Web 2.0 in the Service of the Investors Relations

Petko KaramotchevSofia, 15 October 2009

About Me

• Business Development Manager at Magic Solutions (www.magicbg.com)

• Scholarship holder, EMBA program of Cotrugli Business School, Croatia

• Former chairman and member of the Board of the Bulgarian Web Association

• In 1998 I became the youngest stock exchange broker on the BSE

About Magic Solutions

• Magic Solutions is a web, software development, and integration company, totally oriented towards satisfying customers’ needs.

• Our philosophy is simple - “To provide the most efficient and innovative solutions to address our customer's and our customer's customers business needs”

What is Investors Relations?

• According to Wikipedia it is a Strategic management responsibility that integrates finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies

• Ultimately contributes to a company's securities achieving fair valuation

What is Web 2.0?

• According to Wikipedia it is “The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static web pages to dynamic and shareable content.”

• It is not a specific technology you can acquire, install, run, or copyright

• It is more a concept, set of principles and good practicies

Do I Like Web 2.0?

• No

• Most of the technologies have been around for many years. Wikipedia was found in 1994

• “Nobody really knows what it means... If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along” Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee - the inventor of World Wide Web

• Fear of “second bubble” or “Bubble 2.0” (The Economist)

So?

• Web 2.0 provided the Internet users with a real platform to publish and create

• We have to admit that individuals and companies became much more open

• Web has become a collaboration space

• A whole new economy has been created and based on search

What Can IR Obtain from Web 2.0?

• Create and constantly improve the electronic communication with shareholders

• Provide best possible information (on-time, regularly updated, qualitative and quantitative)

• Provide better user experience (this is not the graphic design of the site, but the monitoring of the needs and constantly seeking feedback)

• Build sites not for yourselves but for your investors

Website Transformation

• Public companies communicate through their websites. They are not libraries with static information anymore

• Educate the users and motivate them why should they invest in your company

• Equality between institutional and individual investors in the access to information

• Access to audio or video archives of the shareholder meetings

• Open your websites through RSS to media and bloggers

• Constantly monitor your website traffic with tools like Google Analytics

• Important financial information should not be left buried away in financial reports. Summarize it

What Can Managers Obtain from Web 2.0

• Webcasts should be held on a regular basis with CEO’s, CFO’s, Investor Relations specialists

• If not possible or too expensive this can be done in collaboration with the media

• Conduct Online Reputation Management Improvement for your company and yourself

• Listen to your web designers but keep in mind that the technology should be used where it adds value, not for its own sake

Offline vs. Online Reputation

• This is new and trendy. Can make or brake your business

• Online reputation management is in the search engines

• Bad online reputation means that your investors are going to avoid your company

• If you don’t have any search engine reputation at all, then clients will hesitate to trust you, even if they manage to hear about you

• If you have a good reputation, then your company is willing to do anything to maintain that positive image

• It is created through online press release publicity campaigns, creation of social networking profiles, reviews, launch of a social media optimization campaign, article marketing campaigns, business or investors reviews, social bookmarking (Digg, Del.icio.us, Svejo)

What Makes a Blog Successful? • How much attention it garners from

the right people• Good blogging style• Often postings• Full-text RSS feed• Search facility• Tags• Example - Guy Kawasaki

Office 2.0• Email: GMail

• Bookmarks: del.icio.us, Svejo, digg

• Photos: flickr, Picasa

• Calendar: Google Calendar

• Desktop: Google Desktop, iGoogle

• Feedreader and federation of content: Google Reader

• Weblog: Blogware, Blogger, Blog.bg

• Spreadsheet: Google Doc’s and Spreadsheets

• Project Management: Basecamp

• Contract Management: Echosign

• Google Wave - the next Gmail

• Complete Office Suite: Zoho

• Online Accounting: Xero

Web might become the killer of the enterprise

apps.

Xero - The Online Accounting Solution

The Zoho Offering - A 1B$ company

Zoho - Work. Online

Google Wave - A Killer App

Benefits for BIRS• Forum (however it is not the typical Web 2.0 app) for

internal use only or user group (like Google User Groups)

• Linked-In user group of professionals

• Guidelines for company websites. The financial information can be displayed in an elegant and uniform manner, but this is our of scope for our meeting for today

• Calendar sharing (events, invitations)

• Social Media Profiles

Keep in mind that the technology should be used

where it adds value, not for its own sake.

Questions?You can also email me on

petko@magicbg.comPetko Karamotchev

Sofia, 15 October 2009