Investor Relations Sharon Merrill Associates

IR Website Best Practices: Five Ways to Drive Corporate Storytelling

A great IR website is not only about compliance; it’s also about creating a space investors can look to understand the qualitative aspects of your company’s story. While providing financial data and reports is important, what separates the best sites in the world are those that focus on providing context on the company’s strategy and clarity…

Sharon Merrill Associates IPO

7 Investor Relations “Things to Do” Before Your IPO

If you’re the CFO of a pre-IPO company, the months leading up to your S-1 filing can be exhausting. You’ve read your registration statement so many times you have it memorized. And you cannot even begin to imagine a time when you won’t be spending every waking moment with your bankers. But now that you’ve left…

The Greatest Social Media for Investor Relations Panel Ever*

By Dennis Walsh, Vice President & Director of Social Media *Okay, so I may be biased since I was the moderator, but this panel session at the NIRI’s 2013 Annual Conference had all the elements necessary to help IR professionals develop a strategy for using social media for IR. Attendees heard from David Urban, Director…

Is the Annual Report a Thing of the Past?

By Maureen Wolff, President and Partner Annual reports are so 1997. When the National Investor Relations Institute recently asked me for my thoughts on the public company practice of producing a glossy annual report, the premise of the question was not, “How can companies do this better?” or “Please provide some helpful tips for designing…

SEC Gives Social Media for IR Its Blessing

By Dennis Walsh, Vice President & Director of Social Media The SEC finally has provided guidance on the use of social media for investor relations. The guidance came in a report on its investigation to determine whether Netflix CEO Reed Hasting had violated Reg FD. In a Facebook status update on his personal account, Hastings…

Preparing for a Social Media Crisis

By David Calusdian, Executive Vice President & Partner I recently participated as the designated “social media expert” as part of a crisis communications case study session at the 2012 NIRI Southwest regional conference.  This year’s conference was held in New Orleans and the session centered on a fictitious publicly held bead manufacturing company (apropos for…

Social Media + Investor Relations = Socialize IR

By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media Let’s face it; you can’t ignore social media any longer…even as part of your investor relations strategy.   You were hoping Facebook would go the way of MySpace and Friendster, but it keeps on growing and has even made its way into our world with its…

Developing an Investor Relations Program for an IPO Company [Video]

By Maureen Wolff, President and Partner Companies planning to go public need to be able to hit the ground running on the day of the IPO pricing with an investor relations program.  In order to prepare, Sharon Merrill President and Partner Maureen Wolff provides tips on what to do before and after the S-1 filing…

What Makes for a Successful Investor Relations Program?

By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media In many of the StreetScope® perception audits we conduct, we often inquire about what makes a successful investor relations program.  Is the Street satisfied with the level of outreach?  Is there something specifically a firm can do to enhance its communications?  Being the investor relations…

IRO-zilla and the Earnings Call

There is a popular cable network TV show called Bridezillas that often depicts women planning their wedding day as high-strung, unreasonable and at times displaying jaw-dropping outrageous behavior.  Of course, this makes for great reality TV, but at times I find myself sympathizing with these women.  After all, it will be the biggest day of…