Investor relations on Twitter: 10 great examples

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THE 2010 second-quarter earnings season has seen a flood of companies using Twitter to announce their financial results and tweet highlights from their earnings calls.

It’s not over yet, but by our count more than 150 public companies have already announced their earnings on the popular microblogging service, which recently passed 20 billion tweets served.

While it’s still early in the evolution of investor relations communications on the social web, it’s clear that Twitter is going to be a major channel.

Of course, most companies are still learning what works, taking cautious steps. They’re issuing a token tweet, often generated automatically from their website news release feeds.

Others, however, have clearly committed themselves to using Twitter to keep investors — and other weird sorts who find earnings interesting – in the loop. They are planning their sessions, carefully scheduling and compiling their tweets, using hashtags and StockTwits tickers, and even actively engaging with their followers.

Quite a few are now “live-tweeting” their earnings calls, a practice I have mixed views about. For the most part, I think live-tweeting degrades the experience for followers. But I’m keeping an open mind about it because it’s not a clear-cut issue.

The Examples

If your company or your clients are thinking of taking the Twitter plunge, here are 10 companies you can look to for inspiration and ideas. Each is actively using Twitter to tweet to investors and the media.

Each entry gives you:

• a link to the relevant Twitter account, so you can follow them (or just lurk).
• the number of people following them as of yesterday
• what tools or “apps” they use to tweet
• how many tweets they issued about their most recent results, and
• how many clicks to their websites their earnings tweeting generated in Q2.

Without further ado, here’s the list of great examples, which is not presented in any particular order:

Garmin

URL: https://twitter.com/GarminStock
Followers: 211
Apps used: Web
# of Earnings Tweets: 30
# of Clicks from Tweets: 57
Comments: Garmin, which reported yesterday, has a dedicated IR account, which ensures that followers only get relevant information. They live-tweet the earnings call, and precede the session with a short disclaimer. Not sure why they didn’t actually tweet a link to their earnings release, though. Very good response from such a small follower base.

Procter & Gamble

URL: https://twitter.com/PGNewsUS
Followers: 5,166
Apps used: Twitterfeed, CoTweet, TweetDeck
# of Earnings Tweets: 14
# of Clicks from Tweets: 75
Comments: The tweets are coming from P&G’s media relations team, so strictly speaking their activity doesn’t quality as IR. Except it does because investors don’t discriminate. The tweets are plain vanilla, no hashtags or tickers. There’s a bit of “spin,” but mostly the tweets are informative. Still, the company’s IR department should have it’s own account. It’s hard to find the signal when sales numbers are mixed in with soap suds. The low click-thrus suggest that earnings tweets on this account don’t resonate.

Lafarge

URL: https://twitter.com/LafargeGroup
Followers: 640
Apps used: Web, Twitterfeed
# of Earnings Tweets: 9
# of Clicks from Tweets: 36
Comments: The France-based building materials giant uses some generic hashtags like #earnings that really don’t provide much value. But they keep their tweets short and re-tweetable. Very simple approach, and they engage some and follow a fair bunch. Great way for US-based investors to stay informed about the company, which delisted from the NYSE in 2007 in favor of relative obscurity as a Level 1 ADR.

PotashCorp

URL: https://twitter.com/PotashCorp
Followers: 143
Apps used: Web
# of Earnings Tweets: 9
# of Clicks from Tweets: 8
Comments: The Canada-based fertilizer leader is well-known for its innovation on the web, but Twitter is still new territory for them – and their capital market stakeholders. Engagement is lacking, which is obvious from the fact that it only follows itself. The tweets all have a “key message” feel compared to other companies, which are more data rich. They’ll figure it out soon enough.

Metso Group

URL: https://twitter.com/metsogroup
Followers: 178
Apps used: Web
# of Earnings Tweets: 36
# of Clicks from Tweets: 1
Comments: Trying so hard, yet so unloved. I’d beg you to follow them if you’re on Twitter, but the Finland-based machinery maker probably won’t follow back because they’re currently at zilch. That lone click looks sad by itself, but it doesn’t tell the whole story because they also linked to http://www.metso.com/webcasts, which we can’t track. First company we’ve seen to Tweet a list of the questions put to management on the call. Still, too many tweets!

BASF IR

URL: https://twitter.com/BASF_IR
Followers:480
Apps used: HootSuite, Web, Twitpic
# of Earnings Tweets: 53
Clicks generated: 34
Comments: A dedicated IR account. Ones to watch because they’ve won every IR web award under the sun. Still new to Twitter but very engaged and creative. Tweeted photos of execs on the earnings call, which was live-tweeted. Looks like they are preparing their tweets before hand and using HootSuite to schedule them. Too many tweets, though. But they know that and are seeking feedback.

Corning

URL: https://twitter.com/Corning
Followers: 371
Apps used: Web
# of Earnings Tweets: 10
Clicks generated: 8
Comments: This is a corporate account with a decidedly IR feel. They don’t follow enough and a missing insight into the finer points of Twitter, which shows in the low clicks. For instance, they could generate a lot more activity and goodwill by directing tweets to StockTwits, where there is an active community of investors interested in the company. Might want to read this.

Roche

URL: https://twitter.com/Roche_com
Followers: 4,586
Apps used: CoTweet
# of Earnings Tweets: 21
Clicks generated: 182
Comments: Only company where I had to use a calculator to add up all the various clicks to their site! Probably the best experience from a follower’s perspective. By not live tweeting the earnings call, they don’t overwhelm their followers and drive traffic to the webcast. But the greatest value comes from them referring followers to the media’s rolling coverage of the results throughout the day. From start to finish, it’s a well-managed process that is a valuable enhancement to what the company already provides on its website. The one to emulate.

eBay

URL: http://twitter.com/ebayinkblog
Followers: 4,638
Apps used: Blog, Seesmic
# of Earnings Tweets: 63
Clicks generated: 169
Comments: The original earnings live-tweeter, eBay continues to be a standard setter. It’s one of the few to incorporate StockTwits into its distribution. Its disclaimer at the start of earnings call live-tweeting sessions, and use of an unique hashtag for each call, are best practices. But too many tweets for my liking, but no one else complains so I’m wrong. Could say more but Richard’s already gotten a lot of ink here. He’s posted a good piece about his set-up and process.

Syngenta

URL: http://twitter.com/Syngenta
Followers: 1,724
Apps used: Web
# of Earnings Tweets: 6
Clicks generated: 156
Comments: For companies that want to take the earnings tweeting plunge, Syngenta is a good model to start with. Simple and efficient.

And that’s all 10 of them. Let us know what you think. And if you’re on Twitter, here’s a link to our account to say hi :-).

Disclosure: I’ve been a consultant to StockTwits, Syngenta and PotashCorp

Dominic Jones

Dominic (bio & disclosures) is IR Web Report‘s founder and an online investor relations consultant. He advises leading public companies and investor relations service providers worldwide on using the web for disclosure, engagement and profile building. You can contact him via the contacts page.