Chamber and committees

Question reference: S6W-33751

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: 21 January 2025
Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 January 2025

Question

To ask the Scottish Government what evaluation criteria it uses to assess the effectiveness of its social media management spending.

Answer

Standard metrics particularly related to social media management include reach (how many people were reached), engagement (how many people engaged with the content) and or follower growth (how many people have chosen to associate with and regularly receive content from the account) among target audiences.

Social media activity will typically be part of a multi-channel campaign and assessing performance on social platforms spans a number of disciplines including of advertising, PR, influencer marketing and paid-for media management.

Our social media management and effectiveness is evaluated in a range of ways, according to the SMART objectives:

Evaluation from Scottish Government’s independent media planning and buying agencies, using audited sector data where available.
Indicators of direct response to a campaign and across specific platforms and channels such as post engagement, views of website content, calls to a website, vaccine uptake, cancer referrals, etc – during the campaign period. This is captured on a continuous basis and insight fed back into a process of continuous improvement.
Where possible, quantitative research also tracks pre and post campaign metrics such as awareness, message take-out, attitudes and claimed behaviour among the target audience.

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