Asset managers more active on LinkedIn in October and November

Expert views and market continued to be the most popular topics during Q4 2024

Key points:

• In Q4, asset managers’ social media posts recorded an average engagement of 49.8 per post, compared to an average engagement of 46.2 in Q3.
• When only looking at asset managers’ LinkedIn activity during Q4, the most popular topics were expert views (1,498 posts), market (1,279 posts) and economy (917 posts).
• The topic Middle East saw the highest levels of engagement at an average of 271.25 versus the mean engagement by asset manager and month, with four posts on the topic.

Asset managers’ LinkedIn activity increased significantly during October and November 2024, compared to other months of the year, research by Fundamental Media has found.

We analysed a total of 4,741 organic social posts of 42 leading asset managers during Q4 2024, including 4,023 LinkedIn posts, and compared them to Q3 2024. In Q3, asset managers posted 4,101 times on social media, including 3,315 times on LinkedIn.

In Q4, the posts recorded an average engagement of 49.8 per post, compared to an average engagement of 46.2 in Q3. The engagement rate is the number of likes, clicks, video views, shares and comments a post has received.

The number of posts on Facebook and YouTube has remained stable between Q3 and Q4. At 1,578 posts, LinkedIn activity saw a spike in October, although this dropped again in November and December. During January and September, the number of LinkedIn posts stood between 939 and 1,197 a month, so the activity in October and November was significantly higher.

Following the massive spike in August, YouTube engagement dropped in September to 17.83 but has since increased steadily to 83.42. LinkedIn engagement remained relatively stable between 41.93 and 54.11 during the second half of the year, but Facebook engagement declined from 24.97 in July to 20.1 in October and then climbed again to 54.72 in December.

LinkedIn engagement

When only looking at asset managers’ LinkedIn activity during Q4, the most popular topics were expert views (1,498 posts), market (1,279 posts) and economy (917 posts). During Q3, asset managers posted the most about expert views, market and Europe.

The topic Middle East saw the highest levels of engagement at an average of 271.25 versus the mean engagement by asset manager and month, with four posts on the topic. This was followed by Australia (an average of 105.89 across 19 posts), Africa (an average of 91.92 across 24 posts) and ETFs (an average of 90.72 across 108 posts). These topics have been excluded from the above chart to increase legibility.

Expert views and market were the topics asset managers most frequently posted about during all three months of Q4, but economy was only the third most popular topic during December, and came in fourth in October and November, after Europe.

Posts on the topic Africa that saw high engagement during Q4 include a post by Ninety One on the first close of its Africa Credit Opportunities Fund 3, and one by the same asset manager on its Global Investor Forum in Cape Town. Posts on the topic ETFs that performed well include a post by MFS Investment Management celebrating 100 years of active management and the launch of their new suite of ETFs at the NSYE, and a post by Vanguard announcing the retirement of a long-standing member of staff.