Asset managers more active on social media in Q4

Engagement on social media has increased during the fourth quarter

Key points:

• The engagement with asset managers' social media posts increased during Q4, as asset managers posted more often than in Q3
• YouTube had the highest level of engagement across social media, followed by LinkedIn
• ESG was the most engaging topic of 2020, followed by expert views and the pandemic

Asset managers have become more active and have posted more positive messages on social media during the final quarter of 2020, while engagement increased, research by Fundamental Media found.

We analysed more than 10,000 organic social media posts by the ten leading asset managers in 2020. During Q4, these managers uploaded 2,700 new organic posts, including 850 LinkedIn posts.

The average number of posts per asset manager across all social media channels increased by 14% during Q4, after it had dropped by 16% in Q3. November saw the highest engagement per post on textual social media of the whole year.

The number of YouTube videos posted by asset managers was fairly constant throughout the year. The average engagement per video increased significantly during Q4, at 80%. Channel views increased by 7% compared to Q3 and 21% compared to 2019.

LinkedIn was the social media platform with the highest engagement per post in 2020. It kept the lead for the first three quarters of the year but lost the first place to YouTube in the last quarter. On the other hand, the engagement per post on Twitter fell by 20% compared to Q3.

Engagement on LinkedIn

The graph below shows the 18 most engaging topics on LinkedIn during Q4, as well as their frequency and overall sentiment.

The level of engagement for most of the topics improved during Q4, but Europe, Strategy and ESG were the most engaging topics. On the other hand, posts about Pandemic and Financial institutions lost engagement, with Pandemic dropping out of the top 10 most engaging topics, after having lost interest quarter after quarter. 

During the last quarter asset managers dedicated one post out of ten to the United States Presidential election 2020: Politics and America increased in frequency of posts (+40%) and engagement (+50%) compared to Q3.

The size of bubbles represents the number of posts on that particular topic. The sentiment analysis evaluates the opinions, sentiments and emotions of the post (not the reaction the post). Posts are classified as positive (1 or above) or negative (-1 or below) as a result of the difference between the number of positive vs negative words in each post.

Within the theme Europe, followers were highly engaged with posts on #BlackHistoryMonth and #womeninfinance, along with the outlook for 2021 regarding Brexit, the pandemic, and the potential influence of the US election on western Europe. Looking specifically at posts related to investment strategies, the most engaging posts focused on ETFs, alpha and active management, and ESG as well as insights about the pandemic and the US election.

ESG and Retirement were the two topics with the most positive sentiment, as asset managers on average used more than one positive word per post. Sentiment increased throughout the year for themes such as Market, Crisis, Asia, Economy and Pandemic.

Engagement levels increased by an average of 50% between Q3 and Q4. The most engaging topic in Q3, ESG, gained 12% of the engagement per average post compared to Q3, Europe 125%, Asia 86%, Fixed Income 68%, America 58%, Politics 50%, Strategy 24% and Equities 12%. The only topics that saw their engagement decrease were economy (-1%), pandemic (-8%), and financial institutions (-13%).

When looking at the 25% of most engaging posts in Q4, 46% of these were about ESG, 33% contained an expert view from an influential figure and 22% were about Europe.

* From Q2 onwards, the topics 'Coronavirus' and 'Pandemic' (classified separately in Q1) have been merged into one topic called 'Pandemic'