Note: IR Alert’s Brian Pittman sat down with Marketwire CEO Michael Nowlan for an exclusive interview. Check out the original article, posted on August 12, 2010.

As anyone following industry news knows, Marketwire acquired Toronto-based social media monitoring and sentiment analysis provider Sysomos one month ago this week. Since then, we’ve seen a spate of alerts, Tweets and byliners flowing from the wire service sector, touching on everything from evolving web disclosure and online newsroom services to competitive providers challenging each other’s claims.

The upshot: Changes are afoot as the wire services jockey for position in the era of social media–and the beneficiaries are you, our readers.

So what exactly does the Sysomos acquisition mean for you? How could such a move help you identify, analyze, reach and understand your publics and even shareholders more effectively? What market forces set it in motion–and what strategy is driving Marketwire’s response to them? Who is the face behind this vision? And what other developments can you expect to see from your wire service providers in the future? (more…)

The hot topic du jour at IR magazine’s West Coast Think Tank 2010, an invitation-only event held in Palo Alto, California on March 18, was social media – the good, the bad and the ugly. Social media is definitely a love-hate relationship for the investor relations officer and the publicly traded company. It seems that larger companies are more out there with Twitter feeds, blogs and Facebook pages than are smaller companies, and several attendees suggested it’s because larger (and often retail) brands tend to be earlier adopters and have more resources to dedicate to social media. But that also puts them at greater regulatory risk. (more…)

It didn’t happen. Social media didn’t go away. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred: Social media has exploded in its usage and ubiquity, and now significantly influences many communications around the world. The challenges of strengthening corporate reputation and building trust among stakeholders can prove difficult for any professional communicator. Across investor relations circles, the practice of supplementing more traditional IR strategies with social media is not widespread. Certain functions specific to IROs, namely the disclosure of material news, make adopting social media and using its channels as primary communication tools something to be thoughtfully considered. So, for the sake of this brief discussion, let’s sidestep the legal department and address the “relations” function of the IRO so that we can better understand how channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and corporate blogs can work to enhance shareholder relations and improve the corporate bottom line. (more…)

It was made abundantly clear in discussions at the fifth annual IR Magazine Canada Think Tank, held October 1 in Toronto, that social networks, Web 2.0, and our real-time, mobile nature of communicating with each another have radically changed the practice of investor relations.   A growing percentage of the Canadian financial community is embracing social media and reaping its rewards.  They are tapping into channels like Facebook and Twitter to listen to and engage stakeholders, employees and analysts, and they are utilizing digital channels like YouTube, SlideShare, and podcasts to expand the reach of corporate messages and materials. (more…)