10 IR Twitter accounts revisited: honeymoon is over

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WHAT a difference a quarter makes! Back in August we showcased 10 companies that used Twitter to distribute information about their Q2 earnings announcements, so we thought we would check in to see how they’re doing this quarter.

And are there ever some surprises. It seems that tweeting earnings information is generally not generating nearly as much interest from Twitter users as it was three months ago.

Interest in company tweets, as measured by the number of clicks on links, is down at most companies on the list. In fact, only three companies – cement company Lafarge, chemical company BASF, and fertilizer giant PotashCorp – increased engagement with their tweets.

The fall in apparent interest comes even as all of the companies increased their number of followers by at least 15%, with 6 out of the 10 growing their followers by 40% or more over the three months. So while they may have more “followers,” there’s evidence to suggest that fewer people are paying attention.

Companies that actively engage see better results

Digging into the results it seems that the initial honeymoon for IR-related tweeting is over. Companies now need to work much harder to be noticed when the busy earnings season comes around. They can no longer show up once per quarter, fire off a bunch of tweets, and then hope to be noticed.

The new challenge seems to be continually engaging with followers to gain and maintain their attention. At least, that’s our take from looking at what the successful companies have been doing (except for PotashCorp, which seems to have benefited mostly from being in the spotlight due to the failed takeover by BHP Billiton.)

The drop in audience attention also may be a consequence of there being many more public companies on Twitter all competing for a limited pool of interested users. IR Web Report is currently tracking just under 1,000 companies on Twitter on our public company lists. Many of these companies are now routinely using their accounts to distribute links to news relevant to investors.

Another surprise is that last quarter’s most effective earnings tweeter, Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche, stopped actively tweeting about its earnings results, with no explanation provided.

Below are the results for each of the 10 companies showing both Q2 and Q3 information for comparison. We also provide brief observations on each company.

Garmin

URL: https://twitter.com/GarminStock

Comments:

The big drop in clicks is probably partly due to Garmin only including a link to its site in one of 22 tweets. In Q2, links were included in 5 tweets. Still despite a 21% rise in followers, it seems that fewer people are paying attention to Garmin on Twitter. Garmin rarely engages with followers and mostly only uses this account once per quarter. Clearly, this strategy is failing.

Procter & Gamble

URL: https://twitter.com/PGNewsUS

Comments:

Their third-quarter tweeting wasn’t much different from Q2, yet it had much less impact despite a 27% increase in followers. Perhaps followers are just tuning out.

Lafarge

URL: https://twitter.com/LafargeGroup

Comments:

Lafarge is extremely active on Twitter and has a high level of engagement with its followers. As with the Q2 earnings tweets, every tweet for the Q3 period included a link, which increases the likelihood of people clicking through to the information on the company’s site. They are definitely doing the right things, as it evident by their 48% follower growth and 25% increase in click thrus.

PotashCorp

URL: https://twitter.com/PotashCorp

Comments:

Big increase in click-thrus on a relatively small follower base. There are two possible explanations for this. First, PotashCorp was in the spotlight as a takeover target and investors and the media may have been using the company’s Twitter account to keep track of developments. Another possible explanation is that Tiny.cc, the URL shortening service the company used this quarter, reports click data differently than Bit.ly, which PotashCorp used in the prior quarter. We cannot ascribe the increase to anything that PotashCorp is doing differently because it’s still not engaging on Twitter. It will be interesting to see what happens in Q4.

Metso Group

URL: https://twitter.com/metsogroup

Comments:

Metso isn’t using trackable links for its earnings tweets. Still, based on other tweets, this company isn’t seeing traction from Twitter. My guess is it’s because they only follow one account, and are slow in responding to people on Twitter. Of course, when they do come on to Twitter, they literally bombard their followers with tweets! Metso needs to rethink its approach.

BASF

URL: https://twitter.com/BASF_IR

Comments:

Clearly, BASF IR is doing something right. Followers are up nicely, they’ve reduced the number of tweets around their earnings, and clicks are up 153%. What’s not to like? They probably would do even better including links in more of their tweets. Overall, they can be happy with how they’re doing given that this is only their second quarter on Twitter.

Corning

URL: https://twitter.com/Corning

Comments:

An increase in followers and tweets, but still a drop in clicks clearly isn’t a good sign. There’s no evidence that Corning is gaining traction on Twitter. What’s happening? First, only one of the 19 tweets on the day included a link to additional info, and it was at 7:55 am, during the Eastern commute. If Corning included a link to their webcast in some of the other tweets, it’s likely click-thrus would be higher.

Roche

URL: https://twitter.com/Roche_com

Comments: Last time we called them “the one to emulate.” But without notice or explanation, Roche just stopped tweeting the information that they used to provide. All investors go this time was a single tweet, and it’s an automated one at that. It’s truly bad form that they did nothing to explain the change in practice. Disappointing.

eBay

URL: http://twitter.com/ebayinkblog

Comments:

This quarter eBay began using StockTwits in addition to Twitter for its famous earnings call live tweeting session. But this didn’t seem to help as click-thrus dropped almost 60%. That said, there were fewer links in the tweets than in Q2. We think there are far too many tweets per session and people are likely to tune out. Still, when it comes to earnings call tweeting and generally engaging his audience, there are few as good as Richard Brewer-Hay. For the Q3 season he donned a bra to show support for the Bling My Bra breast cancer fund raising campaign.

Syngenta

URL: http://twitter.com/Syngenta

Comments:

Syngenta is another company that is not actively engaging with its followers on Twitter. The company only follows 12 others. This might explain the lack of audience response to its tweets as seen in the 46% drop in click-thrus.

And that’s it. Let us know your thoughts. Do you think companies will work harder to engage their audiences, or will the prospect of having to work harder cause some to shy away from Twitter?

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.