Asset managers posted less about ESG on LinkedIn

ESG was consistently in the top three of most popular topics during 2023, but fell to fifth place in Q1 2024, data by Fundamental Media shows

Key points:

• In 2023, ESG stood in the top three of topics asset managers most frequently posted about on LinkedIn, but in Q1 2024 the topic had fallen to fifth position.
• Asset managers posted slightly less on LinkedIn and YouTube during Q1 2024 than during Q4 2023, but slightly more on Facebook.
• The average engagement levels for all three social media platforms are lower than in Q4, with YouTube’s having dropped by more than half.

ESG has become a less popular topic on LinkedIn for asset managers, according to data by Fundamental Media. During all four quarters of 2023, ESG stood in the top three of topics asset managers most frequently posted about, but in Q1 2024 the topic had fallen to fifth position. 

We analysed a total of 3,970 organic social media posts of 42 leading asset managers during Q1 2024, including 3,254 LinkedIn posts, and compared them to Q4 2023. In the last quarter of 2023, asset managers posted 4,156 times on social media, including 3,327 times on LinkedIn.

In Q1, the posts recorded an average engagement of 51.0 per post, compared to an average sentiment of 56.2 in Q4. The engagement rate is the number of likes, clicks, video views, shares, and comments a post has received.

The number of posts on all social media channels remained relatively stable throughout the quarter, although LinkedIn activity increased slightly as the quarter went on. Asset managers posted slightly less on LinkedIn and YouTube during Q1 2024 than during Q4 2023, but slightly more on Facebook.

While the average engagement for Facebook and LinkedIn posts dropped during Q1 2024, YouTube engagement levels increased sharply in February to then drop again in March. However, the average engagement levels for all three social media platforms are lower than in Q4, with YouTube’s having dropped by more than half.

LinkedIn engagement

Looking only at asset managers’ LinkedIn activity, we see that they posted the most about the topic’s expert views, market and economy. This is quite a change from 2023, when the top three in all quarters consisted of expert views, ESG and market, with economy often in fourth or fifth position. During Q1 2024, ESG had dropped to fifth position, after Europe.

The topic Middle East received the highest level of engagement at an average of 93.87 versus the mean engagement by asset managers and month, with three posts on the topic. This was followed by cryptocurrencies (an average of 38.99 across 23 posts), ETFs (an average of 27.91 across 79 posts) and Australia (an average of 20.62 across 19 posts). These topics have all been excluded from the above chart for legibility reasons. Unlike all the quarters in 2023, when tax was the topic with the lowest average levels of engagement, in Q1 2024 the topic conflict saw the lowest average engagement at -23.63.

While expert views were the most popular topic throughout the quarter, asset managers posted more on this topic during January than in the other two months. The popularity of market was stable over the first three months of 2024, but asset managers posted more on the topic economy during January, when it was a more popular topic than market. In February, Europe was a more popular topic than economy, and, interestingly, during March the third most popular topic was ESG. This may indicate that the topic ESG is on its way back into the top three of most popular topics for Q2 and the rest of the year.

Posts on the topic Middle East that saw high levels of engagement during Q1 2024 include a post by AllianceBernstein celebrating a colleague in one of its regional offices, while the topic ETFs saw high engagement for a celebratory post by Invesco in honour of QQQ’s 25^th anniversary and a Vanguard post on their global head of fixed income’s interview with Bloomberg.