Over a third of Limited Partners (LPs) surveyed in the Brackendale Private Equity Social Media LP Sentiment Survey 2021 track their private equity investee funds on social media. The study is the first of its kind to find a direct correlation between social media influence and private equity fund investments.
LP respondents hail from across Europe and the US, and include a mix of pension funds, insurance companies, family offices and fund-of-funds.
Brackendale’s study has found that 38% of LP investors are using social media to track investee funds and a further 29% use social media as part of their due diligence on potential new investee funds.
Significantly, 24% of private equity fund investor respondents acknowledge that social media has influenced their decision whether to invest in a given fund.
All investors surveyed are using social media professionally now, with LinkedIn being the platform of choice.
Fay Margo, CEO, Brackendale Consulting: “With the global coronavirus pandemic having had such an impact on institutional investors’ ability to meet private equity fund managers face-to-face, Brackendale wanted to explore how the use of social media may have changed over the last year. Our research demonstrates that private equity fund managers who are still not choosing to engage with social media are likely to be missing out on valuable investor attention.”
LPs still value personal relationships and recommendations, however, evidenced in the fact that the top two most important sources of information on new GPs and potential investee funds are placement agents and word-of-mouth from their LP network.