Asset managers see social media posts’ engagement levels rise

Asset managers received more likes, shares and comments on their social posts, despite being slightly less positive, research by Fundamental Media finds

Key findings:

• Average engagement levels for asset managers’ social media posts increased from 36.7 in Q3 to 43.6 in Q4
• The number of posts, tweets and videos remained relatively stable
• ESG, market and expert views continue to be the topics asset managers most frequently post about on LinkedIn

Asset managers saw higher levels of engagement for their social media posts in Q4 compared to Q3, despite average sentiments of their posts decreasing slightly, research by Fundamental Media revealed.

We analysed a total of 5,608 social media posts of 43 leading asset managers during Q4, including 3,718 LinkedIn posts, and compared them to Q3. In Q4, the posts had an average sentiment of 0.63, while the average engagement was 43.6 per post, compared to an average sentiment of 0.45 and average engagement of 36.7 in Q3. Sentiment is measured by looking at the number of negative and positive words used in the posts, while the engagement rate is the number of likes, clicks, video views, shares/retweets and comments a post has received.

The last quarter of 2022 saw little variation in the number of posts, tweets and videos by asset managers. LinkedIn continued to be the most popular social media channel with a total of 1,340 posts in November, which fell to 1,115 posts in December.

Similarly, engagement levels were relatively stable across the quarter, except for a huge spike in YouTube engagement in October. This was mainly due to a video by Amundi titled ‘In what world do you want to invest your money… and your future?’ which received over 38,000 views, likes and comments. This is by far the highest level of engagement we’ve seen for an asset manager’s YouTube video since we started our social media research in 2020.

The average sentiment of posts posted during the last half of 2022 was positive, with posts on Facebook and LinkedIn being more positive than the language used on Twitter. Posts on Facebook became a lot more positive during Q4, from an average sentiment of 0.32 in October to 0.94 in December.

LinkedIn engagement

When we look only at LinkedIn, we can see that ESG, market and expert views continue to be the topics asset managers most frequently post about. Posts on the topics crisis and volatility had the most negative sentiment, while posts on Australia were the most positive.

The topic that received the most engagement during Q4 is Middle East, at an average engagement of 205.86 versus the mean engagement by asset manager and month, although only four LinkedIn posts were about this topic. This was followed by Africa (average engagement of 63.52 across 18 posts) and ETFs (average engagement of 17.51 across 47 posts). The topics Middle East and Africa have been left of the above chart for legibility reasons.

During Q4, asset managers posted the most about ESG, but there are some differences if we look at the figures by month. While ESG is the most frequently posted about in October and November, it is only the fourth most popular topic in December, after the topics expert views, market and economy. A post celebrating Veterans Day in the US and posts celebrating women in asset management performed particularly well during the quarter.

While the topic Middle East received the highest average engagement during the quarter, asset managers only posted about it in November and December. The four posts on this topic included an anniversary post and a CEO appointment.