PUBLIC RELATIONS TIPS — TIP NO. 69:

If you’re a public relations or investor relations professional who works for (or represents) a publicly traded company, remember that Wall Street likes predictability — predictable expenses, predictable profits, predictable locations (annual meetings held in the same place year after year), and so forth.

One simple way to communicate predictability to investors is through the timing of your news releases.

One way we try to do this with our publicly traded clients is to distribute news releases at the same time every time a release is distributed. For example, we prefer to distribute releases first thing in the morning before the stock markets are “open.”

Hence, if a release is going to be distributed on Tuesday via a commercial wire service (which is still required to meet the timely and full disclosure requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), we might recommend distributing that release at 7:05 a.m. (Eastern time). Similarly, any other release distributed by that same client we’d push to get it distributed at 7:05 a.m. (Eastern) as well.

I know it might seem silly, but in truth, predictability can be beneficial, especially with public companies.