LinkedIn more popular among asset managers in Q4, Facebook in decline

Asset managers posted more on LinkedIn and received higher levels of engagement

Key points:

• On LinkedIn, the average number of posts by asset managers, the average engagement level and the average sentiment increased in Q4
• On the other hand, Facebook saw a decrease in the number of posts, levels of engagement and sentiment compared to Q3
• Engagement on Twitter decreased, but YouTube saw higher levels of engagement than in Q3

Asset managers posted more on LinkedIn during Q4 and received higher levels of engagement, while the number of posts and engagement levels on Facebook decreased, research by Fundamental Media shows.

During the fourth quarter of 2021, Fundamental Media analysed 2,649 social media posts by the top ten global asset managers, including 957 LinkedIn posts.

Asset managers were on average posting more on LinkedIn and Twitter during Q4, while being less active on Facebook and YouTube.

The engagement levels for asset managers’ posts on YouTube and LinkedIn increased on average, while Twitter and Facebook saw lower levels of engagement compared to Q3. Engagement with asset managers’ Facebook posts has dropped dramatically since Q2. Similar to the trend seen in 2020, YouTube engagement levels increased throughout the year with the highest average engagement in the last quarter.

Posts on LinkedIn have on average become more positive during Q4 compared to a quarter earlier, while Facebook posts and tweets became less positive.

The average number of new subscribers to asset managers’ YouTube channels has remained stable since Q3, but the average number of views increased every quarter since the start of 2021. The number of reactions (likes, dislikes*, comments and shares) has doubled compared to Q3 as did the number of video views, resulting in a higher growth in average engagement levels compared to Q3.

Engagement on LinkedIn

LinkedIn saw an increase in all metrics during Q4: asset managers posted more frequently, received higher levels of engagement and the average sentiment of posts was more positive than in Q3.

Asset managers posted the most on ESG and expert views during Q4, but the highest engagement levels were seen for posts related to retirement, ESG and Europe.

Within the topic Europe, leading asset managers provided insights about the rising inflation, monetary policies, central banks, the energy crisis and the Covid-19 market outlook. Besides the news and social events from their European offices, almost half of the posts regarding Europe were also about ESG. Social inclusion, the COP26 conference, the net-zero plans and climate action were the most frequent subjects of discussion within ESG, where the environmental side dominated half of the posts.

While during Q3 posts on all topics had on average a neutral or positive sentiment, in Q4 posts on financial institutions, Asia, equities and the pandemic had on average a slightly negative sentiment.

The topics retirement, growth, crisis, emerging markets and risk saw a drastic increase in average engagement levels compared to Q3. The topics politics and America are in the top five of most engaging topics of 2021 due to their high levels of engagement in Q1, when posts around the new US presidency and the Capitol riots were receiving a lot of interest.

Retirement was the most trending topic in Q4, with asset managers discussing pension plans, retirement strategies, and insights about the current institutional market. The average engagement per post on the topic retirement more than doubled compared to Q3, while the frequency of posts from asset managers decreased by a third.

Asset managers continue to favour posting expert views on LinkedIn as well as on ESG and markets. Posts that discussed ESG and financial institutions showed the sharpest increase after thematic. However, asset managers posted less about the US, Asia, and the pandemic.

While there are quite a few fluctuations in which topics resonate the most with LinkedIn users throughout the year, the topics that asset managers most frequently post about remained fairly static over the course of 2021.

* From November 2021, YouTube no longer shows the number of dislikes a video has received. The dislike button remains, but the dislike count has become private.