6 November 2020
The 9th edition of our Social Divide Index revealed that ASX 100 companies are posting less on social media to communicate their company’s financial results this year yet audiences are engaging more.
Both retail and institutional investors are an integral audience for any listed company and the ability to connect with this audience across multiple platforms and channels extends the reach of your company’s story. Companies not willing to engage on social media may inadvertently damage corporate reputation by not adapting to stakeholder expectations.
This report looks at the social media best practice communication approaches used by ASX 100 companies to extend the reach and impact of their messaging.
Our Findings
For the second year running, BHP topped the ranking using an integrated campaign approach that generates high engagement across all platforms. BHP’s consistent and strategic approach to social media communication sees an already engaged audience interacting with their financial results.
Notably, BHP created a series of videos in various languages to target key audiences in specific geographic locations.
This year we have four new entrants to our top ten ranked companies: Wesfarmers, Orica, Worley and Santos.
LinkedIn leads the way as the social platform of choice for announcing financial results, with 61 of the ASX 100 active on this platform. Twitter use has decreased from 48 companies last year to 46 this year while Youtube use has declined from 17 companies last year to only 14 companies this year.
While this year has been unique with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting the world, interestingly there was a 21% decline in the volume of company posts on social media about financial results. While companies may be posting less, audiences are more engaged than ever, with an increase in overall engagement numbers (compared to the number of engagements in 2019). There has been a 19 per cent increase in engagement with results-related content compared to this time last year – a trend we hope companies take note of, and continue to strategically communicate via social media as audiences increasingly look online for information about listed companies.
For further information, please contact:
Celia Heffernan, Senior Director, FTI Consulting
celia.heffernan@fticonsulting.com
