Responsibilities of a Publicly Owned Company
A company that is publicly owned has certain responsibilities that a privately owned company doesn’t have to worry about. Once you decide that your company is going to go public, you have to be accountable to those who have invested in your stocks. You need to be transparent with insider buying in your company. You need to make sure that everything about your company is well represented by the public who actually shares ownership in it. Here are three things that a company needs to do if they become public.
Charitable Activities
If your company goes public, it’s important that you make charitable donations. Those who watch your company will be more likely to purchase shares of your stocks if you do this. This means that you involve yourself in charitable organizations that help out people with disabilities, the poor, those who are homeless, and those who require medical assistance. There are various charity organizations that your company can choose to donate to, including the Boys and Girls Club and the Ronald McDonald House.
Once your company decides to officially be owned by the public, it is very important to maintain a sterling reputation in terms of charity. You need to be known for giving back to the community and for tending to those who require assistance. You can do this by donating to youth organizations like the Boys and Girls Club mentioned above or even organizations meant to provide care for veteran individuals. Whatever charity you donate to, the point is that you need to give back some of what you make.
Charitable donations do not always have to be in the form of a check or cash. You can make a donation in terms of time by encouraging your employees to partake in a day of volunteer service for a certain organization. You can make a trip of it and offer your employees paid time off for this day while they work at a local soup kitchen or at a local homeless shelter. You should take the opportunity to promote your business as reputable in the community.
Publish Your Progress
Once you go public, you need to be accountable to the public by reporting all of the progress in your own way. If you make any drastic changes to your company’s budget, do any layoffs, or generally change anything major in the company, you need to report it in an official publication. You should establish a website that is meant to debrief the public about the current business goings-on within your company. You should broadcast the development of this new website via channels such as the newspaper and local news organizations.
Maintain Social Media Presence
One of the best ways that your public shareholders can stay up to date on news about your business is by you posting on social media. Your shareholders can follow you directly on your social media websites, such as Facebook and Instagram. You can also use Twitter if it suits you. Keep in mind that the latter is limiting and that you can only post short posts, as opposed to Facebook and Instagram which offer you more interactive and complete options for posting.
You should use your social media platform to keep your shareholders up to date on current news for your business. You should post something at least twice a day and you should post it during the midday, while users are more likely to be online. This will make it easy for your shareholders to feel invested in your company and to keep their stocks invested in your company because they will further trust you. You would be amazed how far it goes just to keep in constant contact with your shareholders in terms of keeping them as investors.
Social media is a wonderful tool to stay in touch with those who invest in your company and it offers them an easy way to keep up on your business news. People can even post their own comments about your recent business dealings and express their opinions as shareholders in the company. This gives you the opportunity to respond to your shareholders and accept constructive criticism from them. Your business will thrive and grow stronger as you take advice from the people who have invested in your business.
