I’ve always been fascinated by how CEOs communicate their vision, values and mission. And when social became more widely available last decade, it occurred to me that CEOs had this incredible opportunity to jump aboard and embrace this direct-to-stakeholder channel. Way back in 2010, I wrote a piece in HBR on why so few CEOs were making use of their websites, social media and the Internet. It has always been my contention that the corporate website is ground zero for company and CEO communications and companies should recognize the prime real estate that it is. I often felt that I was considered out of step for singing the praises of a strong corporate website.

You can imagine my delight when I found this brand new Brunswick survey among institutional investors on their information-gathering and what they do with it. It is very required reading for CEO communicators since investors are always at the top of the food chain when it comes to who matters to reputation-building. For the first time in their survey, Brunswick included company-provided investor relations websites and it turns out that among this select group, it is their most used and most trusted source of information! Hallelujah. And adding even more credence to the corporate website as mission critical, the IR section on the corporate website was not just the top digital source but the most used and trusted of all the sources examined. Brunswick adds that this dependence on IR websites and trust in their objectivity stems from the fact that such information is governed by strict rules and regulations. “As such, IR websites are any company’s most authoritative account of itself, backed by its auditors and other advisors.”

Here are some of the details:

92% of investors report using the investor relations section of a company’s website to investigate an issue. And 72% say they have made an investment decision based on something they learned there.

On trust, IR websites topped Bloomberg, the FT, and all other traditional news sources.

All of this valuable information screams out for a deep look at your company IR section and making it engaging, personalized, content-rich and dynamic. I wish that examples of robust IR websites were provided because that will take some digging. I might just take a look and get back to you.