It’s been a year since Air Cover PR last analysed the movers and shakers amongst the UK mortgage media. The runners. The riders. At the time I thought it would be a useful one-off tool for CEOs, sales and marketing directors, and CMOs trying to prioritise their mortgage PR efforts in the mortgage space. I still think that. But the response was not overwhelmingly positive. By way of example, one representative of the fourth estate called it “crap”. Well, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about…
MORTGAGE PR: A GREATER FOCUS ON LINKEDIN
It’s been an interesting year for the various outlets floating in and around the mortgage broking space. The trend I have noticed most clearly is the run the industry has taken at LinkedIn where there have clearly been sustained efforts to build follower bases — mortgage PR is relatively late to the LinkedIn party.
There’s been some growth in the number of followers on X / the artist formerly known as Twitter, with an average increase of about 2 per cent. There’s been a bit of action on Facebook, with the average broker and IFA outlet adding 16 per cent to their following. Instagram is a mixed bag: across the wider intermediary press (including the IFA titles) there’s probably been a small drop in the average number of followers; across the mortgage / non-specialist titles, it’s up 7 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum, on LinkedIn the mortgage press has increased followers by more 50 per cent.
MORTGAGE INTRODUCER
So much for the socials. Mortgage PR needs to care about the traffic, too. When it comes down to individual titles, the latest Similarweb report appears to put Mortgage Introducer at the top of the heap in terms of the sum of all visits (on desktop and mobile) with 439,100 visits over the last month. But that’s a global number for mpamag.com: 30 per cent of that traffic will originate from the US; 25 per cent will come from Canada; and another 24 per cent will come from Australia and New Zealand combined. Similarweb says less than 13 per cent of the traffic is coming from the UK.
MORTGAGE SOLUTIONS
Scratch the surface and Mortgage Solutions remains king in terms of traffic. It was getting 357,700 hits a month when I checked and 98.58 per cent of those were coming from the UK. Solutions also has the most LinkedIn followers with almost 12,400. You’d think it was all over social like a rash but it’s clinging on to Google+ despite the fact Google pulled the plug on it in 2019 — there’s a G+ link on the Solutions website.
MORTGAGE STRATEGY
As Solutions dominates LinkedIn, so Mortgage Strategy dominates X, as it has done since at least 2020. 17,100 followers now. The worry is, what does Strategy do if the platform implodes as Elon Musk attempts to turn it into an “everything app” that handles all of a person’s financial transactions as well as their social connections, taking over the world’s financial systems at the same time…? I suppose Strategy has the podcasts (three now, I think) and it is one of the few outlets to have jumped on Threads back in July — 46 followers. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.
FINANCIAL REPORTER
Financial Reporter has put on more X followers than its rivals, adding 400 in the last year. It still has more Facebook followers than the rest, too — 1,200. Interestingly, it’s not having a pop at Instagram. Of all the mortgage broker titles, Financial Reporter is the one I’d have expected to have a presence there. It’s so on brand.
INTRODUCER TODAY
Introducer Today limps on. It’s losing followers on X and I don’t think it’s even got a presence on LinkedIn. It is on Facebook still but has fewer followers than the rest of the pack — only 243. No Instagram. I can’t imagine it’s going to be taking Threads by storm any time soon.
BEST ADVICE
BestAdvice has more followers on X and Facebook than Introducer Today and is on LinkedIn. I like the site, too; it’s easy to navigate. Trackers, Conveyancing, Green Mortgages, and HMO/MUFB all have their own pages. You know where to look. The mellifluous Kevin Rose has experimented with podcasts (there’s been nothing in the last year though). But these are low bars. SimilarWeb says the site has 24,500 visits over the last month (all of them in the UK); The Intermediary will have double the traffic soon. That’s sad given BestAdvice was launched in 1999 and The Intermediary is only about two years old.
THE INTERMEDIARY
It’s The Intermediary that has all the momentum at the moment. Over the last year, it’s increased its X following by 10 per cent (albeit from a low base) adding about 300 followers. It has added more LinkedIn followers than any other publication and now has almost 6,800. The Intermediary tells me engagement is high — and that they want to overtake Mortgage Introducer by the end of September and Strategy by the end of November. Given the numbers, this looks feasible. The Intermediary has also grown its Facebook followers more than any other mortgage broking title. The mag is coming out regularly and circulation is, apparently, 2,250. It’s also one of the only two mortgage broking outlets to be having a pop at Threads with 99 followers. A year ago one industry veteran told me that The Intermediary was “fucked” and “going nowhere”. 12 months on, it’s the one to watch.
While you’re here, take a look at some of my mortgage PR services you may be interested in:
Messaging
Placed Articles
Research Release
White Papers
Indices
Need help?
If you would like help with your mortgage PR, then bringing on a mortgage PR consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with mortgage lenders and brokers in London, Surrey, Hampshire, and Kent.