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:

#
Brand
Sector
1
Guess2Give
Entertainment
2
Appliances Online
Retail
3
Thomas Cook UK
Travel
4
UPS
Transport &
Logistics
5
Thomson Holidays
Travel
6
Captain Morgan GB
FMCG
7
SEAT Mexico
Automotive
8
American Airlines
Travel
9
Tesco
Retail
10
First Choice
Holidays
Travel

The top 10 UK brands on Twitter are:
#
Brand
Sector
1
Debenhams
Retail
2
Adidas UK
Sports Apparel
3
Next
Retail
4
American Airlines
Travel
5
Vue Cinemas
Leisure
6
Battlefield
Entertainment
7
Lufthansa
Travel
8
House of Fraser
Retail
9
Innocent
FMCG
10
Argos
Retail
The top 10 brands on YouTube are:
#
Brand
Sector
1
Battlefield
Entertainment
2
Converse
Retail
3
Warner Bros. Pictures
Publishing & Media
4
Universal Pictures UK
Publishing & Media
5
AllSaints
Retail
6
Fiat UK
Automotive
7
GoPro
Consumer Electronics
8
Classic FM
Publishing & Media
9
Mulberry
Retail
10
Teenage Cancer Trust
Charity
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
 
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping