Asked by: Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, 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 Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
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.
DfT operates 23 separate social media accounts, and in the last three years it has spent £201.60 on social media subscriptions.
The table below shows how much DfT have spent advertising on social media platforms for each of the last 3 calendar years for public behaviour change campaigns predominantly on road safety and accessibility.
Year | META PLATFORMS IRELAND LIMITED | PINTEREST EUROPE LTD | REDDIT INC | SNAP GROUP LIMITED | TWITTER UK LTD | Total |
2021 | £661,232 | £46,481 | £15,927 | £149,184 | £195,613 | £1,068,437 |
2022 | £485,431 | £4,642 | £54,707 | £311,344 | £200,741 | £1,056,865 |
2023 | £311,333 | £2,101 | £101,775 | £215,300 | £41,448 | £671,957 |
2024 | £276,223 |
| £158,849 | £207,426 | £0 | £642,498 |
Total | £1,734,219 | £53,224 | £331,258 | £883,254 | £437,802 | £3,439,757 |