provide an embedded SlideShare
presentation. This allows viewers to
access the presentation from either
site – their corporate website or from
SlideShare directly – and to easily
move back and forth between them.
http://www.arcoresources.com/s/Home.asp

Best Practices
It is vital that companies make it easy for
visitors to navigate through content, to
easily find what they are looking for –
especially if they’re targeting a specific
audience, like investors.
This is most effectively done by grouping
similar content into playlists, or by creating
customized content tabs.
British American Tobacco, for example, has
five separate video playlists, one named
specifically for visitors looking Investor
Relations material.
http://www.youtube.com/user/WelcomeToBAT/videos?view=1

Best Practices
Dell is a great example of how to group
content on SlideShare.
Under their “recently added presentations”
section, they have divided content into
specific topics, like Dell Enterprise, Dell
Services, and Dell for Business.
http://www.slideshare.net/dell

Best Practices
5. Consistently delivering content
Best practices for YouTube and SlideShare in the Investor Relations context is
content consistency. If a company shares a quarterly results presentation in one
quarter but does not the next, visitors may lose confidence that the company
regularly monitors and updates the channel.
Arc Resources is very consistent with
content on both channels, with quarterly
results and investor presentations.http://www.slideshare.net/arcresources
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL50416
D852AF7CBAD&feature=plcp

Compelling Reasons To Use YouTube & SlideShare for IR
• Both YouTube and SlideShare have a significant number of
worldwide users - over 800 million and 60 million visits each month,
respectively.
• Consumers, analysts and investors are increasingly using these
platforms to learn more about companies and their industry, keep up
to date on developments, and share information.
• Evidence continues to show that many public companies see value
in using social media to increase awareness and engage with key
constituents.

• Download and learn how to:
– How your peers are using YouTube and SlideShare to interact and
engage with investors
– What sectors, geographic regions and size of companies are leading
the way in adoption
– Innovative ways to use of video and presentations to provide investors
more industry context
– Best practices for organization, grouping, and delivery of IR content on
YouTube and SlideShare
Download the Complete Whitepaper Now!!
Get Your Free Whitepaper Today

About Q4 Web Systems
Q4 is the leader in corporate websites and social media solutions for
public companies. Hundreds of IR professionals rely on Q4 for their IR
website, social media and mobile applications. Using Q4, public
companies of all sizes increase awareness, reduce risk and build better
relationships with their investors. Through active best practice
research, Q4 has earned a position at the forefront of the investor
relations market, sharing knowledge through webinars, whitepapers
and articles on http://www.q4blog.com/.For more information, please
email sales@q4websystems.com or contact us toll free at 1-877-426-
7829.

Visit Us Online
• Web: www.q4websystems.com
• Blog: www.q4blog.com
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/q4websystems
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/q4websystems

Q4 Research: Public Company use of social media for IR - Part 3 YouTube & SlideShare

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Featured

Featured (20)

Q4 Research: Public Company use of social media for IR - Part 3 YouTube & SlideShare