CASE STUDY
How IEX Trading uses NewsWhip in content production
Michael Russell,
Marketing & Communications Strategist
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Industry
Financial Services
Company Size
200 employees
“We feel that when we use Spike, we can get stories written up before our competitors.”
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CHALLENGE: As a new company breaking into a decades-old market, how can you surface the most important mentions of your brand and understand public sentiment?
The Investors Exchange, or IEX Trading, is America’s newest stock exchange. IEX is designed to protect investors and level the playing field on Wall Street – by building an exchange that’s fundamentally based on transparency, to enable “a fair market that allows investors, brokers and market makers to compete on fair terms.”
But creating a brand that can compete with the legacy of the New York Stock Exchange is no easy feat. IEX set out to make a name for themselves in the financial services industry, and looked to social media to fuel the fire behind their launch.
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Social media democratized our application to become a stock exchange – social media gave us a voice to dispel some mistruths and rally our supporters, who were critical in the application process.”
The positive response to IEX’s mission and philosophy was overwhelming. But after making a splash and garnering a loyal following, IEX struggled to monitor all of their media mentions and understand their effects.
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We had so much press coverage that it became difficult to keep track of it manually, or with simple tools like Google alerts. Due to the complex nature of our business, it was vital that we have the ability to detect IEX-related articles immediately so that we could correct, address, or comment on articles as necessary.”
That’s why IEX decided to bring on NewsWhip Spike – to take the hours of manual labor and guesswork out of searching for important media coverage, and better understand what resonates with their following and industry base.
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Spike has completely eliminated the cumbersome search for IEX mentions in the media. I used to scrape outlets manually – but some mentions would inevitably slip through the nets. I now just rely on Spike email alerts for mention notifications, which has automated a lot of the manual searching I used to do.”
With Spike’s filters and keyword searches, IEX can monitor specific mentions of their brand name across the web and on all the social platforms. But they can also track what’s gaining traction within the global finance industry in general, drilling down to look at coverage about markets.
Spike’s custom metrics allow Michael and the IEX team to understand how quickly relevant stories are spreading, and how much attention certain coverage is getting – enabling them to better allocate their attention and resources.
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Spike has dramatically enhanced my ability to react and respond to press coverage – which is paramount to my role. In doing so, it has eliminated the pain of spotting an erroneous article, hours after it’s been published and read by hundreds of thousands of people. The knowledge that there’s no press slipping through the cracks is a huge relief.”
All of Spike’s different metrics also help Michael analyze trends in coverage, to better understand what gets attention from their fans and in the industry. The IEX team uses this data on what’s already working to inform their marketing and communications, and direct their content strategy.
NewsWhip is ecstatic to help emerging companies like IEX magnify their impact, break into new markets, and shape the perception of their brand across the globe.
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The social velocity metric has also allowed us to see what narratives and angles work with different audiences, allowing us to amplify our message and branding exponentially.
I’ve already recommended Spike to many of my communications peers, and some PR agencies – Spike is a 10/10.”
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