The National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) and Corbin Perception Group, LLC today announced the results of their surveys into the use of social media by corporate investor relations officers (IROs) and the institutional investor community.
NIRI inquired about investor relations (IR) social media use (where the investment community is the primary audience), the recent SEC announcement concerning social media use for corporate disclosure, broad corporate policy concerning social media, and organizational staff changes as a result of social media.
Key Findings - Social Media Use by Corporate Investor Relations Officers
The majority of survey respondent IR professionals (72%) do not use social media for their IR work.
Consistent with the results of NIRI's 2010 social media study, respondents report not using social media for IR primarily due to lack of interest by the investment community.
Almost half (49%) who do not currently use social media in their IR program plan to reassess the issue within the next 12 months.
In an effort to objectively evaluate how the buy side consumes social media, defined as financial blogs, message boards and social networking sites, Corbin Perception surveyed 87 global buy side professionals across a diverse set of industry segments and market-caps on the impact social media has on their investment process.
Key Findings - Social Media Use by Institutional Investors
52% of survey contributors utilize social media as part of their research process, a slightly smaller number than 2010 levels of 56%; the vast majority of these respondents indicates that it has influenced their investment decisions at least occasionally
Interestingly and somewhat concerning, 92% consider the information gleaned from social media sites as either somewhat or not at all reliable
According to the entire survey group, it is the lowest rated information source in terms of influence
In light of the SEC's decision to grant credibility to postings on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, 43% assert they will likely utilize social media more as part of their research process
Financial blogs, including Seeking Alpha, as well as LinkedIn and Twitter are viewed as the moe viewed e viewed as the most valuable social media resources; only 25% find company-sponsored blogs useful
NIRI President and CEO Jeffrey D. Morgan said, "The timing of NIRI's survey was ideal as it was conducted one month after the SEC's announcement that companies may use social media to disclose key information after alerting investors about which social media will be used. Companies will obviously choose the methods that best meet the communications needs of their constituents, but important in making an informed decision is an understanding of the current state of IR practice provided by these survey results."
2013 NIRI Annual Conference On-Site Research Sponsor and President of Corbin Perception, Rebecca Corbin said, "For the second year in a row, we are honored to sponsor NIRI's research on topical IR issues, and social media certainly fits that credential. Our objective research finds that although this information is of questionable perceived reliability, it can play a role in the investment decision process. This underscores the need for IR professionals to closely monitor company-specific social media content."