Member Article

North East is ?tweets ahead? on social media

Newcastle United, Sage UK, Sunderland Football Club and Barbour are ’social media success stories’

North East-based firms are leading the way when it comes to making an impact on social media, according to a new piece of research from Admiral PR.

Of the 200 biggest companies in the North East and North West of England, four of the top five hail from the North East.

Admiral conducted the extensive qualitative and quantitative research to mark the launch of SociaLIGHT - a sophisticated measurement tool that examines over 15 different social media and online ‘markers’, ultimately awarding companies a mark out of 100 to indicate their success.

Giant North West firm Adidas tops the SociaLIGHT Top 200, but is closely followed by North East companies Newcastle United, Sage UK, Sunderland Football Club and Barbour.

Both Newcastle and Sunderland football clubs have developed huge followings on Twitter and Facebook in particular.

Georgie Cameron, founder and MD of Admiral PR said: “Businesses are increasingly understanding that social media has an important role in their sales and communications strategies, but many are not sure how best to use these channels and how to track their progress effectively. That is why we have developed SociaLIGHT.

“As part of our research, we created an index of the top 200 companies in the North East and North West. The results show that Newcastle United achieves the top ranking in the North East because of its outstanding level of engagement with fans on various platforms. We can also see that social media has been taken very much to the heart of the organisation.

“With hundreds of thousands of fans, the region’s football clubs have a natural following for their communications, but all four of the North East firms in the top five are real social media success stories.”

A Newcastle United spokesperson said: “The club continues to play an important role in the lives of people not just in the North East but around the world so it’s very pleasing to be recognised for the quality and effectiveness of our digital communications by the SociaLIGHT Index.

“Embracing social media has enabled us to enhance our engagement and interaction with a global community of supporters; helping them to conveniently access the content and information that matters to them and bringing them even closer to their club and fellow fans. We look forward to building on their experiences with us.”

The research highlighted another well- known North East consumer brand. Go North East stood out for its passionate and successful adoption of Twitter and Facebook, with a large following built up from scratch over the last few years.

“Go North East has not just created a social media following but a social media fan base of its own,” added Cameron.

Admiral says the 2013 Northern SociaLIGHT index is just the start - only eight companies out of the North’s Top 200 achieved scores over 50 out of 100.

Georgie Cameron said: “SociaLIGHT gives a clear picture of the level of social media engagement among Northern businesses today and it shows that many companies are still at the beginning of their social media journey. That is not surprising.

“The impact that social media can have is very often underestimated by a lot of organisations but things are beginning to change. SociaLIGHT gives companies an opportunity to see how they compare with their competitors and where progress can be made.”

A full report of the findings and best practice case studies can be downloaded from Admiral PR’s website.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Admiral PR .