Private Equity Dealmaking on the Beach

Representatives from EisnerAmper’s Financial Services practice attended the 2-day conference Private Equity Dealmaking on the Beach hosted by the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) New York. While offering productive networking and dealing making opportunities, not to mention sunshine and beach volleyball, the conference also provided informative panels on dealmaking strategies and industry trends. One panel, “Let’s Get Social,” presented insights related to using social media to create opportunity and increase deal flow.

The panelists noted a few reasons why private equity firms have been hesitant to take advantage of social media, including the worry that it will diminish their brand and concerns of regulations restrictingit; these are some of the reasons that private equity firm presence on social media platforms is relatively low. The panelists noted that this small presence offers great opportunity to private equity firms that start taking advantage of social media today, and also high risk to those who embrace social media late in the game. Lack of presence on social media can present a missed opportunity in networking, communication and dealmaking.

The panelists offered some key “dos and don’ts” for effective social media use in business:

Do:

• Understand your social media presence and the image you want to portray.
• Know your target audience.
• Get into a rhythm of posting, with an emphasis on authenticity and value to the reader.
• Participate vs. act like a “bot”– be responsive when people engage with your content; show you are a person.
• Make content helpful vs. self-serving – rather than posting to boast about achievements, add articles and blogs that would benefit your intended audience. 
• Have an updated resume.
• Use picture and video to better attract readers, especially as individuals are reading more content on their mobile devices.
• Keep  FAVOR in mind:
• F  - Frequency of posting 
• A – Authenticity 
• V – Value 
• O – Origin
• R – Reach  

Don’t: 

• Get into fights with others on social media.
• Fail to reciprocate in social media interactions.
• Post false and misleading content or content in violation of rules and regulations. Have internal processes in place to ensure compliance.
• Do any general solicitation.
• Forget that social media is forever. 

A final important note made by the panelists is that private equity firms need to understand that with the impact of technology, business has become just as collaborative as it is competitive. Disclosing the “how” behind recent successes may attract additional business and opportunities as it provides readers with substantive, relevant, and valuable content.

Recognize: YOU ARE MEDIA WHEN YOU POST.