Vanguard's tweet on munis

The Vanguard Group Inc. is turning to social media to get the word out that despite dire predictions, the municipal bond market isn't about to implode. The firm penned a research paper, “California is not Greece” and held a webcast on the topic recently. The gist of the paper is that despite all the headlines, Vanguard doesn't think that there will be systemic defaults in the muni bond market. Vanguard's paper was released just a few weeks after the firm withdrew documents that it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch three muni bond index funds and three exchange-traded funds. “We believe the doomsday headlines overreach reality and that although the fiscal challenges — including significant pension liabilities facing municipalities — are important and should not be ignored, the expectation of systemic defaults among state and local governments is hyperbole,” according to the paper. To get the word out about its views, Vanguard posted a link to the paper on its Facebook page and tweeted information about it and the webcast. Although Vanguard has used Twitter and Facebook in the past, this was the first coordinated effort, said Amy Dobra, a principal at the firm. “This was the first time it felt mainstream for us,” she said. Within hours, Vanguard saw results. On the day it posted the information on Facebook and Twitter, it received 3,000 impressions and 15 comments on Facebook, Ms. Dobra said. Although a few people “liked” the tweet, she couldn't say how many people had viewed the report through Twitter as of yet. “It's harder to determine what's going on there, but we have 2,000 followers, so we know that 2,000 people have received it,” Ms. Dobra said. Ten thousand people signed up for the webcast.