Social Media in the UK

In recent years, brands have become more adapt at incorporating social media into their marketing strategies. When implemented properly, social CRM can be a powerful tool that should be used to focus on customer engagement and brand transparency. 

The five largest social networks in the UK are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

There are some brands in the UK that are using social media to their advantage and there are many things that these brands do well. 

The tone of voice that a brand adopts throughout its social endeavours can determine its success, those brands that develop a conversational tone of voice and are more helpful to their customers have much better engagement rates. 

Brands that do well on Twitter understand that customer service is King. Twitter users have come to expect speedy replies to their comments and queries so companies need to communicate quickly and effectively with their customers using only 140 characters.

YouTube is a social site neglected by some of the biggest brands, however when used correctly it can be a real boon to a company’s social strategy as it is a great source of shareable content. It is estimated that over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month (May 2013 - YouTube) with 72 hours of video being uploaded every minute.

According the social brands 100 report for 2013 (http://www.socialbrands100.com/downloads/SB100_2013_the_report.pdf) the top 10 UK brands on Facebook are:

The top 10 UK brands on Twitter are:

The top 10 brands on YouTube are:

For brands to remain successful on social platforms in 2014 they will need to ensure there is a focus on sharing the right content. Ranking algorithms, such as Facebook’s Edgerank and Hummingbird from Google, are using more sophisticated methods to rank pages, one of the main ranking criteria being the use engaging and useful content. Posting compelling content is also the only way to get social users to share it, if your content isn’t interesting users will simply ignore it. Users also prefer content that they can connect to, so share posts that link your brand with your fans’ lives and interests. It is predicted that content metrics will become more prominent in 2014 so brands should start to focus on this in their social strategies. 

Thanks to Social Bakers for the stats! Do share @annmariehanlon