I recently contributed to an article for the JSE Magazine which looked at which South African business leaders and financial sector players were utilising social media the best.
As somebody who works with businesses to refine their marketing messaging, it is always interesting to look for those who are particularly strong in certain fields and learn best practices from them.
In the below, I have attempted to draw out some thought leaders who I believe use platforms like LinkedIn and X (Twitter) well and highlight some of their strengths.
I would like to make an important distinction here. While I categorise the below individuals as financial influencers, the intention is not to mix them up with those who look to use social media to promote unregulated investments or “get rich quick” schemes. Rather, I am looking to showcase good use of social media platforms by South African financial services professionals.
Please feel free to add suggestions in the comments below.
CEOs and Business Leaders
Below are a couple of the standout leaders:
- Charles Savage (Purple Group) was a bit of a trailblazer here and has regularly utilised his social media platforms to tell the EasyEquities story.
- Adrian Gore (and by extension his Discovery Leadership team) have utilised LinkedIn really well to engage stakeholders from investors to staff
- Mteto Nyati (Altron and Eskom) – utilises both LinkedIn and X particularly well. As the chairperson for Eskom, it is an incredibly challenging role having to turn around sentiment.
- Piet Viljoen (Astoria and Gold Rush) – one of the few CEOs who is prepared to utilise X and actively engages both supporters and critics. A standout feature when it comes to Piet is his investment in his newsletter which is an “owned” media asset that can be leveraged
- Leila Fourie (JSE) – I unpacked it more in my column Daily Maverick entitled: “JSE leadership is giving the old boys club a run for their money” but Leila Fourie has utilised social media like LinkedIn to help drive a change in culture at the bourse operator.
Asset Managers, Analysts and Educators
My February column for Daily Maverick highlighted the issue of limited analyst coverage for South African equities listed on the JSE or Cape Town Stock Exchange. In the column, one of the figures I mention is Koshiek Karan who has gathered over 250 000 followers on X. Karan is an influential voice who was a driving force behind Altvest, entered into a public argument with Charles Savage and the EasyEquities team and has subsequently expanded his voice to health / fitness content and raising awareness of the proliferation of sports betting in SA and the impact on our community.
With such limited analyst coverage for small-cap equities, two of the popular names to follow are Keith McLachlan and Anthony Clark who focus on smaller listed businesses on the JSE. The reason they should be highlighted on this list is their push to try and stimulate a paid-for research model in South Africa. This is quite a niche audience, but Keith continues to look to innovate through his Blue Gem Research offering as an example.
Bright Khumalo and David Eborall are two other interesting personalities who share interesting insights on both JSE and international stocks.
Special mention could be made of The Finance Ghost and industry veteran Simon Brown who have leveraged their social media platforms to gain access to more traditional media outlets which in turn have helped them amplify their reach through columns, podcasts and speaking engagements.
Financial advisors
This is quite a broad category, and it is quite difficult to pick specific standout voices on a like-for-like basis. On one hand you have the big firms like Brenthurst who can back their advisors through bought and earned media while on the other, you can have a small advisory business who does great work, but doesn’t have the marketing budget behind them.
Selection of specific financial advisors is tricky as many of them have to balance advice versus product. Perhaps I am a bit biased – as he is my financial advisor – but I enjoy the insights shared by Craig Gradidge who manages to share a combination of investment views along with his entrepreneurship journey.
While not a financial advisor, Maya Fisher-French should be acknowledged as one of the most sensible voices in the financial education space and she has been able to leverage her insights across a variety of platforms.
Tim Slatter is an interesting voice to follow on LinkedIn as he has focused his niche on “Helping financial planners keep in touch with their clients” and helping them leverage digital strategies to access new clients.
Similarly Warren Kelly utilises LinkedIn to share interesting communication techniques for investment and finance professionals.
Lastly, a shoutout to Gareth Stokes who has the challenge of trying to find ways to package insurance related content.
Economists
FNB Property Economist John Loos utilises LinkedIn well to showcase both general industry data, but also to promote owned FNB media assets including the Property Barometer. He not only is able to showcase interesting data, but his posts are also supported by interesting visuals / extracts.
Agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo is another whose good use of data and data visualisation makes him great to follow:
While not strictly an “economist”, Lee Naik from Transunion is worth a mention – specifically around his use of LinkedIn. Apart from sharing useful consumer data points with his Transunion hat on, he has built out a newsletter: “Elewa – Africa Thinking” which has gathered over 15000 followers receiving this LinkedIn-powered newsletter in their inbox every month. If one considers the fact that the Business Day circulation is now around 12 000 copies, this showcases how you can utillise LinkedIn to build a powerful owned media asset.
Conclusion
This list is certainly not exhaustive and there are many other thought leaders out there. If there are other influential South African financial minds that you believe are doing innovative things on social media, then please post them in the comments below.