A company’s brand is more than just its logo. It is the all-embracing extension of the operation into the community and the public. Branding has an important strategic role for stakeholder relations beyond customers, to include government, media and the wider public, especially those communities impacted by its operations. A strong, well-regarded brand can achieve more favourable outcomes through the ability to influence the opinions of stakeholders whose support can be critical to drive revenues – and its most important drivers include external communications, a relevant and modern website, and social media.

In the example of a mining company, increased public awareness and media scrutiny have shone a spotlight on mining activities, and these companies need to engage with public and market perceptions more proactively to protect the credibility of their names. With online networks facilitating near-constant engagement and unlimited access to information, it’s no longer enough to just make your claims around your brand and let them stand on their own. Gone are the days a company promotes its brand message and trusts the audience to take it at face value. What is needed is a dynamic conversation and maintaining it with an active social media presence.

“What is needed is a dynamic conversation and maintaining it with an active social media presence.”

A strong resource brand portrays the positive experience of operations and the industry as a whole and is the pathway to social trust and clarity. Social media networks are a powerful tool to share your brand message.

Fostering brand awareness through a ‘social’ conversation

Since social media networks are an open forum, they invite real feedback and enable companies to respond directly to comments to create an open, productive dialogue.

Resource companies should be considering ways to leverage mobile communications and social media in an effort to foster two-way dialogues with investors, industry analysts, community organizations, media and the public at large. Companies need to go beyond simply observing tweets and other social feeds; they must also ‘dig in’ to the world of social media and engage with the wider stakeholder community.

Best practices for social media include:

Relevant content: Your social accounts should be populated with relevant content, from blog posts to infographics about your operations and the industry as a whole. Content should be shared on a regular basis in order to best engage in real-time conversations with your followers.

Good online maintenance: All active networks should be well-maintained and regularly updated: that means carefully curating your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Google+ accounts while simultaneously monitoring user interactions with your posts. Make sure to keep your audience updated about positive company news, projects, and work processes, such as the incorporation of efficient, green products into your operations.

Keep track of your brand: Know what people are saying on your social media channels. That way you can track, analyze, and respond to those conversations. If you don’t you’re missing out on valuable insights for your business.

Monitor channels to capture mentions of your brand, competitors, product, and relevant keywords. Analyze those mentions to identify what you should do next. Learn what people think about you, compared to the competition. Identify influencers and advocates. Is someone out there saying something great about you? Maybe it’s time to collaborate with them.

In essence, a company’s brand is the packaged value of the overall company. Branding is becoming a crucial part for organizations to set themselves apart from others. With the right social media backing, your brand will engage public support, influence investors, and promote recognition. If you, as a company, are proud of the value you provide, you should also be proud to share those values.

If you’re in need of some inspiration for your branding or for more ideas to get your social media efforts off the ground, contact PR | Re:public today.

The post How social media fosters brand awareness in resource companies first appeared on PR Republic.

The word ‘transparent’ has quickly become a part of mainstream investor-relations vocabulary, with relevant synonyms being ‘easily understood’, ‘very clear’, ‘frank’ and ‘candid’. Business transparency is the process of being open, honest, and straightforward about various company operations.

Transparent companies share information relating to performance, small business revenue, internal processes, sourcing, pricing, and business values. The reason is simple: less information means less certainty for investors.

One of the biggest mistakes business leaders make is to refrain from shining a spotlight on challenges when communicating with investors. Clearly, the objective in this kind of situation is to either preserve reputation, or delay reality. However, shying away from a problem or challenge ultimately destroys reputation.

Below are seven ways companies can challenge themselves to always be transparent, and why they are important:

1. It pays to be transparent

Evidence suggests that the market gives a higher value to companies that are upfront with investors. Transparency pays, and companies with fuller disclosure win more trust from investors. Relevant and reliable information means less risk to investors and thus a lower cost of capital, which naturally translates into higher valuations. Companies that share the key metrics and performance indicators that investors consider important are more valuable than those companies that keep information to themselves.

2. It establishes core values

Think about how you would want to be treated and make that an essential part of your business. You most likely want everyone to act with integrity and honour. Be consistent with those values for every part of your business.

3. It builds credibility and trust

Transparency establishes trust over anything else. The more straightforward you are, the faster you and your partners become comfortable with one another. The most profound indicator of integrity and respect is the willingness to reveal the ‘uncomfortable’ things. The generated trust then leads to expedited resolution, a win for all involved. A good idea, for example would be to send out a regular update to your entire investor base with most of your metrics – regardless of whether they’re good or bad, to further nurture this trust.

4. It promotes good investment decisions on the part of investors

Investors need information to make good investment decisions. In this regard, this includes disclosure of various types of information, including descriptions of a company’s business, its board and management, and financial and operating data, both historical and forward-looking.

5. It emphasises cohesiveness

When confronted with a problem or a challenge you don’t have an immediate solution to, bring it to your investors’ attention. Stating the issue saves everyone a lot of time and positively channels everyone’s energy. Plus, the benefits are worth it: more time spent discussing the actual issues, and less time dancing around them means more cohesion among the company’s leadership and investors.

6. It maximises the probability of timeously overcoming challenges

The more known the challenges are, the higher the probability that you will receive a helping hand. When you are able to lean on other intelligent people you are able to accomplish so much more. Transparency capitalises on every single opportunity and strives to squash every challenge as quickly as possible. And it’s a two-way street – if investors know you operate on an aggressively transparent basis, it will force them to operate at their best too. Company leadership and lead investors should take time to meet often (even if it’s virtual) to touch on the most burning of issues and get to the bottom of them.

7. It builds rapport and encourages engagement

Stakeholders need a way to make sure that their voices are heard. Traditionally, the primary opportunity for investors to communicate with directors and management was once a year at an annual meeting.

One innovation that has the potential to increase engagement is the use of digital forums. An online discussion forum, for example, provides additional business value. Business leaders and investors can collaborate and connect more effectively and have a place to capture and track new ideas. An online platform for conversation can assist organisations to enhance effective communication and is a core tool for the escalation of questions and feedback.

Ensuring that investors have full and easy access to information and understand the risks and opportunities before they make their decisions ensures a relationship based on trust and respect — which in turn, makes these relationships stronger and longer lasting.

PR | Re:public realises the importance of nurturing and sustaining this interaction through virtual roadshows or dedicated webinars. Contact us to find out how PR | Re:public can help boost your investor relations.

The post How transparency drives investor engagement first appeared on PR Republic.

Many mining companies have a deeply ingrained, conventional view of their sector and the environment in which they operate. But mining exists in a large global ecosystem that goes beyond its own supply chain and beyond the stakeholders and customers that miners deal with on a daily basis. So, what are the key mindset shifts that need to occur?

1. Becoming a partner of choice

Miners can no longer afford to go it alone. To maximise innovation and growth, they need to be willing to form partnerships with elements of the broader ecosystem.

Strategic partnerships in mining are becoming increasingly popular as a means of facing market difficulties, streamlining innovation and funding exploration in a challenging time. But being a partner of choice is a title earned, not decided. Miners will have to think about what companies might want to work with them and why.

By partnering with another company, expertise could be shared, funds for exploration could be gathered and, in some cases, the senior company could provide a guaranteed market for the product. Today, joint venture projects are a way of pooling resources, funding exploration and achieving new levels of success in an increasingly competitive market, either at home or abroad.

Being a partner of choice is a title earned not decided.

2. Collaborating to protect mining as a “brand”

The entire mining sector has a stake in the reputation of mining. As brand awareness continues to spread along the entire supply chain – accelerated by growing use of social platforms – miners will need to collaborate more to protect the brand. To do so they will need to emerge from efficient converters of dirt to prominent builders of societal capital. Such collaboration must go further than just a coordinated public relations effort and public policy endeavours. It needs to result in real improvements in technical, commercial, and social outcomes – across the sector and all around the world. This means being better at everything – better safety records, better environmental performance, better community engagement and better labour relations. Companies must be prepared to police their peers, not just themselves, and to call out bad behaviour.

3. Becoming more (technologically) agile

There is a fundamental mismatch between the lifecycle of mining assets and the lifecycle of technologies and digital enablement which is disrupting the sector. This raises important questions about reconciling capital commitments, which may become redundant due to changes in mining techniques, processing, marketing or customer demands.

Even though miners have been working hard to become more agile and responsive to change, there’s still a long way to go. Technology can become a fundamental success factor. This is a world where ‘leading practice’ not ‘best practice’ is the goal. Rapid advancements in technology – such as robotics, remote operations, drones, machine learning, and blockchain – mean the innovations that are cutting edge today might not even exist in five or ten years’ time. So how do you build that flexibility into your mine plan and capital plan (as well as your workforce) if you’re developing a mine that will run for 20 or more years?

The necessity of innovation in mining has become a refrain across the globe. Deloitte and Ernst and Young argued in recent reports that innovation by mining companies would be an appropriate response to low commodity prices, and would better position them to weather the prolonged downturn that is expected to follow the supercycle. Both the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and Deloitte observed that while most mining companies agreed on the need to innovate, and while many were engaged in some form of innovation, innovation programmes were generally neither strategic, consistent, nor systematic. While some programmes took in novel ways to raise productivity, for example through automation, enhanced drilling or rock-breaking systems, integrated real-time data, and savings on energy costs, most were focused on optimising existing systems.

This is a world where ‘leading practice’ not ‘best practice’ is the goal.

4. Building a culture for a new world

Intrinsic to most mining companies is the tendency to control and manage, where a focus on the task at the expense of people is commonplace, resulting in silos and repetition. But this deep-seated disposition has to change.

While mines are frequently expected to bring benefits to a community – such as infrastructure improvements, education, and job opportunities – it is essential for the mining company to collaborate with legitimate structures within the community to assess the options best suited to their livelihoods. When expectations aren’t met, it can often be traced back to a lack of respect of local customs and values, collaboration within established structures within the community and communication with a community.

Companies that want to be truly successful are tasked with being honest and open from the start. For example, if a company knows its goal is to establish the mine and make use of mechanised equipment to limit employment, this must be communicated to all stakeholders and a skills development plan put in place to afford locals an opportunity to enter into the job market. This is prudent for the mine, as it helps to grow the community sustainably.

To create an organisation that is match-fit for the future, miners need to build a more constructive and effective culture – one that rewards collaboration and encourages people to work together towards Key Performance Indicators and safety standards. Forces must be activated simultaneously from multiple directions: top down, bottom up and across the organisation to create the kind of momentum that leads to sustainable change.

Authentic, informal leaders can drive the transformation by harnessing positive energy and focusing on a few critical traits and behaviours. Aligning the organisation’s formal Key Performance Indicators with the new direction will be critical.

5. Rethinking talent and diversity

One of the biggest mindset shifts that must occur in mining is the one around talent and diversity. Mining has traditionally drawn skills from a narrow pool of engineering and business graduates, and while this has served the sector well to-date, it will not deliver what mining needs for the years ahead. Talent from non-traditional sources can provide the range of skills and thinking that will enable miners to deal with future challenges. In particular, an entrepreneurial mindset and a start-up mentality should be nurtured to encourage innovation and growth.

Mining companies must recognise the need to change their talent strategy, open up their culture to welcome it, and then go looking for diverse talent and bring it into the organisation.

References:

1. PwC’s future in sight series – We need to talk about the future of mining
2. Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Mining redesigned – innovation and technology needs for the future – a South African perspective (M. Hermanus)

The post Five mindset shifts for mining companies first appeared on PR Republic.

Unlocking traditional funding options for the junior mining sector

During a webinar hosted by Mining Review Africa late last year, the main topic of discussion centred on the challenges in unlocking traditional funding options for the junior mining sector and how to overcome these.

According to Grant Mitchell, head of the Junior and Emerging Miners’ Desk: Minerals Council South Africa, the most important thing is that a country creates a regulatory environment which is conducive to investing in junior mining companies.

“In this South Africa, for example, the regulatory environment is primarily targeted at large mining companies. The junior sector is growing, however, the regulatory environment doesn’t really support them,” says Mitchell.

As such, Mitchell recommends that there needs to be some sort of relief for juniors in the form of a separate Code of Practice for smaller mining companies. In addition, he advises that governments offer tax incentives to these companies to create a larger appetite for investment in a country.

Olebogeng Sentsho, from Simba Mgodi Fund, said that in order for junior miners to make themselves more investible, there are five key factors that juniors should take into account.

1. Juniors are typically riskier ventures, most likely found in commodity exploration, such as oil, minerals, and natural gas. “Firstly, look at the commodity you are mining; is there a demand for it or is it a mineral that is in decline?” advises Sentsho.
2. “Secondly, put together a detailed financial model that will make sense to investors,” she says. The challenge is that investors recognise a good business, and they make judgements by how ideas are translated it into financials. If the investor can’t visualise any return on investment (ROI), you get no money, and a good opportunity is lost to all.
3. “Thirdly, put together a proper prospectus that goes all the way through the value chain. An investor needs to be confident that you have a well-thought out business model, from exploration through to final productivity.”
4. Fourthly, Sentho advises that juniors should also do the research into who they want to seek international investment from. Investors from different countries, she says, have specific requirements that they look at in order to protect their investments. Therefore, it is important to know what their objectives are in order to attract their interest such as regions and countries they prefer to invest their money in and what they look for in a company’s leadership team.
5. Lastly, she says, juniors should aim big. “A lot of juniors prefer not to be listed companies. This says to the investors that you are a subsistence miner with no ambition to grow your operation. You just want to mine marginally so that you can make your money and get out. The projects that stay in the minds of investors are those with the biggest dreams; it’s those companies who have a well-thought out business model and financial plan to take their company all the way up to listing.”

Errol Smart, CEO of Orion Minerals, says, “We should stop hiding behind excuses about why investment is not happening. At the end of the day, there is a shrinking pool of capital internationally and only the best projects get money. Traditionally, junior mining investment in Africa has come from Australia and Canada, where access to capital is limited these days.”

Smart succinctly states that juniors should not ‘fall in love’ with their projects. Rather they must be realistic and be prepared to back the best ones. “Sitting back and saying there is no money is simply not true. It’s a competitive world out there so juniors have to work hard to secure funding.”

While traditional funding sources are drying up for juniors, new cash resources could be found in alternative funding methods. According to Sentsho, with the advent of 4IR and the Industrial Internet of Things, technology is set to play a major role in mining. “As such, juniors should use technology platforms such as crowdfunding and blockchain to fund their projects.”

With traditional funding channels lowering their risk appetite for exploration in Africa, there are no doubt a number of hurdles to overcome – financial and regulatory. And while these will be difficult to overcome, it is not impossible for juniors in Africa to attract investment. PR | Re:public is focused on helping companies leverage digital platforms to attract retail investors. Retail investors assist with improving liquidity in their stock and stabilising their share price. If you want to learn more about PR | Re:public’s Investor Marketing Program, request a no-obligation call back.

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