Asset managers most often posted about ESG and expert views in 2022

LinkedIn continues to be the most popular social media platform among asset managers, research by Fundamental Media found

Key points:

• Asset managers posted the most about the topics ESG, expert views and market updates
• LinkedIn was by far the most popular social media channel among asset managers during 2022
• Average engagement was relatively stable for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn throughout the year, but fluctuated greatly for YouTube

ESG, expert views and market news were the topics that asset managers most often posted about during 2022, according to research by Fundamental Media.

We analysed a total of 22,823 social media posts of 44 leading asset managers during 2022, including 14,226 LinkedIn posts. The posts had an average sentiment of 0.47, while the average engagement was 41.5 per post. Sentiment is measured by looking at the number of negative and positive words used in the post, while the engagement rate is the number of likes, clicks, video views, shares/retweets and comments a post has received.

LinkedIn was by far the most popular social media channel among asset managers during 2022. Activity on LinkedIn was highest during Q2 and Q4 with respectively 3,812 and 3,712 posts. The number of posts on Facebook and Twitter declined slightly as the year progressed, while the number of YouTube videos increased.

Average engagement was relatively stable for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn throughout the year, but fluctuated greatly for YouTube, despite only 16 out of the 44 asset managers being active on YouTube during 2022. LinkedIn had the highest average engagement in Q4, at 46.76, while average engagement on Twitter was highest in Q3, at 25.44. The average engagement on YouTube stood at 450.15 in Q1 but subsequently dropped to 16.93 in Q3 to then climb again to 141.11 in Q4.

The high engagement levels seen on YouTube were due to a video called ‘In what world do you want to invest’ which Amundi posted in several European languages during the first half of 2022; a video called ‘What else helps to deal with inflation’ by DWS Group in December; and a video by Schroders on its sustainable investing offering in October.

Over the course of 2022, the average sentiment of LinkedIn posts, tweets and Facebook posts improved, although there was a slight dip in average sentiment on LinkedIn and Facebook in Q3. On average, asset managers were increasingly positive on social media, with only Twitter seeing an average negative sentiment of -0.04 in April.

LinkedIn engagement

When we only look at LinkedIn, the topics ESG, expert views and market updates were the most discussed topics by asset managers in 2022. Posts on the topics crisis and volatility had on average the most negative sentiment, while posts on the topic Australia and Africa were on average the most positive.

When it comes to engagement, posts on the topic Middle East received the highest average engagement at 57.99, followed by Africa (35.02), ETFs (24.99), Australia (20.98) and alternatives (13.42). Tax was the topic with the lowest average engagement, at -30.98. These six topics were excluded from the above chart for legibility reasons.

Looking at the data by quarter, we see that ESG, expert views and market were consistently the top three topics that asset managers posted most frequently about. However, ESG was only the top topic in Q2 and Q4, with asset managers sharing slightly more expert views than posts on ESG during Q1 and Q3. In Q3 there were 669 posts on market, but it was a much more popular topic a quarter later, when there were 913 posts on this topic.

Europe is also a consistently popular topic for asset managers’ social posts. There is also a noticeable spike for the topic ‘economy’ in Q4, as asset managers shared their views on the current challenging market environment and their predictions for the year ahead.

During 2022, the topics Middle East, Africa and Australia received the highest average engagement, but asset managers rarely posted on these topics. The topic ETFs received a very high average engagement in Q1, mainly driven by Vanguard celebrating its 20-year anniversary of ETF management and Amundi sharing details of the acquisition of Lyxor Asset Management will impact its strategy and ambitions going forward.