An Empirical Study Conducted Among Finnish IR Practitioners

Purpose of this study is to provide new insights to the use of social media as part of investor relations communications. It pursues to understand how these channels are used as part of Finnish IR activities and what kind of implications they have on investor relations practices. The study also discusses possible future scenarios within this domain and their effects to the practice. In order to gain the best possible perspective to the topic, the research builds up on a theoretical background based on relevant literature the topics of investor relations, social media and online communications, as well as specific online and social media IR literature. Analysis of this literature form a theoretical framework, which is used as the basis for a qualitative empirical study. The empirical study is conducted by interviewing Finnish IR professionals with versatile backgrounds within the industry. Results of the study provide five aspects that give a perspective to what are the most relevant implications of social media use in investor relations activities, as well as what kind of phenomena it creates within the industry. Research suggests that IR communication in social media channels has developed from a visibility increasing practice towards dialogical communications, while IROs’ presence in these channels is increasingly based on communicating through personal social media profiles, enabling better management access for private investors. At the same time, new investor audiences who are more active in social media channels demand both more understandable IR content, as well as put an increasing emphasis on responsibility issues regarding it. Together these aspects both influence the basic practices of IR functions, as well as are interlinked with a rising societal phenomenon of distributed capitalism. Additionally, the results also give reason to believe that regulatory issues and lack of control involved with social media IR are not perceived as significant issues and can be managed by sufficient training and company policies