2- Social Media Marketing Strategies For Public Companies

1. 20 Quick Tips for IR, PR, or Social
Media Marketing for Public
Companies
By www.publishknowledge.com
October 1 2009

2. Internet & Investor Relations
Investor Relations has grown to a multi-billion
dollar industry in combination with the
internet. The compensation for services
related to the attraction and communication
to shareholders often surpasses executive
compensation as companies strive to increase
their liquidity and the attractiveness of their
firm for large scale investors.

3. OTCBB and Pinksheet Companies
Over the counter bulletin board and
Pinksheets have been a positive place to take
a firm public for both domestic and
international companies due to the high
liquidity which makes it easier to finance a
company and also to exit those shareholders
who have been invested into a company over
the long term.

4. Don’t Jam The System
The answer is that the very principles behind
Social Media Marketing is based on building a
relationship, permission based following, and
etiquette. How can you combine social media
marketing into your business model for public
relations, follow a social media business plan
such as:

5. Have a Blog
Have a blog built for your firm, such as
www.otclistings.com (One can be set-up
initially for free with a small monthly
maintenance fee and you can begin updating
the blog or hire a person to do it on behalf of
your company)

6. Blog Integrates with Traditional
• Automate your press releases to
publish on the blog
• Automate your newsletter to
publish on the blog

7. Blog Integrates Continued
• Automate investor notices, proxy notices, filings,
etc, to be published as notices on the blog
• Write one blog a week and post it within your
blog on why people are investing in your industry,
what is going on in the industry, all of the success
stories in the industry and why you compare.
• Set-up a Twitter account, every time you publish
a press release, newsletter, notice, or post,
paraphrase the title and twitter the title with a
link to the website

8. Blog Integrates Continued
• Read some of your followers comments, and
interact via twitter by asking them why they
decided to follow your firm, and do they have a
blog, etc. Create interaction. Use the twitter
account for the marketing people and traveling
executives to, so that you can twitter “our CEO is
in Florida today speaking at a conference” or “I
am at the Hard Assets Conference in Las Vegas
this weekend, who else is going” etc. By putting
in the personal touches, updates, and personal
location, the followers have a genuine feeling of
who they are reading and why.

9. Blog Integrates Continued
• Spend 1 hour a day at least updating the blog
and twitter account, so that the market gets a
continued feeling that you want to
communicate with them. Never go silent for
longer than a week, it is a bad sign, like not
sending out a press release. We are all aware
of the cost of a press release, and the
companies limiting how much and how often
due to budgets, but social media is free, the
company has no excuse.

10. Blog Integrates Continued
• Ensure research reports written on your firm
include the blog and twitter account in the
company profile
• Inform people of your blog in investor
presentations, corporate presentations, etc.
• Develop a press release related to your social
media marketing campaign, and inform the
investors of all the places they can follow your
firm online.

11. Blog Integrates Continued
If you hire any investor relations firms, make sure they
notify people of the blog and twitter account to follow,
but also make sure they are not spamming it to people
or else you will lose followers and market respect.
That’s my queue for a pitch, contact
info@publishknowledge.com for Mark Bragg to build
an strategy that suits regulation FD and complies with
current publication regulations and use of the internet.

12. Other Mediums
• Utilize newsgroups, discussion forums, and
targeted postings to discuss your blogs, free and
useful information, and why they should follow
the company profile, blog, twitter, etc. Leave links
to all of the mediums you are using and try to
participate within the groups once a week, or the
day of posting, whichever is sooner. This way,
your forums become defacto followers of your
content, but ensure you are commenting on
relevant information to the groups and not just
spam posting.

13. Youtube and Video Blogs
Utilize youtube for loading up video’s of
corporate presentations, talking heads about
the most current press release launched by
your CEO or executives, etc. Blog the content
with a link to the video, twitter its publication.
My favourite is simply reading your press
releases and blog aloud and posting them.

14. Twitter
• Encourage your executives to sign-up for twitter accounts
and update their accounts with links to your press and
posts, or have them retweet your tweets as employees and
executives of the company. Ensure there is a policy in place
as to what executives can and cannot discuss as ultimately
the SEC is very clear about the liability of what employees
say online falls upon the company. For example, they can
post links to press, but can not discuss price of the share,
how much money the company has, etc, unless its within
the filings, and even then, it has to be in a capacity of not
advice. Best to have them use it socially and randomly post
into their “personal” profile a link to press here and there.

15. Twitter Continued
• Put your twitter and blog account information in your press
contact information for press releases
• Put the blog and twitter links on your company website
• Send out a newsletter to your current base of contacts
informing them of the new blog and twitter account
following your firm, and continue to do so at the footer of
your emails, newsletters, etc, so that individuals begin to
follow your firm there.
• Ensure research reports written on your firm include the
blog and twitter account in the company profile
• Put the Blog, Twitter, and Facebook group in filings as
sources of information. (Helps legitimize future eProxy
uses)

16. Before Launching Make Sure You
Have....
• Prepared the content for blogs and press
• Set-up all the accounts, post content preprepared
• Interlink the accounts once they are all set-up
• Integrate into website and blogs
• Automate as much as possible
• Set-up tracking tools, and spreadsheet to measure
results
• Insert a method into all tools for collecting emails and
contact information of followers/friends/users
For tracking tools and templates please contact us
info@publishknowledge.com

17. What would we suggest using.......
• Set-up an account at all the live chat softwares, AIM,
MSN, Yahoo, Skype, Gtalk, Ichat, and have your IR
Person on this software or an outsourced one to
handle immediate incoming questions. Post the IDs in
your blog, network, contact us page.
• Set-up Twitter, Hootsuite, Twitpic, account so you can
manage multiple twitter accounts, track, and engage.
• Set-up Facebook Account, Events, and Groups – Use
the Group or Corporate page functions, don’t make a
personal account that ends up being a company, that is
cheese...

18. What we suggest continued...
• Set-up Bebo for micro blogs, Video/Audio Distribution, integrate
Bebo with facebook, twitter, etc. Basically republish summaries of
larger existing blogs and press to link back to your corporate blog,
enforce with messages and tweets onto your twitter account and
facebook.
• Fastpitchnetworking.com is decent for networking in a target
business market, integrate applications on twitter, facebook, and
blogger. Utilize for distributing video, micro blogs, etc. Build the
account up the same way that the other accounts are done.
• Utilize NING to build a community with the social networking
events of Polls, voting mechanisms, comments, etc.
• Gather.com is an excellent hub for publishing information, Gather
also offers a percentage of advertising to the authors. Post releases
in PDF and word docs, PowerPoint Presentations. The more
formats the better.

19. What we suggest continued...
• LinkedIn Best for integrating all of the other modules.
Really its a list of connections, very useful for individual
credibility of Directors, Officers, and staff, not really
companies.
• Myspace.com A good publication tool with an internal
network for promotions that would help the company be
recognized, i.e. a banner exchange. (MUST Set-up)
• NING – I bring NING up again as it really is one of the best
tools for integrating into blogs, websites, and communities
to drive users to a social media product.
• Orkut and google Talk- Google is one of the largest
networks of users in the world. Good for SEO, Publishing,
Chatting.

20. What we suggest continued...
• Blogger.com is integrated. I suggest having at least one
blogger account and update with blogs from your main
blog. They could be micro blogs that point people over
to the full content on the website.
• Slideshare.com For power point presentations and
PDFs.
• Typepad.com free blog software, you should consider
setting it up. It adds to the overall exposure and we can
link it back into your other blogs and websites. Can
publish the publishing of others on it as well; and new
accounts.

21. What we suggest continued...
• Wikia and Wikipedia Good definition and publication websites, it
builds a profile for your company as it grows and or states the story
and history.
• Meet-up Accounts is a useful tool for organizing events, one could
use the tool for example to promote a Meet-Up within a
conference. For example in a Gold Conference, a meetup.com
account could be set-up for a specific event organized by your staff
for your company, of which people register to go to within the
event itself.
• Wordpress Website- The best darn blogging software for SEO and
ease of use for your social media marketing and IR Team. (Thats
our opinion but millions agree by using them.
If you want to launch a 20 step program to for your overall
investor relations strategy contact info@publishknowledge.com

22. OTC Listings Marketing
Some of the marketing services offered
1. Online research report writing once a month
2. Industry reviews including your company
3. Audit of sources of information on your company monthly for the CEO and CFO
to have full confidence in their internet disclosures and company policies being
followed before signing off on filings.
4. Press release reviews and opinions and social media integration
5. Broadcasting company information, similar to a newswire but via blogs
6. Interlinking of social media platforms and continued updates on behalf of the
company on all mediums when a press release occurs or notice, versus your firm
manually maintaining the process
7. Corporate competitions and marketing to build newsletter databases
8. Building Broker dealer, Press, and Capital firm contacts and followings
9. Syndicate development for combined posting, discussions, and communication
online with other social media experts
10. Building a social media marketing plan for your firm using the twenty strategies
discussed.

23. What does it mean for Public
Companies?
If you are not public yet and would like to consider
going public, contact Mark Bragg @
info@otclistings.com or go to www.otclistings.com and
fill in the form in the top menu.
We have contacts with firms who engage in activities
such as IPOs, Reverse Mergers, Shell Transactions by
way of Reverse Mergers, OTCBB Shells for sale by way
of purchasing control. In addition, we have trusted
legal counsel who can work with you for filings and
regulation compliance when using the internet, which
we call the Internet Audit. Feel free to contact us.