CHX Blog Implementation

Until 2018, the Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX) is the last privately held exchange in the United States. Given its small size, however, the company needed greater visibility and name recognition in the industry. CHX signed on with 3Points in 2015, and we had been working on building their presence via both earned and social media, where we helped create the exchange’s Twitter account from scratch. Visibility increased  through these mediums, but one facet was still missing: an outlet for created content. The exchange needed a medium that would be more visible than the “Notices” section of its website and less expensive than Business Wire releases for company announcements.

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Strategy

3Points developed a blog strategy specific to the needs of CHX by creating a Medium page for the exchange. Medium was not only easy to read and simple to manage, but it also had better online discoverability. Since creating the page, Medium became the preferred outlet for company statements and announcements. Along with these kinds of releases, we also worked to post a diverse range of content, sometimes using Medium as a forum for opinion pieces, for which the exchange did not previously have a proper outlet. Finally, we launched two blog series that were popular with readers. With CHX starting its own Women’s Forum, we took the opportunity to create a blog series around the forum, spotlighting the exchange’s female employees. The success of that series led us to start a second series, interviewing former CHX trading floor veterans.

Business Impact

The diverse and high-quality content on the CHX blog expanded CHX’s audience and helped the exchange become a thought leader in the industry. Despite launching the blog from scratch, almost 90% of Medium posts received over 100 views, with many receiving between 200-500 views. Numerous posts were picked up by industry newsletters, such as John Lothian News and Curatia. Internally, the blogs were extremely well received, with many being distributed via all-company emails. We received feedback that the employee-focused blogs, in particular, were beneficial to office camaraderie. Finally, with the help of our media relations and social media efforts, the company announcements reached a large and targeted audience, without the cost of press releases.