Asset managers live and die by the data – and a new metric comes along every day, it would seem.

There is portfolio manager performance, AUM growth and net sales to begin with. And it’s more than useful to know if you have more Citywire-rated fund managers and more mixed-gender teams in the Alpha Female Report than your rivals. (And yes, that’s our data so we can give it a plug).

Now we have another KPI for you – an index which ranks asset managers according to their social media followers. Working with marketing consultant Sylvain Asimus, who has painstakingly gone through every asset manager of note on the major platforms, we can order the managers both by their absolute numbers and an adjusted score relative to their AUM.

The big picture

All told, the leading asset managers around the world, as calculated by AUM, have amassed more than 38 million followers across the six major platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Sounds impressive, no? Until you realise that Taylor Swift alone has 92 million on Twitter and another 234 million on Instagram.

It will come as little surprise that a full two-thirds of those followers of asset managers are on LinkedIn. It’s the well-pressed business suit of social media platforms, a bit staid but very much B2B-focused and relatively free of cranks espousing theories on the global capitalist conspiracy or the malicious effects of 5G phones.

Twitter and Facebook come next with 17% and 10% respectively, while YouTube, Instagram and TikTok combined are just 6%.

NoTube

Let’s talk about YouTube for a moment and its paltry 3% share. For Asimus, it’s criminally underused by the industry.

‘YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and website, which attracts 14.3 billion visitors per month; but the top 200 asset managers there average around 2,800 followers versus 63,000 on LinkedIn,’ he says.

What’s more – the quality is not great.

‘A cursory glance at their video libraries reveals something more akin to a content dumping ground, littered with corporate values productions, latest opinions on global inflation and greener-than-thou ESG discourse, which seldom exceed the 100 views barrier,’ Asimus says.

Amateurs do it better, he argues, with educational videos from independent creators racking up millions of views on simple topics such as ‘What is a stock/interest rates or risk?’

‘What is stopping smart asset managers from educating the public, especially the younger generations, who may not understand much about finance, but want to learn how to invest the money they are about to earn or inherit?’

Not OK, boomer?

In general, asset managers have shown little appetite for visual-based platforms – Instagram gets just 3% of followers and TikTok is a rounding error. That, according to Asimus, is a strategic mistake as these are the platforms of choice for a generation on the cusp of inheriting $50tn of assets from their ageing boomer antecedents

‘Just six out of the top 200 AMs have bothered to post anything on TikTok. Although a few accounts such as Fidelity and BlackRock do post some interesting stuff, most managers are completely ignoring these receptive, soon-to-be wealthier “kids” on social media, despite their stated desire to embrace them in the future.

Never mind the quality… what about the numbers?

The data

Taking all followers across all platforms, BlackRock leads the way among pure asset management players with 1.93m followers, built on 1.19m LinkedIn followers and 563,900 Twitter aficionados. Fidelity and Vanguard are also above the one million mark.

Other players such as Allianz, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Credit Suisse Asset Management also are comfortably north of one million but they gain that status through being part of much larger financial services groups.

Adjusting for AUM paints a very different picture with only the comparatively small European players of Carmignac and Robeco making a top 10 that features a strong helping of private equity giants such as KKR and Blackstone.

Drilling down

So dominant is LinkedIn in asset managers’ social media efforts that it’s not surprising that these same private equity names dominate the ranks here, although conventional groups such as Old Mutual and Oaktree are also in the top 20.

Twitter and Facebook paint a different picture with the likes of Robeco, Thornburg and Carmignac heading up the Twitter adjusted ranks and Eastspring, Ninety One and T Rowe Price making an impact on Facebook.

And some businesses are making an effort on Instagram with BlackRock, Fidelity and Vanguard all getting more than 50,000 followers. But the 204,000 that this trio has between them are small beans compared with the 2.5 million who follow them on LinkedIn.

And as mentioned, TikTok is an asset management desert right now – so full marks to Franklin Templeton whose 55,800 followers are, on an AUM-adjusted basis, eight times better than their nearest rival.

Rock, meet hard place

Nothing about social media is easy for asset managers. Content published there is every bit as much catnip for the regulator’s rules and regulations as a fund prospectus.

Yet while armies of expensive lawyers will scrutinise a legal document to within an inch of its life, one slip from the social media intern when the boss is on holiday and all hell can break loose from the trolls and bots alike. And who knows what Elon Musk will do to Twitter…

But for Asimus, asset management firms have little choice but to lean in and make the most of social media.

‘People come to social media to create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.

‘It’s a two-way street, where the most successful vendors do more than just display their wares in the shop window and let the prospective buyer get on with it. They engage with their audience and respond to queries and comments.

‘Some of the best campaigns run by asset managers focus on career paths or educate their readers, without assuming that we all are as financially literate or as quantitatively accomplished as they are.’

All data correct as of 31 October 2022

Sylvain Asimus’s social media network of choice is LinkedIn. Find him here. You can also contact him here