WWE Twitter Case Study
May 29, 2013
Case Study: WWE shares advantages of having a dedicated Twitter account for IR
Over the past four years, we have conducted research on public company use of social media for IR. We have made some interesting discoveries and uncovered some emerging trends. For example, Twitter is the most widely used channel to share investor-related information. The most common use of Twitter is linking to previously disclosed material that resides on a company’s IR website. Common information being tweeted includes press releases, quarterly financial releases, company news, presentations and much more.
However, since issuing our first report in 2009, we have found new examples of maturing and integrated approaches to social media use for IR. Such as live-tweeting quarterly calls, annual meetings and analyst days. As well as proactively engaging followers with direct questions and responding to investor-type questions. You can read more about these examples here: http://www.q4blog.com/2012/06/25/new-q4-whitepaper-public-company-use-of-social-media-for-ir-%E2%80%93-part-1-twitter-stocktwits/.
As companies social media use becomes more sophisticated and see a marked increase in their own Twitter activity, more and more companies are adding targeted Twitter accounts. One emerging trend we are seeing on this front is an account dedicated to investors. The rationale being that it helps followers weed out the information they don’t require.
Some of the companies leading the way on this front include BASF, CGI, Cliffs Natural Resources, Dell, and SAP to name a few. Recently, WWE reached 11,000+ followers on their @WWEinvestor account. So we thought we’d reach out to them to find out their objectives for using social media, how they are interacting on their investor account and how they measure success.
Of note, of the 809 companies that we track in our research, only 15 companies have a dedicated Twitter account for investor relations. The top 10 (ranked in order of followers as of January 17, 2013) are: WWE (11,152); Dell (5,228); CGI (2,726); SAP (2,369); BASF (2,112); WEG S.A. (1,599); Tecnisa (1,255); Thyssen Krupp (1,184); Cliffs NR (1,024); and in the number 10 spot: Erste Group Bank (388).
What follows is the first part of our interview with Michael Weitz, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations & Financial Planning. Our talk with Michael was very informative as he gave us a run down of their early days using social media, how they have been able to amass the following they currently have and what their goals are for the future. In the portion of the interview that we are sharing today, Michael outlines what drove his department to embrace social media for IR and how they managed to gain such a large following.
… in a world where information travels faster and faster, being proactive about controlling your message is important. As is often cited, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. So at least put on your running shoes and get active with social media! – Michael Weitz, SVP, IR & Financial Planning, WWE, Inc.
1. Tell us a little about yourself and WWE
As an SVP with WWE, I lead the Company’s Financial Planning & Investor Relations – and have been in this role since early 2006.
My experience at WWE builds on approximately 15 years as a financial executive in Media & Entertainment, including work with Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner.
2. How long has WWE being using social media?
As a Company, WWE began using social media in 2007, initiating a presence on Facebook, followed by Twitter and YouTube to communicate with our global fan base.
Our belief was that social media was transforming the way companies communicate with their various constituencies and we wanted to be on the forefront of changing the way we communicate. We also saw it as critical to the future success of the company in terms of another platform to continue our storylines and further develop characters beyond traditional TV and media.
Since then, our presence in social media has grown at a staggering rate.
Today, WWE has more than 89 million Facebook fans (+89% in 2012) and more than 40 million (+158% in 2012) Twitter followers. In total, we have 132 million combined social media followers across 10 social media networks.
Our Superstar, John Cena, has more than 14M fans and is the 3rd most followed American athlete (behind only Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant).
According to Trendrr, a company that measures social media influence, our flagship program Raw was consistently within the top 5 most influential entertainment programs on cable in 2012.
Following in the footsteps of our broader brand/consumer initiatives, we initiated our social media for Investor Relations in July 2012.
And, we have seen some remarkable growth for a dedicated IR program. Today our WWE Investor channel has more than 11,000 Twitter followers and more than 700 Facebook likes.
3. What tool did you begin using first and why?
Before doing anything, we conducted a study of “leading IR practices,” reading every article we could find from NIRI, Q4 WEB Systems, the Wall Street Journal and others – to determine what other companies were doing, and also to evaluate what the best practices for WWE would be.
As we implemented our social media program, we focused on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube because these were widely used and best fit with our goal of building awareness of WWE among the widest audience possible.
Additionally, we felt these vehicles held the most immediate utility for investors.
Of those platforms, we believe Twitter is the most heavily used in the investment community. Most analysts see it as a live news feed of all of the important developments going on in your company (and industry).
4. Using Twitter to promote the WWE seems like a logical thing to do. What prompted you to branch out and have a dedicated Investor account?
There were two primary determinants of implementing a dedicated investor account: (1) The first was to be able to target our interaction with investors and to enhance our communication with them regarding company developments, strategy and financial performance but NOT to burden our entertainment fan base with this information. (2) The second was expedience. We viewed WWE’s expanding presence in social media as a mandate for almost all of our businesses and we wanted to move quickly, very quickly.
We should point out that in our review of “best practices” the execution of a dedicated channel stood out; the example set by SAP was also something that we looked at quite a bit.
Long-term, we would like to integrate our IR channel, WWE Investor, with other corporate communication.
5. You have quite a large following on the investor account. How did you garner such a following?
As we launched our social media program for IR, one of my most significant concerns was that of a party host, namely that no one would show up.
For a company with an established brand presence in social media, we thought the potential lack of investor participation could be seen as a sign of failure in communicating our company message.
With that in mind, we designed a systematic program to build our social media base for WWEinvestor.
First, we communicated our sites to employees and encouraged them to like and follow our WWEInvestor channels. We offered some Apple rewards and nearly 100 employees signed up to like and follow the channels.
Second, we distributed a business wire release to communicate the launch officially.
Thirdly, we reached out to analysts, investors to make sure that were aware of this new communication channel.
The good thing was that at that point, the party had started. As we started to Tweet and share information, our following has grown by about 2,000 followers per month.
Finally, we have placed our social media information/links on everything: our investor presentation, business cards, and e-mail signatures, etc.
Please be on the look out for the second part of our Interview with Michael Weitz as he walks us through how the WWE Investor Relations program maintains its social media presence and what some of their goals are for the future of their social communications.
What follows is the second part of our Interview with Michael Weitz, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations & Financial Planning at World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE). In our last blog post, Michael shared with us the steps that he took to implement his social media program and some of the challenges and successes he encountered. In the following post, he describes what goes into maintaining WWE’s IR presence on social media and what some of his goals are for the company’s social media IR program.
6. Who is responsible for WWE’s social media accounts?
The primary responsibility for WWE’s social media accounts falls on our 2-person IR team – i.e., myself, and our IR Director, Jessica Davies.
Jessica joined us recently, and on a day-to-day basis, has become a prominent voice for our IR social media networks.
Before coming to WWE Jessica had significant social media experience including developing social media strategies for publically-traded companies as well as pro-bono consulting for several charities (Literacy Assistance Center and Teatro SEA, bilingual children theater).
7. Is there any collaboration on messaging? What about legal department’s involvement?
While the IR Team takes full responsibility for our messaging, we draw heavily from our internal resources.
That includes our colleagues in Corporate Communications, Marketing and the leadership of our various business units.
We were careful to review our approach to social media with our Legal department. Before doing anything, we made sure they were on board. On an ongoing basis, the involvement of our Legal department is limited because the boundaries defined by Reg FD are pretty clear. Additionally, if ever we feel an urge to disclose more, we exercise our partnership with our internal SEC lawyer, and he confirms our boundaries. It’s not often, but utilizing that relationship can be very helpful.
8. What kind of interaction are you having on the investor account? i.e. are you fielding a lot of questions? If so, do you know if they are retail or institutional investors? Analysts?
We use the Hootsuite tools to monitor the dialog raised by our communication.
It’s pretty clear that we have a mix of analysts, retail investors and institutional investors.
The analysts and Institutional investors follow us and read our tweets, but tend to call or e-mail us directly with their questions.
Additionally, we field ~1-2 questions per week from retail investors directly through our social media networks.
9. What kind of reaction (if any) did you get from your shareholders regarding the company’s use of social media?
We believe that overall, investors are very pleased with the step-up in communication.
I think that extends to both retail and institutional investors.
Originally, we heard some concern that we were shifting our focus from execution to PR, but that’s clearly not the case and they have seen that.
Most investors have indicated that its easier to keep up on important events and to gather important data and information (all from one source).
What we have seen is that if we make their lives easier, the investment community will be pleased and respond favorably.
10. What are your social media goals? And how do you measure success?
Our broad goals for SM include building awareness of the WWE story/ business model.
We think the investment community holds many misconceptions about the company based on our entertainment product, so there is a massive potential to use social media to address just that.
I think we can build awareness for the company’s financial story in several ways:
Increase use of video communication – YouTube.
Extending our communication to the financial media: StockTwits.
Continuing to expand our presence, including increasing our following among institutional investors.
As an additional goal: we would like to make information more easily accessible through a social media hub on our own website.
We’ll measure our success in two ways: (1) how we execute in delivering a broader social media platform (more YouTube, Social Media hub, etc.) and (2) how well we increase the frequency and depth of our 1×1 meetings with investors.
11. Do you have an advice for other public companies considering social media for IR?
IR practitioners have been wary of using social media for several reasons:
Concerned about Reg FD compliance
Inability to disclose risks adequately
Company information gets lost in the noise
Institutional investors/analysts are not using social media
While challenging, none of these concerns are insurmountable:
Reg FD: Information disclosed in social media can be matched to press release or other public documents.
Disclosure: Tweets can be used to redirect investors to the company website, which provides complete information, and which ensures Reg FD compliance.
Lost in the Noise: Ignoring these sources leaves company’s story in the hands of others.
Institutional investors/analysts: contrary to what most people believe, from what we see, analysts and investors are using social media (through niche sites and mobile devices) to actively inform their views.
I would conclude that in a world where information travels faster and faster, being proactive about controlling your message is important. As they say A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.’ So at least put on your running shoes and get active with social media!
Over the past four years, we have conducted research on public company use of social media for IR. We have made some interesting discoveries and uncovered some emerging trends. For example, Twitter is the most widely used channel to share investor-related information. The most common use of Twitter is linking to previously disclosed material that resides on a company’s IR website. Common information being tweeted includes press releases, quarterly financial releases, company news, presentations and much more.
However, since issuing our first report in 2009, we have found new examples of maturing and integrated approaches to social media use for IR. Such as live-tweeting quarterly calls, annual meetings and analyst days. As well as proactively engaging followers with direct questions and responding to investor-type questions. You can read more about these examples here: http://www.q4blog.com/2012/06/25/new-q4-whitepaper-public-company-use-of-social-media-for-ir-%E2%80%93-part-1-twitter-stocktwits/.
As companies social media use becomes more sophisticated and see a marked increase in their own Twitter activity, more and more companies are adding targeted Twitter accounts. One emerging trend we are seeing on this front is an account dedicated to investors. The rationale being that it helps followers weed out the information they don’t require.
Some of the companies leading the way on this front include BASF, CGI, Cliffs Natural Resources, Dell, and SAP to name a few. Recently, WWE reached 11,000+ followers on their @WWEinvestor account. So we thought we’d reach out to them to find out their objectives for using social media, how they are interacting on their investor account and how they measure success.
Of note, of the 809 companies that we track in our research, only 15 companies have a dedicated Twitter account for investor relations. The top 10 (ranked in order of followers as of January 17, 2013) are: WWE (11,152); Dell (5,228); CGI (2,726); SAP (2,369); BASF (2,112); WEG S.A. (1,599); Tecnisa (1,255); Thyssen Krupp (1,184); Cliffs NR (1,024); and in the number 10 spot: Erste Group Bank (388).
What follows is the first part of our interview with Michael Weitz, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations & Financial Planning. Our talk with Michael was very informative as he gave us a run down of their early days using social media, how they have been able to amass the following they currently have and what their goals are for the future. In the portion of the interview that we are sharing today, Michael outlines what drove his department to embrace social media for IR and how they managed to gain such a large following.
… in a world where information travels faster and faster, being proactive about controlling your message is important. As is often cited, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. So at least put on your running shoes and get active with social media! – Michael Weitz, SVP, IR & Financial Planning, WWE, Inc.
1. Tell us a little about yourself and WWE
As an SVP with WWE, I lead the Company’s Financial Planning & Investor Relations – and have been in this role since early 2006.
My experience at WWE builds on approximately 15 years as a financial executive in Media & Entertainment, including work with Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner.
2. How long has WWE being using social media?
As a Company, WWE began using social media in 2007, initiating a presence on Facebook, followed by Twitter and YouTube to communicate with our global fan base.
Our belief was that social media was transforming the way companies communicate with their various constituencies and we wanted to be on the forefront of changing the way we communicate. We also saw it as critical to the future success of the company in terms of another platform to continue our storylines and further develop characters beyond traditional TV and media.
Since then, our presence in social media has grown at a staggering rate.
Today, WWE has more than 89 million Facebook fans (+89% in 2012) and more than 40 million (+158% in 2012) Twitter followers. In total, we have 132 million combined social media followers across 10 social media networks.
Our Superstar, John Cena, has more than 14M fans and is the 3rd most followed American athlete (behind only Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant).
According to Trendrr, a company that measures social media influence, our flagship program Raw was consistently within the top 5 most influential entertainment programs on cable in 2012.
Following in the footsteps of our broader brand/consumer initiatives, we initiated our social media for Investor Relations in July 2012.
And, we have seen some remarkable growth for a dedicated IR program. Today our WWE Investor channel has more than 11,000 Twitter followers and more than 700 Facebook likes.
3. What tool did you begin using first and why?
Before doing anything, we conducted a study of “leading IR practices,” reading every article we could find from NIRI, Q4 WEB Systems, the Wall Street Journal and others – to determine what other companies were doing, and also to evaluate what the best practices for WWE would be.
As we implemented our social media program, we focused on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube because these were widely used and best fit with our goal of building awareness of WWE among the widest audience possible.
Additionally, we felt these vehicles held the most immediate utility for investors.
Of those platforms, we believe Twitter is the most heavily used in the investment community. Most analysts see it as a live news feed of all of the important developments going on in your company (and industry).
4. Using Twitter to promote the WWE seems like a logical thing to do. What prompted you to branch out and have a dedicated Investor account?
There were two primary determinants of implementing a dedicated investor account: (1) The first was to be able to target our interaction with investors and to enhance our communication with them regarding company developments, strategy and financial performance but NOT to burden our entertainment fan base with this information. (2) The second was expedience. We viewed WWE’s expanding presence in social media as a mandate for almost all of our businesses and we wanted to move quickly, very quickly.
We should point out that in our review of “best practices” the execution of a dedicated channel stood out; the example set by SAP was also something that we looked at quite a bit.
Long-term, we would like to integrate our IR channel, WWE Investor, with other corporate communication.
5. You have quite a large following on the investor account. How did you garner such a following?
As we launched our social media program for IR, one of my most significant concerns was that of a party host, namely that no one would show up.
For a company with an established brand presence in social media, we thought the potential lack of investor participation could be seen as a sign of failure in communicating our company message.
With that in mind, we designed a systematic program to build our social media base for WWEinvestor.
First, we communicated our sites to employees and encouraged them to like and follow our WWEInvestor channels. We offered some Apple rewards and nearly 100 employees signed up to like and follow the channels.
Second, we distributed a business wire release to communicate the launch officially.
Thirdly, we reached out to analysts, investors to make sure that were aware of this new communication channel.
The good thing was that at that point, the party had started. As we started to Tweet and share information, our following has grown by about 2,000 followers per month.
Finally, we have placed our social media information/links on everything: our investor presentation, business cards, and e-mail signatures, etc.
Please be on the look out for the second part of our Interview with Michael Weitz as he walks us through how the WWE Investor Relations program maintains its social media presence and what some of their goals are for the future of their social communications.
What follows is the second part of our Interview with Michael Weitz, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations & Financial Planning at World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE). In our last blog post, Michael shared with us the steps that he took to implement his social media program and some of the challenges and successes he encountered. In the following post, he describes what goes into maintaining WWE’s IR presence on social media and what some of his goals are for the company’s social media IR program.
6. Who is responsible for WWE’s social media accounts?
The primary responsibility for WWE’s social media accounts falls on our 2-person IR team – i.e., myself, and our IR Director, Jessica Davies.
Jessica joined us recently, and on a day-to-day basis, has become a prominent voice for our IR social media networks.
Before coming to WWE Jessica had significant social media experience including developing social media strategies for publically-traded companies as well as pro-bono consulting for several charities (Literacy Assistance Center and Teatro SEA, bilingual children theater).
7. Is there any collaboration on messaging? What about legal department’s involvement?
While the IR Team takes full responsibility for our messaging, we draw heavily from our internal resources.
That includes our colleagues in Corporate Communications, Marketing and the leadership of our various business units.
We were careful to review our approach to social media with our Legal department. Before doing anything, we made sure they were on board. On an ongoing basis, the involvement of our Legal department is limited because the boundaries defined by Reg FD are pretty clear. Additionally, if ever we feel an urge to disclose more, we exercise our partnership with our internal SEC lawyer, and he confirms our boundaries. It’s not often, but utilizing that relationship can be very helpful.
8. What kind of interaction are you having on the investor account? i.e. are you fielding a lot of questions? If so, do you know if they are retail or institutional investors? Analysts?
We use the Hootsuite tools to monitor the dialog raised by our communication.
It’s pretty clear that we have a mix of analysts, retail investors and institutional investors.
The analysts and Institutional investors follow us and read our tweets, but tend to call or e-mail us directly with their questions.
Additionally, we field ~1-2 questions per week from retail investors directly through our social media networks.
9. What kind of reaction (if any) did you get from your shareholders regarding the company’s use of social media?
We believe that overall, investors are very pleased with the step-up in communication.
I think that extends to both retail and institutional investors.
Originally, we heard some concern that we were shifting our focus from execution to PR, but that’s clearly not the case and they have seen that.
Most investors have indicated that its easier to keep up on important events and to gather important data and information (all from one source).
What we have seen is that if we make their lives easier, the investment community will be pleased and respond favorably.
10. What are your social media goals? And how do you measure success?
Our broad goals for SM include building awareness of the WWE story/ business model.
We think the investment community holds many misconceptions about the company based on our entertainment product, so there is a massive potential to use social media to address just that.
I think we can build awareness for the company’s financial story in several ways:
Increase use of video communication – YouTube.
Extending our communication to the financial media: StockTwits.
Continuing to expand our presence, including increasing our following among institutional investors.
As an additional goal: we would like to make information more easily accessible through a social media hub on our own website.
We’ll measure our success in two ways: (1) how we execute in delivering a broader social media platform (more YouTube, Social Media hub, etc.) and (2) how well we increase the frequency and depth of our 1×1 meetings with investors.
11. Do you have an advice for other public companies considering social media for IR?
IR practitioners have been wary of using social media for several reasons:
Concerned about Reg FD compliance
Inability to disclose risks adequately
Company information gets lost in the noise
Institutional investors/analysts are not using social media
While challenging, none of these concerns are insurmountable:
Reg FD: Information disclosed in social media can be matched to press release or other public documents.
Disclosure: Tweets can be used to redirect investors to the company website, which provides complete information, and which ensures Reg FD compliance.
Lost in the Noise: Ignoring these sources leaves company’s story in the hands of others.
Institutional investors/analysts: contrary to what most people believe, from what we see, analysts and investors are using social media (through niche sites and mobile devices) to actively inform their views.
I would conclude that in a world where information travels faster and faster, being proactive about controlling your message is important. As they say A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.’ So at least put on your running shoes and get active with social media!
Posted by David Damage. Posted In : News