Issues- Blogs about Companies Can be Run by Anybody

Large companies often get much coverage from the media, both good and bad. With weblog providing sites such as blogger.com, any person who accesses the internet is able to publicly post their opinions on anything they want.

Blogs like goldmansachs666 and JPMorgan666 actively point out the flaws in each of their respective companies (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan) and rarely ever frame their information from any other angle other than one that is negative towards that business.

How does an IR professional deal with these sites? Everybody has a different opinion on how to deal with this problem and it is often a case by case basis. Listening to a Q4 webchat on blogs, they discussed how exactly they approach this issue.

Some tips:
Understand who you're talking to- is this person going to care about what you have to say? Are you just wasting your time?

Assess the quality and quantity of the audience- How many people will this reach? Are these highly involved stakeholders, or are these people not actively checking this site anymore

Inform the misinformed- You should always converse with your public if they are misinformed on a particular issue or topic


I'd like to ask for some feedback amongst the IR professional world... What are your personal tips on monitoring your company blog as well as the blogs that are talking about your own company, whether it be positive of negative comments.

Blogs Gone Wrong

Assigned for our Investor Relations are case studies (if you are interested in these case studies, feel free to contact me and I would love to send them to you). Coincidentally the first case study was about a controversy that occurred as a result of the CEO of Whole Foods making unmonitored blog posts. CEO John Mackey, had his own blog, in which he was making posts about Whole Foods. At the same time, he was posting under a different username (harodeb, which is his wife's name) speaking very highly of Whole Foods and posting negatively about Wild Oats which Whole Foods was looking to acquire. Here is a look at Mackey's Blog.

Whole Foods was lacking a proper Investor Relations department to monitor the activities of their CEO on the web. Anything posted on the internet is accessible to all those who use the internet.

2 Things to Debate/Learn from:
1. Was Mackey's sock puppeting actions ethical?
2. How did Whole Foods respond?

1. Ethics, a whole IR issue within itself. Does it have to be documented and officially termed unethical in order for it to be considered ethical or not? Who or what is the determinant to whether or not its ethical.

Personally, I feel that it's unethical to post under a disguised username, however I understand the argument that can be made to say that it is ethical. The ethical argument would probably say that as long as the information is coming out, there shouldn't be an issue. The CEO is held to higher standards by the public to only speak in a certain way, and maybe this disguised username is his way to express his freedom of speech

2. Whole Foods' response was to take away Mackey's authority to access his blog. After the situation had come out a little more, Mackey then issued a letter explaining his actions and offered his bloggers the opportunity to post questions and comments of which Mackey gave his response to.

Sun CEO Speaks out on Corporate Blogs

As a reflection to one of the first videos we watched in our Investor Relations class, I used this video to help propel me in my search of answers of how blogs have affected today's companies. Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, spoke with Timothy O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, about how he uses blogs as a form of communication and gives a few tips of advice to other CEO's on how to use blogs.

Schwartz claims that blogs themselves are going to become anachronistic, but currently serve as a means of effective communication. In order to lead, one must communicate with their marketplace. Years ago, in order to communicate, a CEO would have to travel to make appearances and represent their company first hand. Now we can communicate effectively and often.

For other CEO's, remember that you must also communicate with your employees. What better way to do this than to blog, and connect with both publics, internal and external. You must communicate in order to lead, so why not blog? It's your personal voice and like everything else, no matter what people WILL disagree with you.

Why Investor Relations and Blogs?

I have chosen the investor relations issue of blogs. Weblogs have had an enormous impact on the internet. Websites like blogger.com have given anyone the opportunity to write and post blogs that anyone else can view. This has created a great tool for smaller companies to be able to have their own blogs, but for large corporations, it has been a headache.

Smaller companies have limited budgets thus making it harder for them to run their own websites either internally or externally. Large companies have their own websites and don't necessarily need to host their own blogs. For instance, Goldmann Sachs has their own website, and now because of bloggers, have an even more incredible headache because of blogs like this one. It's hard not to find the content as factual. The makers of this blog have many other blogs negatively depicting many other of our nation's biggest company.

Should there be credentials in order to run a blog about someone else's company? Or does this help increase legitimate flow of communication between large companies and their shareholders?

Some of the many questions that will be answered throughout the remainder of this blog