Public Companies cannot afford to ignore social media, they need to embrace and learn it!

“The reality is that blogging, tweeting, facebook, discussion forums, linked in, slideshare, and all of the other great tools used for social media have been utilized by public companies and small businesses, but the majority of public companies have no social media or Social PR strategy. That’s not surprising as 50% of companies who try social media don’t have a plan” Say Ryan Gibson from PublishKnowledge.com. All of the strategies that drive the websites managed by Gibson, he claims was due to Guerrilla Marketing Strategies of Jay Conrad Levinson executed on the Internet.

With over 175 blogs under management within the financial social media sector Gibson brings up a good point. Mr. Gibson is the brother of Guru and Social Media Author Shane Gibson, who wrote the book Sociable and his most recent book is “Guerrilla Social Media Marketing” co-authored with world famous Jay Conrad Levinson.  As you may recall over a year ago, OTC Listings wrote a blog on the 20 TIPS for Social Media Marketing for Public Companies: http://www.otclistings.com/?p=26

Since then there have been research reports looking at the adoption rate of IR on 5 social media methods and tools, which was broken down to:

• 37% Facebook
• 29% YouTube
• 10% Corporate blog
• 10% SlideShare
• 93% LinkedIn

The main reason for embracing social media with a company’s IR and PR campaign is the trackable results. How many times have you heard about internet marketers pointing at a stock price and saying I told you so, or I did that, etc. The reality is it is hot air, smoke and mirrors, and for lack of a better term, untrackable.

One of my first lessons in Internet Marketing for public companies was in setting up a Newsletter. The reason was that when press releases went out, internet marketing occurred, or there was good news on your firm, the campaign was only trackable by what the stock price did, and the true interest was never measurable. However, if month on month your newsletter is growing bigger and bigger for your public company, than you know when your interest is growing as well!

Newsletters are very much one sided communication, thus, social media is the BUZZ marketing that one should be paying attention to in the tracking strategy. Things you can track, such as number of hits on your social media profiles, the specific posts, the referring links back to your website that people have clicked on, the number of followers, friends, fans, and linked people to your firm and self. All of these tools equate to growth in a company’s image, investor base, IR and PR. The best time to start is right away, any IR and PR person how is responsible has tried to start building a social media presence. The reality is if you are going to start this process on your own, you need to consider Guerrilla Social Media Marketing. This is the tipping point of Social Media in IR and PR strategies! Do you remember when email marketing use to really work? Well it took years for companies to build those newsletters and lists, by getting involved with social media marketing now, you become the next generation of investor relations.

The reality is that 50% of companies entering into Social Media have NO PLAN. One such invaluable source of social media tools and tips for building a plan is from the book Guerrilla Social Media Marketing which we give our full 100% support behind as the top book in the industry that every IR, PR, and Public company marketing department should purchase. By reading this book, you will be able to track better the results of IR campaigns, develop a base of interested investors and potential investors in your firm, and develop advocates for your firm by using proven public relations strategies.

The book was published this year, and is one of the most timely pieces of writing on social media for this decade.

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing: 100+ Weapons to Grow Your Online Influence, Attract Customers, and Drive Profits [Paperback]

Jay Conrad Levinson (Author) Shane Gibson (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Social-Media-Marketing-Influence/dp/1599183838

To further discuss topics with Shane Gibson go to:

Shane Gibson
Author & Professional Speaker
Blog: http://closingbigger.net
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Official Book Site: http://guerrillasocialmediahq.com
Sociable! Official Book Site: http://sociablebook.com
Buy Sociable! on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Sociable-Social-Turning-Marketing-ebook/dp/B0046H9GJ4
Follow Shane on Twitter: http://twitter.com/shanegibson
email: shane [at] Closingbigger dot net

FYI, look at this list of corporate twitter accounts? Where is yours?

Corporate Twitter Accounts include (partial list):

– Best Buy
– Cisco Systems
– Toys ‘R’ Us
– Dell
– Johnson & Johnson
– Wells Fargo
– Microsoft
– Time Warner
– FedEx
– New York Life Insurance
– McDonald’s
– Oracle
– Google
– Avnet
– Amazon.com
– CBS
– Texas Instruments
– EMC
– Monsanto
– Whole Foods Market
– Rubbermaid
– Symantec

If you don’t have a social media marketing plan for your public company than you are doing your investors an injustice.

Get started today!

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing: 100+ Weapons to Grow Your Online Influence, Attract Customers, and Drive Profits [Paperback]