As we enter the second half of 2025, communications professionals are gearing up for a busy few months to see out the year. Whether you are a JSE or Cape Town Stock Exchange (CTSE) listed business looking to engage shareholders or you are a professional services firm looking to raise your profile in the industry – there are many stakeholders who demand your attention.
In the same vein, our clients demand that we keep our finger on the pulse of investor communications and Public Relations (PR) trends in South Africa. Each month we analyse a variety of data sources to help us and our clients with our decision-making.
Here are some of the trends we have identified for July 2025.
What is our Google and website data telling us?
Some of our highest trending search phrases and keywords for the month of July are:
- Investor Comms / Investor Communications / Investor Communications Agency
- RH Bophelo
- Impact Reporting
- Content Development
With Investor Communications and Content Development being a key part of our business, we do however note that search volumes on these keywords appear to be rising.
The search for content related to RH Bophelo could be directly related to our recent “Meet The Management” interview which we recently did with Yondie Metu, CFO of the JSE-listed healthcare group.
AI scraping and South African publishers
One of the big discussions in media and content development circles relates to the rise of AI scraping and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) activities. In short, businesses who have invested significant resources in their SEO content are suddenly seeing a decline in search traffic as Google and other search engines are materially changing the way they present search results.
No longer do people need to go to the website – rather Google will display extracted content from sourced content.
The team from The Outlier have put together this fascinating infographic showing how South African media houses are responding to AI scrapers:
Ornico releases its 2025 SA Social Media Landscape Report
Media measurement and monitoring business Ornico has released its 2025 research into the state of social media in South Africa. This annual report looks at how South African brands and marketers utilise various social media channels.
Some of the high-level insights include:
- The share of Facebook users actively using the platform on a daily or weekly basis slipped from 53.8% in 2023 to 51.2% in 2024, even as TikTok’s highly active user rate jumped from 25.1% to 32.4% over the same period
- TikTok has surged ahead as the platform of choice for habitual short-video consumption, reflecting its dominance in entertainment and youth culture
- LinkedIn (used by 85% of organizations), Facebook (83%), Instagram (73%), and YouTube (63%) remain the most utilized platforms for brands. Notably, TikTok’s marketing presence has skyrocketed – it’s now used by 47% of brands, reflecting the boom in short-form video content as a key engagement tool.
- Budget allocation in social media marketing is becoming polarized: on one end, 53% of companies spend under R10,000 per month on social media, while on the high end the proportion of big spenders (those investing over R50,000 per month) has jumped to 23%. Notably, about a third of organizations (31%) reported an increase in their social media budgets over the last year, yet only 34% plan further increases going forward.
You can download the executive summary for the report here.
African Venture Capital activity is picking up
AVCA – The African Private Capital Association – has recently released some new insights around the African Venture / Private capital markets. Venture capital deal volume rose 11% in H1 2025 and funding stabilised at US$1.2bn. Average ticket sizes climbed 31%, suggesting a more confident, but still selective, deployment of capital.
You can read more here.
The latest developments in South African JSE-listed AGMs
Annual General Meetings (AGMs) are one of the few opportunities for shareholders of listed businesses to engage with senior executives. In South Africa, these historically have been low-key affairs but shareholders are putting increasing pressure on investor communications teams to allow for Q&A and higher-level engagements.
Ann Crotty – writing for Currency News put together a fascinating article where she unpacks some of the developments at the AGMs of Capitec, Ninety One and PSG.
Looking to up your investor communications and PR game?
We are a leading provider of B2B communications services, and we have a proven track record of securing our clients coverage across a variety of leading business publications, TV and radio.
Founded by award-winning financial journalist Marc Ashton, our team is on hand to work with you to develop a comprehensive media and communications strategy.
To setup a discussion, please find our contact details here.