The hot topic du jour at IR magazine’s West Coast Think Tank 2010, an invitation-only event held in Palo Alto, California on March 18, was social media – the good, the bad and the ugly. Social media is definitely a love-hate relationship for the investor relations officer and the publicly traded company. It seems that larger companies are more out there with Twitter feeds, blogs and Facebook pages than are smaller companies, and several attendees suggested it’s because larger (and often retail) brands tend to be earlier adopters and have more resources to dedicate to social media. But that also puts them at greater regulatory risk. (more…)