Six reasons why private equity firms struggle with social media – and how yours can succeed 

Social media has become a competitive weapon for private equity firms – driven by the digital transition, fundraising challenges, and the growing importance of private wealth amidst an estimated $124 trillion ‘Great Wealth Transfer’. Yet many firms still struggle to use it effectively. Bladonmore’s Director of Strategy, Shreena Patel, sets out six common pitfalls – and how to avoid them. 

 

1. No clear voice: Unless your fundamentals are clearly defined and aligned, your content risks sounding like everyone else’s. 

First, align internally on your ambition, strategy, and tone of voice: Be succinct and specific. What is truly different about your firm and approach? Why does that matter to LPs, intermediates, business owners, and prospective hires – and can you prove it? 

2. Message drift: Pressure to create content can lead to chasing trends or producing mixed messages that confuse your audience. 

 Anchor your content in your strategy: Develop content around three or four strategic themes and repeat them – albeit in different ways and formats – to reinforce your key messages. 

3. Low visibility: Relying solely on existing networks is easy but limits growth.   

Invest in your presence: Even great content won’t travel far without deliberate amplification. A modest, well-targeted paid budget can dramatically expand reach to LPs, founders, and other priority audiences — while also generating valuable data and insights to refine your approach. 

Format matters, too: Social Insider’s 2025 LinkedIn Benchmarks study shows multi-image posts (6.6% engagement per impression), native documents (6.1%), and video (5.6%) consistently outperform plain text or links. 

4. Regulatory compliance: Rules around promotion and solicitation limit what can be shared.  

Lead with insight, not hype: Focus on thought leadership, insights, expert observations, and educational content. Steer clear of performance claims likely to trigger regulatory scrutiny. 

5. Slow response times: Multi-layered approval processes and internal politics can strangle momentum. By the time content is signed off, the moment has passed – or the message has been diluted. 

Establish a lean content framework: Set clear content guidelines, streamlined approvals, and rules of engagement – robust enough to manage risk, simple enough to publish content in a timely, decisive manner. Whoever manages the account should have authority to push back internally when individual requests conflict with its goal(s). 

 6. Overloaded internal teams: Overreliance on the corporate account to produce content often creates a bottleneck. It also limits reach and credibility.  

Activate leadership voices: A study by Refine Labs found that posts from personal profiles deliver 2.75× more impressions and 5× higher engagement than company pages, underlining why leadership voices matter. 

In private equity, the voices of Partners, MDs, and investment leads can be powerful amplifiers – yet many firms underuse them.  

Encourage senior leaders to share their perspectives on deals, market trends, or portfolio company milestones – aligned with the firm’s strategy and compliant with regulations. Support them with simple tools (a shared content hub or light-touch ghost-writing) – to make participation easy. 

Engagement matters too: targeted likes, comments, and shares (especially on LP, founder, and intermediary posts) help to keep the firm visible in wider networks without the need to constantly produce new content. 

 

Looking to grow your social media presence? Get in touch.