A story at Deal Book suggests that hedge funds and other activist investors are beginning to look at social media as a way to organize small shareholders and recruit other potential allies in proxy battles. “It has the potential to move groups of shareholders from passive administrators to active participants,” says Marcus Birkenkrahe, a professor of business information technology at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. “The financial industry in particular ought to be wary of social media as a means of creating assemblies where people learn to articulate, sell and distribute their adverse views.” Interesting side-note: no PR or IR people are quoted in the story.