SOCIAL MEDIA AND IR

December really is one of the most interesting months of the year, bringing with it both the satisfying end to a year well-spent and the possibilities of a new one, as yet untouched and full of opportunity. It's a time when we reflect on the progress against our personal and professional goals and a time to make plans.

This year saw me change both companies and industries, which has been both exciting and challenging, and led to a significant updating of my goals and plans!

How are your goals for 2013 shaping up? Are you planning to grow or change your job or career next year? Will you broaden your education? Perhaps you will be laying the groundwork for much longer-range plans. Wherever you fall on this continuum, there’s certainly no better time to take a closer look at one of the fastest growing and most effective networking tools out there: LinkedIn.

LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) celebrates its 10^th anniversary in 2013 and has been steadily growing by 10-15 million new users over the last few quarters. In fact, in November of this year LinkedIn announced total membership of over 187 million, as well as three billion in monthly page views. LinkedIn’s third quarter earnings report sent its stock up after hours and the company beat Wall Street estimates on earnings per share and on revenue.

What's of particular interest to IR professionals, however, is who these members are and what they're doing with LinkedIn's platform.

Apart from the most familiar aspect of LinkedIn – the web of business contacts that the service can help you build – did you know that LinkedIn also:

• Hosts your resume so that potential employers and recruiters can find you when searching for people with your specific skills and experiences;
• Facilitates the crafting and publishing of professional referrals and recommendations by those you’ve worked with previously;
• Gives you access to people with relevant experience and interests and enables you to tap into the collective knowledge contained in more than 1.5 million discussion groups; and
• Allows you to stay abreast of industry news and follow the ponderings and postings of people and companies you know, as well as some of the world’s top thought leaders and corporations?

In May 2012, Forbes’ Leadership blog contributor Josh Bersin commented that “LinkedIn has become the ‘virtual rolodex’ for business people”. He noted that when he meets someone professionally these days, and doesn’t get the individual’s business card, the most likely way to locate him or her is to check LinkedIn. He went on to observe that although the recruiting industry is a $120 billion industry, it is highly fragmented. There are many players and tools – recruiters, recruiting systems, recruiting tools, job boards, consultants, assessment tools and so on. “LinkedIn is going down a path to capture more and more of this business as the company continues to develop richer and richer data tools to help people find jobs, and jobs find people,” he said.

Of course, methodologies and criteria for connecting with other professionals and companies vary widely. A quick informal survey of some of my colleagues yielded two almost polar-opposite approaches, with many variations in between. Some only accept requests and connect with those whom they would feel confident making a personal recommendation for and/or would actually consider reaching out to by telephone. Others, on the other hand, tend to accept all requests they feel comfortable with; the criteria for ‘comfortable’ ranges from “only those I’ve actually met face-to-face” to “if I’ve heard of them, then that’s good enough”. There is no right or wrong answer, and the middle ground is clearly enormous, so the choice of how and when to connect is all yours.

What about those groups?

There are well over a 1.5 million special interest groups on LinkedIn, with membership ranging from only a few users to thousands of active members. These groups function as a focused discussion area and are typically moderated by group managers. When you join a group you gain access to its collective knowledge – which you're then free to draw on.

One of the strengths of LinkedIn’s groups is the ability to get quick feedback on an idea you have or an issue you might be grappling with from an international collection of like-minded business people. By the same token, the drawbacks are that users often find the topics discussed in these groups don’t apply to their industry or company, or those commenting are either at a much earlier stage in their IR professional development, or far more advanced.

There are hundreds of active groups for investor relations. The trick is to find ones that will fit your needs, cover the subjects you’re most interested in and where you will be comfortable participating.

You can join up to 50 different groups, so there’s lots of room for variety. Be sure to check out the Resources section below for an interesting cross-section of groups to consider joining.

Make 2013 the year to try something new!

As you can see, LinkedIn has a lot to offer, and I’ve only just scratched the surface. For now, I’d like to leave you with a quote to keep in mind as you plan your personal next steps.

Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) once said: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

I find his quote rings as true in this era of social media as it has across the years. So looking ahead to what 2013 holds in store for you and your career, why not try something new?

I encourage you to give LinkedIn a try and see what this highly successful social networking tool can do for you. Good luck and see you next year!

Resources – LinkedIn Groups to Consider:

Investor Relations Executives

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=104689

Investor Relations and Social Media

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4308877

Investor Relations Organizations: IR, PR, Marketing, Advertising

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1222627

Of course, CIRI runs a group too!

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2681863

And finally, to search the LinkedIn Groups Directory for yourself:

Sonja Galton is Web and Communications Specialist at Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. in Toronto.