LinkedIn, Retail Investors, and the Lost Narrative

Financial success is, at its core, the art of aligning conversations across stakeholders. Every company that goes public does so by mastering two forms of communication. First, they invest in understanding consumer behaviour—how to position products, trigger purchases, and build brand loyalty. Then they invest in institutional investor communications —hiring elite talent, crafting sophisticated decks around growth metrics and competitive positioning. After they go public, retail investors start paying attention. Thanks to frictionless digital trading, these retail investors now represent a substantial chunk of global equity ownership. They drive trading volatility, amplify market sentiment, and provide public companies with the patient capital that institutions increasingly cannot. Statistically, retail investors now account for around 52% of daily transactions. Electronic demat accounts in India have surged to 194 million in 2025, up from 36 million in 2019. This isn’t marginal growth. This is a structural transformation.



These retail investors reach their decisions through one of three routes: a company’s attractive public face (more common in consumer-facing sectors, or a few visible B2B categories with symbolic brands); a market tip (often masquerading as insider insight, though mostly rumor); or self-analysis (identifying a favorable data point—a friendly P/E, strong PAT, competitive moats etc). Across all three routes, this investor group reads more than balance sheets. They read balance sheets and digital feeds. And surprisingly, at times, just the digital feeds (LinkedIn, X, industry blogs). Yet most public companies still treat LinkedIn as a peripheral PR channel instead of deploying it as a strategic tool for building retail investor conviction.



Most Indian listed companies still communicate only through traditional formats (annual reports, quarterly calls, static PDFs), mediums that not only lack narrative context but are also invisible to the mechanics of digital discovery. They sit outside the searchable surface of the internet, far from the eyes of SEO and the everyday information diet of modern investors. And not just conventional SEO, traditional formats are far from AI-powered discovery. LinkedIn is one of the most cited sources by AI. Across LLMs, LinkedIn was cited in more than 11% of all answers, ahead of Wikipedia (9.8%), YouTube (8.77%), Google (3.18%), etc.



This digital absence invites the market to fill in the blanks, forcing investors to perform their own reverse engineering of the company’s strategy and consequently its valuation. More than 60% of Indian public companies still lack any presence on LinkedIn; those that do are far from leveraging it effectively. Much like the early years of other social platforms, on LinkedIn, too, brands have rushed to generate interaction without aligning their communication with business objectives. A platform capable of directly influencing valuation is being used as a scoreboard for vanity metrics. Sophisticated public companies with billion-dollar market capitalisations are posting content indistinguishable from that of recent graduates seeking attention (generic motivational quotes, obligatory holiday greetings, and recycled press releases).



For fancy future valuations, continuous and genuine thought leadership is indispensable. A company that regularly articulates its logic, long-term bets, and cultural rhythm creates familiarity and trust. The perception that forms in an investor’s mind shifts from cold analysis to shared understanding.



This principle isn’t new. Legendary entreprenneurs like Thomas Edison understood it long before modern capital markets existed. Edison’s greatest innovation wasn’t the light bulb; it was his demonstrations at Menlo Park. Through frequent theatrical demonstrations and strategic press relations, he attracted continuous investments. His storytelling prowess ensured a continuous flow of capital and fame.

Thought leadership is an art that requires a peculiar balance of storytelling talent, business acumen, and long-term vision—and it cannot be outsourced to social media marketers. It demands rigorous research and the strategic ownership of senior management. When a CEO publishes analysis explaining why traditional valuation metrics mislead in their industry, or why conventional wisdom about their business model misses critical dynamics, they are not pitching or advertising. They are educating. This requires deep research into competitive dynamics, financial structure, and market positioning—work that only leadership teams can authentically undertake. This is not about hyping share prices. It’s about ensuring that investors capable of understanding your business model have access to the substantiated reasoning behind your value—delivered consistently through channels where they actually consume information.