The power of Twitter has long been studied as an influencer on public opinion, financial governments, and government. While no clear answer has been drawn, we witnessed a gigantic leap on Tuesday. Carl Icahn, billionaire investor and one who “makes money studying natural stupidity,” used Twitter to reveal his opinion and ownership of Apple stock. “We currently have a large position in APPLE. We believe the company to be extremely undervalued. Spoke to Tim Cook today. More to come.”
Apple’s market value jumped by about $20 billion. Talk about powerful.
In recent months the SEC has been stepping up the legal limbo in regards to social media. SEC has issued rules which demand that a company disclose any material in a tweet, file with the SEC, and send out a PR release. Carl did that and the Twitter world responded.
According to John Shinal of USA Today, “If Twitter becomes a de facto news wire — with any investor or company able to use it to distribute material information — it will have the capacity to take future revenue away from those three huge news operations.”
“Twitter may one day do to business and technology news writing a bit of what Google has done already to the business side of general news — suck about $50 billion a year away from its revenue stream.”
What do you think about the ability to use Twitter to boost company value? Does Twitter truly understand the power of the platform?
Roxanne T.
Almost unbelievable. But regulation makes things real. Maybe Twitter becomes the Craigslist of news tickers and breaking news teams onsite.
The Tweet Worth $20 Billion Dollars « Social-Media.BlogNotions – Thoughts from Industry Experts
[…] Originally Posted on Kylelacy.com. […]
The Tweet Worth $20 Billion Dollars « Social-Media.BlogNotions – Thoughts from Industry Experts
[…] Read Original Post […]
Mike Toner
I spent 5 years working with IRO’s and I am aslo a digital native who understands the transformative effects of social media on business. I believe Investor Relations is one of the last unchanged parts of the business in terms of social media adoption. Twitter meets the disclosure regulations public companies face, the SEC said so… “http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1365171513574#.Uh1P3mTXRFA”
Jon Stephenson
To my knowledge the SEC does not require that material news be issued through a tweet — it is an optional method but must be disclosed beforehand by companies as a potential avenue for disclosure of material news. Either way, the impact is huge. But IR folks are as cautious as they get so don’t expect it to be commonplace soon for them to avoid using the newswires for their disclosure needs.