For companies, releasing an ASX announcement and hoping that it gets picked up by the papers or the brokers is a thing of the past. Cannings Purple’s Investor Insight team explain.
Historically, there were two major sources of news in Australia – the morning papers and the 6pm news. This applied for major breaking stories, political news as well as updates from the business world.
Today, there are a vast number of sources that readers get their news from, many tailored to suit their tastes and views.
For companies, and in particular listed companies, this means that simply releasing an ASX announcement and hoping that it gets picked up by the papers or the brokers is a thing of the past.
Successful communications strategies now rely on company news being broadcast on a variety of platforms, in order to generate the maximum number of views. As more people move to online news sites and social media, it is important to get the message out there as well as target it to the specific audience.
It is now not uncommon for companies to release an announcement to the ASX, distribute it via email to a database list, send it to media, load onto the company’s website, promote via newswire distribution services, promote on the company LinkedIn page and tweet to followers.
The first few in the list above relate to distributing the announcement to as many viewers as possible. Promoting via LinkedIn and Twitter differs in that the story needs to be tailored and rewritten to suit that audience. The engagement on these platforms is more personal and needs to be written with this in mind, all the while being cognisant of ASX Listing Rule requirements.
While the widespread dissemination of news now takes more effort and management time, the simple fact is that, unless the news in the announcement is exceptional, simply lodging an ASX announcement and hoping it catches attention is not a sound business strategy.
