I can always expect a lively discussion when social media advocates speak to investor relations officers, particularly in San Diego. IROs tend to be guarded and resistant to social media channels of communication, so there was bound to be plenty of chirping and it was one event I couldn’t miss. The panel featured Howard Lindzon, CEO of StockTwits; Dee Rambeau, Vice President of Customer Engagement at PR Newswire; Karen Hernandez, corporate attorney at Cooley LLP; and Kim Evans, Senior Manager and Corporate Social Media Strategist at Life Technologies. As the conversation shifted primarily towards a hotly contested debate on the utility of Twitter, it was ironic that even the birds outside chimed in with tweets of their own.

I have experience in both investor relations and public relations, largely the consequence of 11 years in corporate communications for emerging biotechnology and life sciences companies.  So I find myself torn at times between the IRO’s sensitivities to SEC compliance, and the carpe diem mentality of the PR strategist on the crest of this disruptive change in how we communicate with stakeholders.

So what were the takeaways? (This might have to be done in installments)

Controlling the message vs. influencing the conversation — There was a lot of talk about how we can use Twitter to regain control of the message. By engaging on Twitter, can we really expect to control what people do with our message once we release it to the twitosphere? The social media movement is shifting communications away from controlling the message and towards influencing the conversation.  These conversations are happening on Twitter whether we choose to engage them or not. The smarter question becomes how can we engage and influence the conversation while maintaining compliance and fair disclosure.

Managing risk to access the reward — There was quite a bit of resistance to the notion of training a small group of employees to tweet on behalf of a company or brand. The fear is that employees are sharing information with conspiring investors looking for an edge. We should be concerned about this, just as we should be concerned about hedge fund managers approaching employed researchers at scientific meetings and short investors calling product managers for tidbits of information about the supply chain.

However, the problem hasn’t changed. The medium has. It’s still the onus of the corporate communications group to ensure employees know when to engage, what to engage with and when to hand off to the investor relations department whether the source is met over the phone, in person or online. What’s scarier than trained employees on Twitter? A corporate communications team with a blind eye to Twitter and oblivious to conversations that untrained employees are having on Twitter.

Quantifying the value of social media — In other words, why should IROs tweet? That’s the polarizing question that carried much of the discussion, and it’s the cliffhanger I’ll save for another post.

What’s your take on all this?

Jason Spark is a senior vice president at Canale Communications and can be reached at jason@canalecomm.com.