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Archives for 2011

Monitoring Your Brand Reputation Online Matters

In a recent study by InformationWeek, business technology professionals were surveyed about their companies’ established initiatives for monitoring their brand reputations online and responding to specific types of online conversations about their brands.  As reported by eMarketer, the results aren’t too surprising given that there is no recipe for success for social media marketing yet.

Survey respondents were almost equally split when asked how their companies monitor brand reputations online between using search alert services such as Google Alerts (56% of respondents) and not knowing how their companies monitor brand reputations (40%).  If your company falls into that 40%, you need to put together a plan to monitor your brand’s online reputation immediately.

Following is the breakdown of how survey respondents reported that their companies monitor online brand reputations:

  • Search alerts = 56%
  • Don’t know = 40%
  • Outside vendor = 16%
  • Specialty applications like Radian 6 or Scout Labs = 15%
  • Other = 4%

Even more interesting were the survey results related to how companies respond to negative online conversations and similar social Web activities.  The chart below shows the survey results.



Of course, it’s important to recognize that technology professionals responded to this survey, not marketing professionals.  However, since employees are the strongest brand advocates that a company can have, there is still something to learn from these results.  Employees should be better educated about the brands they work with.  It’s up to brand managers and marketers to put together the initiatives to build internal brand advocates as well as provide the education about how to talk about their companies and brands online.  When it comes to responding to negativity about your brand online, I typically teach my clients the 3 Fs – flight, fight or flood.

Image: eMarketer

Indicators for Oil & Gas CSR Websites

The GRI is in the process of finalising a supplement for the Oil & Gas industry.

Many of the participants in this (including serial website award winners Eni and BP) have also taken part in the IPIECA’s guidance for voluntary sustainability reporting, the last update to which came out in December 2010.

What follows is a summary of some of the indicators the guidance recommends and my comments upon them.

However, although these are aimed at the Oil and Gas industry they’re pertinent to many other industries.

Furthermore, as so much of the present economy is founded upon and driven by O&G products, it would do companies outside the industry no harm to have an awareness of these indicators and even discuss how they may be used when making product and supplier decisions.

[Read more…] about Indicators for Oil & Gas CSR Websites

Facebook Advertising Results Disappoint

Facebook is at the top of the list of websites that serve the most ads, but the results businesses are getting from those ads are disappointing.  A new report from Webtrends reveals that in 2010, the click-through rate for ads on Facebook was just 0.051%, which is down from 0.063% in 2009.

Fortunately for advertisers, the price of Facebook ads is still low relative to other online advertising opportunities.  In 2010, Facebook CPMs had risen to $0.25 from $0.17 in 2009 when click-through rates were slightly better.

The Webtrends study also reported that only two ad categories performed above the 0.1% click-through rate in 2010 — tabloids and blogs at 0.165% and media and entertainment at 0.154%.  Coming in last was the health care ad category with a click-through rate of 0.011% and a cost-per-click that averaged $1.27.

Considering that eMarketer has estimated that advertising on Facebook in 2011 will reach $2.19 billion in the United States and $4.05 billion globally, advertisers don’t seem to be overly concerned with the lackluster click-through rates.

Keep in mind, these statistics are about advertising on Facebook (i.e., those ads that appear on the right side of your screen when you’re logged into your Facebook account), not social media marketing and content marketing via Facebook profiles, pages, groups, and other activities.

I spoke at a conference about branding and social media to an audience of small business owners recently, and during that conference, I had the opportunity to speak with author and Google AdWords expert Perry Marshall about the difference between Google AdWords advertising for businesses of all sizes and Facebook advertising.  He made an interesting analogy that summed it up quite well.  Perry said that Google AdWords is like the Yellow Pages and Facebook is like the neighborhood coffee shop.  If advertisers look at the audiences for both Google AdWords and Facebook as well as the behaviors and demographics related to usage and expectations, they’d have better success at placing and creating ads to boost return on investment.

Perry’s company offers a handy quiz on IsFacebookForMe.com that helps brands evaluate their business, customers, and competition to determine if Facebook is an effective place to advertise.  Take the quiz and see what it tells you about your brand.  It might help you strategize how Facebook advertising should (or should not) fit into your overall marketing plan.

Image: stock.xchng

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 36: First Impressions Matter

There is an old saying that “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. As if that weren’t a daunting enough thought, the journalist Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink: the power of thinking without thinking claims that people make many important decisions within the first two seconds of viewing an object. The implication for investor relations web sites is clear: the first view a reader gets of the investor page is crucial in how they will think about the company as an investment.

First, a word of caution: Investor relations sites operate under the constraint of having to use the overall design criteria for the firm’s entire web site, so visual ‘look and feel’ are not what I’m referring to here. Rather my concern regarding first impressions relates to the completeness, logic and clarity shown on the initial page.

There are many ways to go about this, but one I like is the Investor home page of the Intercontinental Hotel Group.

As seen here, the first page has a menu on the left hand side that not only lists standard items such as share price, news and financial information, but also has sections on IHG in depth, About the hotel industry and Definitions. Parts of the page are also devoted to the firm’s hotel brands, most popular investor information sections and a brief description of the firm’s strategy.

To me, it makes a great first impression; everything is where you can find it, not a lot of hunting is involved and it seems pretty logically laid out. The icing on the cake is that it goes beyond the mere requirements of regulations in discussing the company, its brands and strategy.

My conclusion is that this is a well thought out investor home page, although I will confess that it took me more than two seconds to come to that conclusion (sorry Malcolm Gladwell).

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Transparency Matters: Interview with Mark Hynes

Corporate governance affects all of us – yes, even those who don’t hold stock in any companies – because the way that businesses are run matters, as we’ve all learnt over the last few years.

Paul Nixon (CEO) recently interviewed Mark Hynes from Transparency Matters, to find out what he thought about how companies communicate their corporate governance and risk management – and how it could be improved. Mark is known to be expert in this area, and spends a lot of his time advising companies on how to improve their corporate governance; we were delighted that he could take some time to share his thinking with us.

Do listen: there are lots of interesting ideas to consider, from what, specifically, you could (and maybe should) consider including on your corporate website, through fully-integrated reporting, to the use of social media to communicate with investors and other stakeholders.

I’ve broken the interview down into smaller ‘chunks’ of discussion, so that you can quickly find particular points you’d like to hear about, but I’ve also included the whole interview and a transcript.

Part 1: Web reporting: communication of risk management online

Key points:

  • the importance of compliance: minimum requirements
  • the advantages of web reporting and different technologies
  • the split between annual report and web reporting
  • the desirable frequency of updates to the corporate story
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-1.mp3] Length: 5:17
Download: Transparency Matters part 1

Part 2: How can a company show that they take risk management seriously?

What should be communicated, where, and how often:

  • attitude to, and appetite for, risk
  • who owns the risk?
  • the risk process: management, mitigation, explanation
  • integrated reporting of risk: who does it well and the challenges involved
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-2.mp3] Length: 4:47
Download: Transparency Matters part 2

Part 3: Regulation, risk, and responsibility

Key points:

  • response to the Walker report
  • investor want to understand the risks a company faces
  • environmental risk and CSR reporting
  • GRI, XBRL and integrated reporting
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-3.mp3] Length: 3:17
Download: Transparency Matters part 3

Part 4: Transparency, technology and communication

Key points:

  • do all companies worldwide really want to communicate?
  • use of social media to communicate information about a company
  • collaborative content and the importance of the corporate website
  • use of new technologies to change the approach to communication
  • difficulties of true transparency
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-4.mp3] Length: 7:50
Download: Transparency Matters part 4

Part 5: Corporate governance and the corporate website

Communication of corporate governance on the website:

  • who does it well – and how?
  • the ideal…
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-5.mp3] Length: 8:58
Download: Transparency Matters part 5

Part 6: The new governance code, regulators and “the fireside chat”

Key points:

  • the importance of the new code
  • the difficulties ahead for our ‘comply or explain’ approach
  • proxy voting agencies: the new stakeholder to consider
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-6.mp3] Length: 6:05
Download: Transparency Matters part 6

Part 7: What next for corporate governance?

Key points:

  • importance of the ‘comply or explain’ approach to governance
  • engaging with investors – and investors engaging with governance
  • creating a stewardship culture
[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-part-7.mp3] Length: 4:12
Download: Transparency Matters part 7

Here’s the whole interview, for you to listen to while walking the dog, or on the tube; and the transcript, for those who prefer to read.

[audio:https://www.corporate-eye.com/main/audio/transparency-matters-interview-full.mp3] Length: 40:20
Download: Transparency Matters (whole interview)
Download: Transcript

Thanks to Mark for taking the time to talk to Paul about transparency, corporate governance, and reporting.

Who were we speaking to?

Mark Hynes runs Transparency Matters Ltd, which provides highly specialised assistance to listed companies and those supporting them, with consultancy and education in regulatory disclosure, best practice corporate communications and investor relations strategies. He has 30 years experience in the financial news and information sector. He started his career as an investment banker, joined the Economist and subsequently was appointed a Board Director of the Financial Times, spending 18 years in continental Europe, the US and Asia. He then joined PR Newswire, where he continues to consult. Aside from his native English, Mark speaks fluent French and German.