Actionable Ideas Blog

Tweet to Protect and Correct Messaging: Tips for PR and IR Execs

  

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Whether you have a company name, a company brand, or company news, it is good to keep an eye on what is being said in both traditional and social media space.  While traditional media monitoring may require the use of a clipping service and news search, social media monitoring may require the monitoring stock chat rooms, google alerts, Facebook pages, blog posts, delicious, digg posts, and Twitter.

Q. Should you take action if something negative is being said about you in the social media space? 

Most likely  - as long as you have consulted with your corporate counsel first.

Q. What does it mean if I do not take action?

Not taking action could incorrectly imply your agreement or acceptance. Also, not taking action or taking action later than expected can also mean you are not paying attention or you are not on top of your game.

In the social media world, you want the chance to correct misperceptions, if any, are out there.

Either way, speak with your corporate counsel.

This blog post puts the spotlight on Twitter.

1. New to Twitter? Have a Look Around.

You can take a look at Twitter even if you do not have a Twitter account and even if you never plan to have an account. In fact, without a corporate or individual account on Twitter, you can still monitor the keywords that are important to you and your business.

Watching the tweets on Twitter is the best starting point so you can see:

• What's being said about your key subjects = buzz
• Who's talking about those key subjects = influencers
• Who these influencers follow
• Who's following these influencers
• When these tweets were posted
• If you should check out who these influencers follow

2. What to Do When Tweets Are About You 

Go to the search box and type in your subject of interest to see if anything has been said about you, your company or your brand. Here's where you go:

• Check search results (aka tweets) for accuracy. After you run a search, have a look at the search results with your own filter. Not every result is going to be relevant.  
• Look to see if the tweets are relevant and correct.

3. What to Do When the Tweets are Inaccurate

If the tweet about you, your business, or your brand is incorrect, then consider the following:

• Plan to respond to an inaccurate tweet if it creates the wrong expectation, especially if that expectation could impact your stock price or reputation. 
• You may opt to ignore the inaccurate tweet if:
  • The information is not significant, or
  • Your public reaction to this tweet will create more questions or explanations than needed.

4. How to Correct Inaccuracies on Twitter

The most popular way to make corrections is to call or send an email. While this approach may work for other matters, it's not the same on Twitter.

Our view here is that if the incorrect information was publicly disseminated over Twitter then consider addressing your correction over Twitter, as well, and as quickly as possible.

If you are lucky enough to have a friend/follower who can tweet the correction for you, that wouldbe ideal. If not, then this may mean it's time to set up your own Twitter account. 

Be sure to check with Corporate Counsel to see if your external disclosure policy has a social media disclosure policy component. Also, find out if it makes sense for you to skip phone or email and respond using the same communication channel. (Looking for social media disclosure policies? Visit our Hot Topics page for examples.)

Also, before you decide to take such action, it is important to make sure that your communications approach complies with Securities and Exchange Commision disclosure rules (Reg FD).   Take it one step further by reading up on Dominic Jones from IR Web Report who wrote a blog post last month on "Investor relations can no longer ignore social media compliance risks." It's a worthy read.

@2011 Kaimen Company.