Asked by: Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many social media accounts her Department operates; and how much her Department spent on social media (a) subscriptions and (b) advertisements on each social media platform in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government communicates across a range of media channels in order to reach its target audience effectively. Channels are selected based on whether they will reach the intended audience on a specific issue to have the most impact.
Social media is an essential part of government communications and is used to inform the public directly about matters which may affect their lives or interests.
(a) Subscriptions: DCMS has had a Premium Plus subscription with X (formerly known as Twitter) for two years which costs £168 per annum, and a Reddit subscription since March 2024 at £60 per annum. A breakdown per financial year is as follows:
2024/25 - £228 (X and Reddit).
2023/24 - £178 (X and Reddit).
2022/23 - £0.
2021/22 - £0.
(b) Advertisements: On advertisements, we have calculated figures based on the three previous financial years, excluding 2024/25 given this year has not yet finished. These figures are total amounts spent on advertising and marketing in our campaigns that includes wider campaign costs such as creative development and production, research, evaluation and media channels not limited to social media. We do not have records that give a comprehensive breakdown of each social media platform earlier than FY2023/24 due to the way figures are recorded.
FY2023/24:
In 2023/24, DCMS spent a total of £601,129.14 on advertising and marketing in our campaigns, of which £110,000 was spent on social media advertising. £35,000 was spent on YouTube and £75,000 on Meta and Snapchat.
DCMS also spent an additional £600 boosting social media posts on DCMS owned channels.
FY2022/23:
In 2022/23, DCMS spent a total of £587,958.60 on advertising and marketing in our campaigns, a small contribution of which going to social media advertising. This figure includes campaigns that would now be owned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which were conducted when DCMS still held the Digital portfolio. Social media channels included: Google, Bing, Netmums, YouTube, Facebook, X/Twitter, Giphy, Acast, Spotify, Snapchat, Loop Me, Instagram, Venatus.
DCMS also spent an additional £188.53 boosting social media posts on DCMS owned channels.
FY2021/22:
In 2021/22, DCMS spent a total of £318,844.21 on advertising and marketing in our campaigns, a smaller contribution of which going to social media advertising. This figure includes campaigns that would now be owned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which were conducted when DCMS still held the Digital portfolio. Social media channels included: Spotify, Acast, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Loop-Me, Venatus, Youtube, Google, LinkedIn.
DCMS also spent an additional £639.93 boosting social media posts on DCMS owned channels.