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AGORACOM Launches Skype Interviews With Smash Success

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:44 AM on Friday, April 1st, 2011

We are pleased to announce the official launch of AGORACOM Via Satellitean AGORACOM production in which we interview small-cap CEO’s in depth after the release of important news.  AGORACOM Via Satellite is valuable because it is news driven and, therefore, very relevant and timely to the investment community.  This is not the typical “tell everybody a little about you so that we can fall asleep” format.  We’ve all seen this format and safe to say we’ve had enough of them.

This is hard hitting and granular.  We’re changing the game again  …. as always, don’t take my word for it.  See below:

CASE STUDY – GOLDEN HOPE MINES – OVER 1,000 VIEWS !!

On March 22nd, Golden Hope Mines issued this Corporate Update Press Release.  On March 23rd, we conducted an interview with GNH President, Frank Candido, from their exploration offices in South Eastern Quebec. Later that day we released this Skype interview (see snapshot at the end).  Golden Hope Mines is neither a current nor past client of AGORACOM. As such, we have never had any kind of official relationship with GNH shareholders.  They simply have a Free HUB on AGORACOM.

In less than 1 week, the results were as follows:

1.  Views: 1,070 … and counting

2.  Retail Investor Reaction: In a word – overwhelming. View this link to see just some of the posts.  The best reactions came from these two posts.

Excerpts:

  • Great interview, George and thanks for doing that. Frank, clearly is a man with a vision and passionately believes in it. This transmits very well to the shareholders, when you see him talking live.
  • I am a GNH shareholder, but after viewing this interview and watching & listening to the man in charge, I want more shares. Plain and simple.
  • Wonderful,classy interview with Frank,George. Not being able to see the GNH property, or to chat with Frank, as so many have had the pleasure of doing on this hub, well it really was a great opportunity to see why everyone comes away with such a positive feeling about GNH. Kudos to George and AGORACOM for doing this. I’ll be buying more.
  • I think George’s interview today with Frank was fantastic. Frank’s enthusiasm and confidence have always been apparent, but I learned so much more today. I’m delighted that the team will be bringing on board an outside engineering firm to confirm results to date etc.
  • Maybe we could ask George to have another such meeting with Frank following the next press release! Even better…a monthly chit chat with Frank! 🙂
  • I was so impressed I bought more shares today, and it’s a good feeling.

3.  Institutional Investor Reaction: Within 18 hours of it’s release, Golden Hope advised:

  • “Brokerage 1, Broker 2 and Broker 3 have watched it already” [Sorry but can’t publicly release the names of the firms]
  • “I would suspect there are more than a few (brokers) that are watching it. It is a phenomenal update piece.”

CONCLUSION

This case study demonstrates very strongly that AGORACOM Via Satellite will become the new paradigm with respect to small-cap CEO interviews. It will do so for the following reasons.

  • Timeliness – It provides small-cap companies with an ability to speak about important news within minutes of its release.
  • Relevance – Investors are hyper-tuned in to hear about and better understand the relevance of your recent news.
  • Connection – Investors that rarely get a chance to speak with management now have an ability to watch, connect and feed off management confidence.
  • Format The side-by-side “Satellite” format has only been available to large cap companies on large business networks.  Not anymore.

How much does it cost?  Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, no strings attached, no conditions, no contracts, no fine print … its free.  Why?  As much as this helps you, it also helps us generate amazing content for our site.  The only limitations are A) The underlying news has to be awesome B) A max of 2 per year per company to give everyone a fair shake.

Win-win.  Welcome to AGORACOM.

AGORACOM Dominates Chinese Small Cap Stock Searches On Google

Posted by AGORACOM at 3:25 PM on Monday, February 28th, 2011

A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Searches (Click On Image For A Larger Version):

Once you are done, see AGORACOM Small-Cap Videos Break 300,000 Views. Dominate Search Engines.

Great AGORACOM Exposure On Globe & Mail / Globe Investor

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:18 AM on Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Our GlobeInvestor.com content partnership is also yielding some incredible branding results.  A picture says a thousand words:

AGORACOM Averages 1.1 Million Investors, 7.4 Million Visits and 74.7 Million Pages Annually For 2008-2010

Posted by AGORACOM at 4:21 AM on Friday, January 21st, 2011

Good morning to you all.  As you know, I love to share AGORACOM Traffic data and today I’ve pulled out our average annual traffic metrics for the years 2008 – 2010, representing our first 3 full years of operating a full-blown community for the small-cap industry.  Suffice it to say, we are extremely proud of the results, which all started with this mission to smash the status quo by launching “Investor Controlled” stock discussion forums back in October of 2007.

As always, please find enclosed a Google Analytics snapshot that details the period:

TRAFFIC DATA SNAPSHOT COMING SHORTLY

THE TALE OF THE TAPE

(Figures for January 1, 2008 – December 31, 2010. All figures reported by Google Analytics)

  • Unique Visitors 3,323,264
  • Visits 22,200,293
  • Page Views 224,097,193
  • Pages Per Visit 10.09
  • Avg Time On Site 8:26
  • Traffic Sources  55.65% Direct;  27.03% Search Engines; 16.15% Referring Sites
  • Number Of Countries/Territories 223
  • Top 10 (Canada, USA, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Norway)

The numbers look even better when you consider

  • We built our model on quality vs quantity. As such, this is pure discussion. No spam, flaming and bickering traffic.
  • We are only focusing on small-cap and mid-cap stocks …for now.

The continued strength in our traffic can be attributed to the following reasons.

1. Social Media

We have really turned on our social media efforts in 2010, which have resulted in:

  • Twitter:  A focus on great content has helped us generate 1,460 followers on our main AGORACOM Twitter Account.  This is especially impressive when you consider the fact we have a 3.93:1 ratio of following:followers.  In English, that means we’ve earned our followers, as opposed to simply racking up high totals by reciprocal follows.
  • Our Facebook Fan Page now has over 475 Fans thanks to the great content (video, blog posts, tweets) we are feeding into it on a daily basis

SOCIAL MEDIA IS MEANINGLESS WITHOUT TRAFFIC

Furthermore, we’ve worked hard at cross-promoting our social media channels AND providing a variety of content on each. If you’re a small-cap company that is simply creating Twitter and Facebook accounts to post press releases, you are simply wasting your time (Beware Of ….  The Rise Of Social Media IR “Experts” a.k.a Pretenders)

Cross-promote and differentiate so that investors have options to consume what is most important to them.  Otherwise, investors simply won’t engage you.  If you can’t do this internally, call me.

2. Cross-Promoting Great Content

We recently introduced a “News Flash” feature that allows us to provide investors in every corner of AGORACOM with breaking/important small-cap news as it happens.  As a result, investors that may be focused on a particular HUB or group of HUBS on AGORACOM are discovering new ideas every day.

More than just lip service, click-through analysis shows these are a big hit with AGORACOM visitors and a good reason to both keep returning to the site and consuming our content.

3. Great Platform

Small-Cap Investors continue to flock to AGORACOM thanks to what we believe is the best small-cap community platform on the web. By providing Wiki and UGC tools to our members, we’ve put significant control into their hands and that has benefited the entire community. From adding/editing/updating content, to self-policing their own HUBS, members have created a small-cap community that is more informative and cleaner than any other small-cap site on the web. It isn’t perfect – but it is as close to perfect as you can get using today’s technology.

4.  Mobile

We are seeing dramatic results from mobile devices that will be the subject of a separate blog post over the next few days.  In the meantime, suffice it to say that mobile traffic is big and expanding rapidly as small-cap investors check in from the road, waiting rooms, the beach and any other place away from their PC.  This is traffic we simply didn’t have a couple of years ago and we expect it to climb significantly for years to come.  Hence, why we recently announced the launch of our iPhone Small Cap App.

CONCLUSION

Going forward, we’ll be adding further fuel to the fire via the following exciting initiatives:

* Rapid traffic expansion in 2011 thanks to greater product variety for public companies

* Our upcoming mobile push in Q1, including the launch of an Android and Blackberry App to complement our iPhone App and of course our Blackberry partnership

* Our next online conference in Q2.  Our first one brought in over 17,500 investors from 77 countries.

* An expanded content push (Holding our cards close to our chest)

* A greater social media push (Look for Facebook and Twitter integration announcements)

All in all, we’re excited about the next 12 months and beyond.  If you think we’ve come a long way, you ain’t seen nothin’yet.

Thanks to our great clients and members for continuing to make AGORACOM the best community platform within the small-cap industry.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Social Media Paying Off Big Dividends For Small-Cap Investor Relations Clients

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:54 PM on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

AGORACOM 2011 Social Media Summary

We have really turned on our social media efforts in 2010, which have resulted in:

  • Twitter:  A focus on great content has helped us generate 1,460 followers on our main AGORACOM Twitter Account.  This is especially impressive when you consider the fact we have a 3.93:1 ratio of following:followers.  In English, that means we’ve earned our followers, as opposed to simply racking up high totals by reciprocal follows.
  • Our Facebook Fan Page now has over 475 Fans thanks to the great content (video, blog posts, tweets) we are feeding into it on a daily basis

SOCIAL MEDIA IS MEANINGLESS WITHOUT TRAFFIC

Furthermore, we’ve worked hard at cross-promoting our social media channels AND providing a variety of content on each. If you’re a small-cap company that is simply creating Twitter and Facebook accounts to post press releases, you are simply wasting your time (Beware Of ….  The Rise Of Social Media IR “Experts” a.k.a Pretenders)

Cross-promote and differentiate so that investors have options to consume what is most important to them.  Otherwise, investors simply won’t engage you.  If you can’t do this internally, call me.

CROSS-PROMOTING GREAT CONTENT

We recently introduced a “News Flash” feature that allows us to provide investors in every corner of AGORACOM with breaking/important small-cap news as it happens.  As a result, investors that may be focused on a particular HUB or group of HUBS on AGORACOM are discovering new ideas every day.

More than just lip service, click-through analysis shows these are a big hit with AGORACOM visitors and a good reason to both keep returning to the site and consuming our content.

That’s all for now.  Keep a lookout for more updates by clicking on any of the categories highlighted below.

Regards,

George

974,000 Investors, 55.5 Million Page Views On AGORACOM In 2010

Posted by AGORACOM at 7:32 AM on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Good morning to you all and Happy New Year to you and yours.  As most of you know, I like to share AGORACOM traffic data on a regular basis.  Why?  In the world of online investor relations, nothing speaks more about your ability to meet a client’s needs than the amount of traffic and overall engagement you are able to deliver.  This is especially true in the small-cap space, which is full of investor relations pretenders that throw around all the right jargon but offer little to no substance.

To this end, I am very happy to announce our traffic results for the full year 2010.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, this snapshot from our Google analytics is worth several million.

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION


THE TALE OF THE TAPE

(Figures for January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2010. All figures reported by Google Analytics)

  • Unique Visitors 974,019
  • Visits 6,486,371
  • Page Views 55,556,593
  • Pages Per Visit 8.57
  • Avg Time On Site 7:46
  • Number Of Countries/Territories 208
  • Top 10 (Canada, USA, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Mexico)

The numbers look even better when you consider

  • We built our model on quality vs quantity. As such, this is pure discussion. No spam, flaming and bickering traffic.
  • We are only focusing on small-cap and mid-cap stocks …for now.

The continued strength in our traffic can be attributed to the following reasons.

1. Social Media

We have really turned on our social media efforts in 2010, which have resulted in:

  • Twitter:  A focus on great content has helped us generate 1,460 followers on our main AGORACOM Twitter Account.  This is especially impressive when you consider the fact we have a 3.93:1 ratio of following:followers.  In English, that means we’ve earned our followers, as opposed to simply racking up high totals by reciprocal follows.
  • Our Facebook Fan Page now has over 475 Fans thanks to the great content (video, blog posts, tweets) we are feeding into it on a daily basis

SOCIAL MEDIA IS MEANINGLESS WITHOUT TRAFFIC

Furthermore, we’ve worked hard at cross-promoting our social media channels AND providing a variety of content on each. If you’re a small-cap company that is simply creating Twitter and Facebook accounts to post press releases, you are simply wasting your time (Beware Of ….  The Rise Of Social Media IR “Experts” a.k.a Pretenders)

Cross-promote and differentiate so that investors have options to consume what is most important to them.  Otherwise, investors simply won’t engage you.  If you can’t do this internally, call me.

2. Cross-Promoting Great Content

We recently introduced a “News Flash” feature that allows us to provide investors in every corner of AGORACOM with breaking/important small-cap news as it happens.  As a result, investors that may be focused on a particular HUB or group of HUBS on AGORACOM are discovering new ideas every day.

More than just lip service, click-through analysis shows these are a big hit with AGORACOM visitors and a good reason to both keep returning to the site and consuming our content.

3. Great Platform

Small-Cap Investors continue to flock to AGORACOM thanks to what we believe is the best small-cap community platform on the web. By providing Wiki and UGC tools to our members, we’ve put significant control into their hands and that has benefited the entire community. From adding/editing/updating content, to self-policing their own HUBS, members have created a small-cap community that is more informative and cleaner than any other small-cap site on the web. It isn’t perfect – but it is as close to perfect as you can get using today’s technology.

4.  Mobile

We are seeing dramatic results from mobile devices that will be the subject of a separate blog post over the next few days.  In the meantime, suffice it to say that mobile traffic is big and expanding rapidly as small-cap investors check in from the road, waiting rooms, the beach and any other place away from their PC.  This is traffic we simply didn’t have a couple of years ago and we expect it to climb significantly for years to come.  Hence, why we recently announced the launch of our iPhone Small Cap App.

DECREASE IN PAGE VIEWS

On the flip side, we have seen a decrease in page views over the same period last year that can probably be attributed to two items. First, one of our busier HUBS was Freewest Resources which was acquired by Cliff’s Natural Resources in Q1 2010 after a long and bitter battle with Noront Resources, which also happens to be a very busy HUB on AGORACOM.  As such, with Freewest being taken over, we haven’t had the benefit of page views for one of the prominent players within the Ring Of Fire, nor have we had the benefit of the debate between two very busy HUBS.

Second, as a result of our OSC matter, several of our high-profile client HUBS have been put on hold, leading to page view losses there as well.

Nonetheless, 974,000 visitors and 55,500,000 page views is pretty good for a slow year and we

CONCLUSION

Going forward, we’ll be adding further fuel to the fire via the following exciting initiatives:

* Rapid traffic expansion in 2011 as clients come back to AGORACOM.

* Our upcoming mobile push in Q1, including the launch of an Android and Blackberry App to complement our iPhone App and of course our Blackberry partnership

* Our next online conference in Q2

* An expanded content push (Holding our cards close to our chest)

* A greater social media push (Look for Facebook and Twitter integration announcements)

Thanks to our great clients and members for continuing to make AGORACOM the best community platform within the small-cap industry.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Launches Wicked iPhone App For Small Cap Stocks and Investors

Posted by AGORACOM at 2:39 PM on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Good afternoon to you all.  I am very proud to announce the launch of the AGORACOM iPhone App – and it is wicked!  First, as you can see from the screen shot above, our development team did a great job of creating an elegant and functional interface.

Second and most importantly, it provides small cap investors with powerful information in the palm of their hands.  No matter where you are, you are never out of touch with the small-cap world thanks to the following amazing features:

  • Headlines – The best small-cap headlines of the day are posted every morning and as they happen throughout the day.  We even break it down by industry, including the best news out of the Chinese small and mid-cap space.
  • Videos – AGORACOM Small Cap Videos have been watched over 300,000 times and are now available right on your iPhone. Why do small-cap investors love our videos?  Every morning we produce AGORACOM Small Cap TV, AGORACOM Small Cap Gold and Resources TV and Chinese Small-Cap TV to provide investors with a daily, fast-paced cutting edge show delivering the best small-cap news of the day.
  • Blogs and Tweets – We share some pretty powerful information via our multiple blogs and twitter accounts, so for those of you that follow us, you aren’t skipping a beat.  For those of you that haven’t caught on to blogs and tweets yet, the information is nicely and conveniently compiled in the palm of your hand.
  • AGORACOM Mobile – Feel the need to read and/or post to your favourite HUBS on AGORACOM.  Click on AGORACOM Mobile and go straight to the log-in page to get you started.  For those of you that aren’t AGORACOM members, you can surf anonymously, or log-in using your Facebook account (more about that in another announcement)

Overall, we’re really happy with the first version of our app and you can expect us to keep adding new features over the coming months and years.

WHY MOBILE? …. WHY AN IPHONE APP? …. WHERE TO?

In case you are asking yourself about the importance of mobile and, specifically, an iPhone app, look for answers no further than our announcement earlier this year that Mobile Devices Drive 16,000 Visits To AGORACOM in August.  The iPhone accounted for 75% of all mobile visits (yeah, that surprised us too)

Also, people now spend as much time on mobiles as reading on newspapers and magazines. We’re extremely confident that mobile is going to dwarf newspapers and magazines going forward for the simple reason that your phone gives you information as it happens, not the day after.

Moreover, look for a Blackberry App (to compliment our existing Blackberry content partnership) and Android app to follow in Q1 2011.  Unfortunately, much to the chagrin of 4 AGORACOM Members, (Cylinder and AlsoFromSudbury) we won’t be developing a Palm App … we calculated it would be cheaper to simply buy each one of them an iPhone 🙂

In the meantime, please download our iPhone App and provide us with your feedback, as well as, feature requests for our next upgrade.

Do you want your small-cap company to be featured on the AGORACOM iPhone App? Need to create your mobile / online / social media IR strategy?  Contact me to discuss your needs and how we can solve them.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Small-Cap Videos Break 300,000 Views, Dominate Search Engine Results

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:57 AM on Friday, December 10th, 2010

Good morning to you all.  I’m very proud to announce that views of AGORACOM videos have surpassed 300,000 since we first began broadcasting daily shows, client interviews and other great small-cap video content.  This is great news for clients and the entire small-cap industry because it proves up yet another effective, efficient and low-cost way to communicate with current shareholders and potential investors.  See my comments below on why connecting with shareholders via video is critical.

AGORACOM Videos are broadcast on more channels than we can count but here are just a few of them:

What is even more encouraging is the fact that video views are accelerating for the following reasons:

  • We’ve added on more shows.  We’ve grown from AGORACOM Small Cap TV to AGORACOM Small Cap Gold and Resources TV and Chinese Small Cap TV
  • Each show has become it’s own stand alone channel on sites such as YouTube, BlipTV, Yahoo Video and other sites.
  • We’ve made our daily shows timely and relevant by releasing them between 9:30 – 9:45 AM EST every morning right after the open.  This consistency creates the kind of reliability investors like.
  • Our daily videos provide great value to small-cap investors.  How? We filter the hundreds of small-cap press releases issued every morning and report on the best 1-5 of the day.
  • We’ve integrated all the videos into our social media streams on Twitter, Facebook, StockTwits and other avenues
  • We’ve made our videos extremely search engine friendly by adding accurate descriptions and customized info for every show.

DOMINATING SEARCH FOR “SMALL CAP VIDEOS”

As a result of our hard and meticulous work, search engines are starting to reward us for our efforts, which only leads to more exposure amongst small-cap investors.  For example:

  1. Google Video – We hold all top 10 spots for searches of “small-cap resource stocks
  2. YouTube – We dominate the entire first page for searches of  “Chinese small cap stocks
  3. Google Video – We hold 4 of the top 10 spots for searches of “small-cap videos
  4. Google Video – We hold 6 of the top 10 spots for searches of “small-cap gold stocks
  5. YouTube – We hold the top 10 spots for searches of “small-cap resource stocks

INCORPORATING SKYPE INTERVIEWS WITH SMALL-CAP CEO’S

We are so focused on the importance and relevance of video to the small-cap industry, that we’ve recently begun incorporating Skype Video interviews into our programming.  Again, the premise is to get small-cap companies and investors connecting with each other immediately after the release of material news.  Expect to see this grow significantly in 2011.

WHY IS VIDEO SO IMPORTANT TO SMALL-CAP COMPANIES?

One of the greatest problems faced by small-cap companies, even the really good ones, is the lack of connection with investors beyond issuing press releases.  As a result, investors have no loyalty to you if business simmers down for a while because they’ve been trained to only react to good news.  As we all know, that simply isn’t possible for most small-cap companies.  All of you go through slow and dry periods for various reasons.  Even when business is going well, you often have to wait on the next big sales contract, drill result, etc.  God help you if the wait is longer than expected.

As such, connecting with investors creates a personal relationship that buys you the time to execute your plan.  Video is an excellent connector because it allows you to communicate as openly as possible without actually standing in front of shareholders.  Investors love video because watching facial expressions and body language is the next best thing to strapping you into a lie detector.  It also makes shareholders far more likely to share what you have to say because video beats boring text.

If you’re a small-cap company and don’t have an online video strategy yet, I suggest you start thinking about one.  Alternatively, call us and we’ll take care of it.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Launches Small Cap Investor Blog For Best Member Posts

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:38 AM on Monday, November 29th, 2010

Good morning to you all. I’m happy to announce that we have launched our Small-Cap Investors Blog to celebrate, highlight and share the amazing information posted by AGORACOM members within HUBS. AGORACOM has grown into the best online small-cap community on the basis of quality over quantity by combining:

  • An Amazing Reputation System – Members Get Promoted Through A Combination Of Activity and Rankings By Fellow Members
  • UGC (User Generated Content) – Members Post Photos, Videos, Presentations, Analysis
  • An Amazing Wiki-Style System – Promoted Members Can Edit Information, Delete Offending Posts, Ban Offending Members

OUR MEMBERS DESERVE TO BE ROCK STARS

As a result, our members are simply generating amazing content that far surpasses what is typically found at other small-cap communities and needs to be shared with the rest of the world. How are we going to do this? Glad you asked. Great member posts are going to proliferate in the following streams:

  1. AGORACOM Front Page – Check Out The Widget Now Appearing At AGORACOM.com
  2. AGORACOM News Flash – Daily Breaking News Posted On Every AGORACOM Page
  3. Twitter – We’ll Be Launching A Twitter Account That Publishes Every Post
  4. Facebook – We’ll Be Including Every Blog Post Within AGORACOM Facebook
  5. iPhone – Our iPhone App Launch Is Imminent and Our Members Blog Is Already Included!

Regards,
George

Paul Kondakos Stepping Down From AGORACOM

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:38 AM on Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Good morning to you all.  With mixed emotions, I am writing to advise that Paul Kondakos is stepping down from AGORACOM on November 30th after 10 years of dedication to the creation of the best small-cap community on the web.

I founded AGORACOM 13 years ago and turned it into a great little business that benefited from the rise of Web 1.0.  In 2000, it became clear to me that AGORACOM had the potential to become something great – but I would need someone great to help me get there.  The first and only person I turned to was Paul.  We had already known each other for 10 years up to that point and worked side-by-side building a powerful Hellenic Students Association at York University in the early 90’s.  I counted him as one of my best friends – and it didn’t hurt that he had earned himself an MBA and law degree in the mid-90’s.

The next 10 years saw us work side-by-side creating “AGORACOM 2.0”.   We knew we had an uphill battle competing with incumbent finance sites already well ahead of us in the space – but didn’t count on being hobbled by the dot-com burst, Enron, Worldcom, 9/11 and the ensuing invasion of Iraq.  Suffice it to say, new business was hard to come by.

Nonetheless, we worked hard and through the night on too many occasions to count.  We prevailed and AGORACOM grew to achieve success from a member satisfaction, traffic, business and recognition point of view. It was a great and remarkable ride.

I said mixed emotions at the outset because – as AGORACOM now embarks on its next stage of growth and development – it will be hard to imagine not having Paul around.  He’s wicked smart and his skill sets are a perfect complement to mine.  You can’t just replace that.

On the other hand, I’ve always known that Paul doesn’t / can’t stand still.  10 years in one place (other than his family) is probably at his outer limits, so his resignation doesn’t come as a surprise. He is an entrepreneur and craves the challenge of new business.  As such, I am happy for him and know that I don’t have to wish him luck in achieving his next success.

Regards,
George