Knowledge Publishing Corp on “Social Media Marketing for Public Companies”

Posted on | September 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Knowledge Publishing Corp on “Social Media Marketing for Public Companies”

Social Media Marketing for Public Companies

In order to successfully launch a social media marketing campaign, there needs to be a plan in place. It starts with the goal and the website, and the rest is a matter of plugging in the tools and maintaining your image.

The first question therefore is, what would the goals be of a publicly traded company for a social media platform?

1. To communicate with its existing investors on news, disclosures, advancements, and answer questions with regards to past information.
2. To discuss with the media and general public the goals of the company, its news, and advancements
3. To gain more investors in the company, or investor interest
4. To build an internationally recognized brand
5. To be top of mind in the news, on the search engines, and in online discussions
6. To increase the links back to your website and news to measure the results of your achievements in the public eye and your public relations efforts

In order to successfully achieve these goals we first look at the main website, which would need to have the following:

1. An appealing graphic design
2. Title, Meta Tags, and keywords programmed into the website
3. A Blog or News Release page for accessing the news releases on the website
4. A newsletter subscription service (to capture the interest of users, and communicate press via email.
5. Possibly a section for podcasting and company videos or a part of the front page
6. Links to social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., possibly with live updates from Twitter, Facebook, the company blog being posted along the sidebar of the website.

This is the simple framework of a public company website. For the most part, softwares such as Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Xplorex.com, all have these features and capabilities. Utilizing www.publishknowledge.com we can build a website for a public company with all of the key features for under $2000.

The Social Media Scope

One the website is designed, the social media set-up is the main focus. Here are the following key steps to take:

1. Set-up an account with twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube, and the other 30 main social media websites. Document their user names and passwords.
2. Build a company blog, www.publishknowledge.com can set this up for free on one of its hosted domains for the stock market, such as www.otclistings.com or www.tsxlistings.com of which you can also send press releases onto for free.
3. Integrate the Blog and the Website with all of the social media accounts so immediate publishing occurs of the news or information across all mediums
4. Use a Newswire service, and be sure to list at the bottom of every press release the facebook account, the twitter account, the youtube account, the blog address, the website address, and the company email to join the newsletter.
5. Integrate all of the websites, press, and articles with all of the social book marketing websites.
6. Publish a research report, submit the report to the many document repositories on the internet, publish links to the report across all social media platforms, and within press releases and the company newsletter.
7. Create video’s of staff reading the press release, publish the video’s within the company Youtube account. Staff can also read newsletters, articles from third parties, or updates from time to time on non-material issues such as going to a conference.
8. If the company has history, you may consider writing a small guide on the history of the company to where it is today, growth, changes, about management, etc.
9. Having manuals and guides for example such as “Investing In Gold” or Investing in Semiconductors” depending on your topic are good sources of information that are often linked and referred to. Be sure to brand it with company information or references to.
10. Integrate your blog with other blogs, creating a network of reciprocal links. Especially with those blogs that are other public companies, awareness and or newswire websites, etc. www.publishknowledge.com has over 50 websites for public companies to immediately link into.
11. Optimize keywords and tags on all blogs, press, and tweets
12. Utilize profile management software such as www.hootsuite.com to manage and time tweets for press releases, comments, etc. Within these systems, you can schedule for free the tweets. Blogs can also be prescheduled, therefore, many of the social media tools can be preset for the release of information.
13. Utilize general meetings, seminars, and conferences to promote the social media tools of which your communications are coming from. Video as many of these outings as possible and publish them via podcasts and video sites.
14. Integrate the communications of all the mediums into community websites on your industry, groups such as yahoo, google, and msn, as well as websites that have discussion forums on your company. These forums combined with all of the above tools will drive an integrated online communication and social media marketing campaign.

The SEC embraces online Communications- But its your responsibility to work with a firm who knows how to set-up the checks and balances to protect your firm.

According to the SEC, “As we have developed EDGAR to facilitate and promote electronic availability of information, we also have encouraged companies to make their Commission filings and other company information available on their web sites. We believe that company disclosure should be more readily available to investors in a variety of locations and formats to facilitate investor access to that information.”

The SEC published a 47-page report that outlines the boundaries for sharing information as well as holding companies and their employees liable for the information that they post on blogs, networks, communities, and discussion forums.

If public companies are not proactively analyzing these guidelines and establishing internal policies, frameworks, and penalties, then they are exposed to the dangers that loom where self-restraint and a concrete plan of action need to be. It is a bit more than applying common sense, this is why you need to work with social media marketing experts who have owned and run public companies such as www.publishknowledge.com and the Knowledge Publishing consultants.

Most Social Media Marketing professionals have never actually owned or run a public company, therefore, their understanding of regulations, timely publishing, and potential conflicts with staff comments is a liability. The reality is, social media marketing is a tool that needs to have more controls placed on it than just free range twittering. As appealing as that may be, it has its place, but not in public markets.

Contact us to develop a social media marketing strategy for your public company.