Lights, Camera, Earnings!
Traditionally, earnings calls have been a cut and (very) dry quarterly procedure. But with the emergence of social media and the SEC’s move to embrace them, following is a summer round up of how companies are finding new and creative ways to put a little pizazz into their calls.
During Yahoo!’s most recent call, CEO Marissa Mayer and CFO Ken Goldman appeared on a high-quality streaming video webcast, answering questions from analysts who called in. The company also live-tweeted key messages from their corporate Twitter account.
Zillow made a splash with their call in early August as the first company to answer questions submitted live through Twitter and Facebook. Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s CEO, answered questions from individual investors, as well as sell-side analysts. Zillow also leveraged both Twitter and Facebook to tell their story visually, posting infographics with metrics that illustrated recent growth.
Like Yahoo!, Netflix participated in live streaming video, but they tweaked their approach to the Q&A session by moderating a panel discussion that included a member of the financial press and a covering sell-side analyst. Questions were screened in advance for CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells. The questions were also unattributed.
The jury is still out whether more companies will embrace video earnings calls in the near future. But shareholders seem to like it. Approximately 70% said that compared with audio-only earnings webcasts, video webcasts of a company’s CEO inspire more trust, according to a Shareholder Confidence 365 Study that received responses from nearly 11,000 professional and individual investors.
The challenge is training management to feel comfortable in front of a camera. After all, answering questions with a furrowed brow could have unintended consequences when it comes to instilling confidence in your shareholder base. Same goes for too much powder!
Joanne Sibug, jsibug@pondel.com
