Tag Archives: Twitter

April 4, 2013Social MediaBrittany Kiefer, Emily Stephenson, Facebook, Greg Bensinger, Howard Lindzon, Investor relations, Jeff Corbin, Jessica Holzer, Julia Boorstin, Ryan Northover, SEC, Social media, TwitterReputation Communications Staff

This week the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that “postings on sites such as Facebook and Twitter are just as good as news releases and company websites.” Some companies, like Dell and eBay, already use Twitter in conjunction with more traditional methods to deliver news and updates to investors, but the SEC’s decision could be a game changer for corporate communications and the ways in which shareholders get investment information.

Driving a Potential Surge in Business Communication

“With this news companies are likely to communicate more via social media and encourage investors to follow them on these new platforms,” says CNBC’s Julia Boorstin. “This could drive a surge in business communication and activity.” Jeff Corbin, author of Investor Relations: The Art of Communicating Value, told Boorstin that the SEC’s decision highlights “the importance of channels such as Facebook and Twitter to the way average individuals now communicate,” and Howard Lindzon, founder of Stocktwits, echoed that sentiment. “A press release on Yahoo finance—who reads that anymore?” he told Reuters’ Emily Stephenson. “You’re going to read news on your Facebook stream, your Twitter stream. The industry is changing, and it was a matter of time before it was going to be regulated.”

Implications of the Ruling

Content strategist Ryan Northover explored the impact it could have on the social media landscape for Social Media Today: “It means platforms like Twitter and Facebook will become networks where literally trillions of dollars in investment decisions will be made, beyond the trading desks and Bloomberg terminals of millions of money players across the world.” It’s impossible to predict the exact effects that the ruling will have, but companies would be wise to follow the SEC’s lead. With the right resources, strategies and content, social media may very quickly become the key way companies connect with shareholders. Many shareholders will become late adapters to social media; more companies will need social media managers; and more mainstream communication platforms will become less dominant.

December 3, 2012Branding, Reputation Case Study, Social MediaAllan Dodds Frank, Authenticity, Bank of America, Ben Protess, branding, Dina Hampton, financial industry thought-leaders, Joe Anthony, Online reputation management, reputation, Reputation Communications, Reputation Rehabilitation, Sallie Krawcheck, SEC, Shannon Wilkinson, Social media, Susanne Craig, transparency, TwitterShannon M. Wilkinson

Sallie Krawcheck is a top candidate to become the next head of the SEC, according to Dealbook, but it’s not just her record and resilience as a Wall Street executive that’s put her in the running.

Since she began tweeting last spring, Krawcheck has gained more than 11,000 followers. On LinkedIn she’s attracted an even larger audience—75,000 and counting. “She has drawn a significant following with her conversational style and posts on investment issues,” Dealbook says, referring to an earlier article in which Krawcheck called her move “part of a larger effort to style herself as an industry analyst” and “lend her Wall Street experience to the broader debate about the industry’s evolution.” Already among LinkedIn’s top “Thought Leaders” and Business Insider’s “101 Finance People You Have To Follow On Twitter,” she’s clearly had a great deal of success with her strategy.

Social Media Savvy

A big part of that success comes from Krawcheck’s deft use of social media to take ownership of her image and message. In the past, she would have had to rely on a public relations intermediary to arrange interviews and keep her name out there, as many prominent figures do. However, she has used social media to take more direct control of her voice and reach a larger audience at the same time. In a recent RIABiz.com article Dina Hampton examines how Krawcheck “used those months of technical unemployment to cultivate a distinct and intimate online voice that may, industry watchers say, deftly position her for her next move.” Speaking to Hampton, Gregory FCA Communications’ Joe Anthony adds that Krawcheck’s strategy has “broadened her footprint to where more people are recognizing her beyond the financial services space” and “gone from being seen as a sharp mind within wealth management/banking to a thought leader and business titan.”

While she may describe herself in her Twitter profile as a “current mom” and “crazed UNC basketball fan,” a closer look at Krawcheck’s online presence shows that her approach is far from amateur. In addition to regularly sharing useful links and poignant thoughts on both Twitter and LinkedIn, she has self-published popular posts like “Lessons Learned in Leading During a Crisis” and “What I Learned When I Got Fired (the First Time)” and penned op-eds for outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Politico.

Those posts have given her a chance to share her own perspective and narrative regarding her previous experience, while the op-eds appear to be setting the stage for her next move. “Lately Krawcheck has been peppering the media with her thoughts and strong recommendations about how to address, if not solve, the gigantic, chronic, almost genetic, ills of the global financial industry,” The Daily Beast’s Allan Dodds Frank wrote in October. “If she can continue her nonpartisan stance,” Frank observed, “she might be the ideal person to be in charge of consumer protection, be nominated to the Securities & Exchange Commission or to a Treasury Department job.”

Setting the Stage

Her undergraduate degree at the UNC School of Journalism has likely helped Krawcheck communicate effectively, but perhaps more important is how she has applied the same strategies that made her one of Wall Street’s top female executives to her social media endeavors. “The secrets of Krawcheck’s success, however, hinge on her social skills,” Heidi N. Moore wrote in 2009, adding that “she has built a reputation as Mrs. Clean” and combined “a warm interest in others’ feelings, an obsession with preparation” and with “frank talk and open ambition.”

Speculation about where she’ll end up next will surely continue, and there’s no guarantee that she’ll be tapped as the next SEC chair. But one thing is certain: as one of the first major names in the banking world to dive headfirst into social media, Sallie Krawcheck has reaped the vast potential of an open and savvy online strategy.

November 16, 2012Social MediaAmnesty International, Brooks Barnes, CUNY, Ford Foundation, free speech, Google, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, human rights, JustPublics@365, Obama campaign technology team, Oliver Luckett, Philanthropy, President Obama, social inequity, social justice, Social media, Suzanne Nossel, theAudience, transparency, TwitterReputation Communications Staff

Social media is a transformational communications tool. It enables anyone to broadcast a message to the global community free, easily and instantly. That makes it an empowering agent of change.

If you are interested in a topic and have a social media monitoring system in place, you can follow nearly everything that is said about a topic in real time – and participate in the conversation. (I say “nearly” because no monitoring system is infallible.)

The influence of social media on public opinion cannot be overemphasized. It is also changing the power balance in the Hollywood industry, as this article about the rush among celebrities to hire social media managers suggests. (The more followers a star has, the more fans, hence more negotiating power.)

Social media an important human rights tool

As the Arab Spring uprising showed, social media may be one of the most important human rights tools of our time. Yesterday, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (GC) confirmed that when it announced that the Ford Foundation has enabled GC to launch JustPublics@365. The initiative will bring together journalists, academics, activists and policy advocates who are working to address social inequality — economic, housing, race and ethnicity, immigration, health, and education — through digital media. The program’s first Summit will be held at the GC on Thursday, March 6, 2013.

Coincidentally, Amnesty International executive director, Suzanne Nossel, has called on President Obama to use his second term to advance human rights and dignity, starting with restoring the United States’ own credibility on human rights issues.

September 7, 2012Branding, Social MediaAuthenticity, branding, Coca Rocha, model industry, Social media, TwitterReputation Communications Staff

Coco Rocha is one of only a few contemporary fashion models that has a very strong online brand—one of the few whose name is well known outside the fashion industry because of her social media strategy. This New York Times article examines advice she gives to young models on establishing a brand using her techniques. Early in a career, a key challenge is distinguishing yourself from your peers. Building a brand can be the answer, and social media is most often the most accessible platform to use.

Most any brand will benefit an emerging career. Ms. Rocha’s advice to a young model creating a Tumblr content: “I don’t care if it’s about cats, just make it the best cat Tumblr out there.” And any audience you can muster is a clear asset you can offer clients. Her savvy is very likely to extend her modeling career…because of the added value her large audience brings to the products she is hired to showcase.

September 22, 2011Reputation Case Study, Social Mediabranding, Dyan Machan, Gaga, Google, Lady Gaga, reputation, reputation management, Smart Money, Social media, TwitterShannon M. Wilkinson

Dyan Machan has an insightful piece in Smart Money about how Lady Gaga used her personal story, empathy and social media to become the most Googled person of all time (and earn $100 million this year). Her article is based on the business school case study, “Lady Gaga, Born This Way?,” coauthored by Martin Kupp, program director of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin.

From the “If the Rules Don’t Work, ReWrite Them” section:

“Germanotta knew talent wasn’t enough to draw attention in a crowded music landscape…. perhaps most important, she worked at first without help from a very skeptical recording-industry establishment. One label turned her down; another dropped her, reportedly after one of its executives made a cutting-his-throat gesture while listening to one of her tracks. So Gaga fed her music and promotional info directly to her fans, via social media. An early-adopting Twitter user, she communicated with her followers an average of five times a day and used the service to announce the release dates of her new albums. Kupp says it’s all an example of how upstarts need to ignore the standards set by large, risk-averse corporations: “If you don’t break the rules, you won’t make it,” he declares.”

Another example of how social media has eliminated the need for many of the middle-men once necessary to launch and build a career, business and brand.