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2013

of North East companies that are excelling in social media: software

giant Sage Software UK and bus operator Go North East.

While this report illuminates the commitment of businesses in the

North East to social media, look out for further indices being published

by our network of offices throughout the UK. Once all are published,

we will analyse them to create the most comprehensive nationwide index

available to date.

Georgie Cameron

Managing Director

@GeorgieCameron

@admiralpr

Over the past year, we have seen a real tipping point in social media,

where all (rather than just a proportion) of our clients are now proactively

asking how they can get the best out of social media for their businesses.

But how do you measure how successful a business is at harnessing

social media? We all know that the world is interacting online, so how

do we shine a light on how good we are at participating?

The launch of this Index reflects months of research at Admiral HQ,

in which we have developed our own proprietary set of metrics to

determine how well a brand communicates via the social web.

Every organisation goes through a distinct journey, from the adoption

of social media all the way through to it being truly embedded in its

corporate culture. Our report shows a snapshot of where 100* of the

region’s top brands currently are on their journey, in order that their

progress can then be measured over time.

During our research process, we have also discovered that the Index can

provide really useful intelligence for company directors wishing to

understand how they fare against competitors in the social media space.

As well as an index of the top 100 companies in order of overall social

media performance, this report also examines two best practice examples

Foreword

* Taken from The Newcastle Journal’s Top 200 rankings of North East Businesses 2012.

P2 © admiralpr 2013

Organisational communication is shifting rapidly from traditional forms

of advertising, marketing and public relations. It’s the story of the

fragmentation of media from print to online. The future lies in direct

engagement with audiences and markets via digital forms of media.

It’s an incredibly exciting time.

Stephen Waddington

Chairman

@wadds

‘‘ ‘‘

© admiralpr 2013 P3

The term social media includes an array of countless internet-based

tools, platforms and communities that increase and enhance the sharing

of information on a range of levels.

For some businesses, the objectives behind their social media activity

could be to drive traffic to their website for sales and marketing reasons.

For others, it could be the strategy they use to support customer service

or to drive customer engagement. For a truly social business, it will be all

of these reasons and critically, to manage its online reputation.

Our index measures where each of the companies reviewed scores on

its social media journey. That is, are they at the starting line, looking

and listening to what others are doing on social media, or have they

progressed to become a truly social business where social media is not

just owned by the marketing department but has pervaded all parts of

the business to a greater or lesser extent?

What is the Social Media Journey?The purpose of the index is to put the top 100 businesses in the

North East (as identified by revenue) in the spotlight and to measure

which ones are leading the way in social media.

Working with several media platforms and analytics, the index assesses

which businesses are using which channels and where they are on their

social media journey to becoming truly social businesses. The result isn’t

intended to be a definitive list of good and bad. Rather, it tells a story

of how seriously the top 100 businesses in the North East currently

consider social media channels to be and helps them and us to monitor

how this changes over time.

About the SociaLIGHT Index


What is the Social Media Journey?

Clearly, different industry sectors will also have different requirements

and their social media engagement should reflect this. An online retailer,

for example, may wish to set a goal of becoming a truly social business,

whereas a company in the oil and gas supply chain may only need to use

social media as a channel.

Social Media Journey Milestones

Social as a toolListen & reach:

mass audience

Social as a channelParticipate & broadcast:

marketing via social media

Social as a PlatformEngage & capture:

understand sentiment, drive purchase

Social OrganisationBuild: reveal patterns in behaviours,

deepen relationships, transform business

Organisations are no longer reliant on traditional

media as a proxy to communicate with their

customers and prospects. Thanks to the web and

social media they can now become publishers and

curators of their own story.

Stephen Waddington

@wadds

‘‘ ‘‘


well as the use of videos, images, polls and competitions where relevant.

Blogs are assessed on content, accessibility, topicality, opinions, voice

and tone as well as their frequency and use of photography and images.

Evaluating a social journey is a complex process and our analysts are

sometimes faced with challenges in finding a company’s social media

pages. If there are no links from the website, search engines are used to

trawl the web as well as the individual platforms. A reasonable amount

of time is spent trying to track down alternative names under which

the company trades, ‘blogs’ that appear on their own webpages or

unknown Twitter handles but ultimately if they are difficult for us to find

then customers are likely to be equally baffled and the score will be low.

The points below provides an overview of each of the observable markers

and the weighting we give.

Our analytics begin with the company’s website; here we evaluate the

content with particular attention to integrated social media links and

the ease with which the customer can reach the various platforms. In

the early stage of the process, numbers are relevant and we take into

account whether a company has a presence on the key social media

platforms and if it does, we grade the actual number of likes or followers

recorded as well as the frequency and volume of entries or posts. Finally,

we source statistics from independent industry sources which attach

specific figures to the traffic to and from the various mediums.

The next step is to look in depth at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube,

Google+ and the company’s blog (if they produce one). While the

social platforms are varied, they all share a common purpose: to host

the interaction between the business and the individuals that make up

its community, whether this be another business or consumer. We look

for content that is of a high quality, covering varied topics and seek

out corporate platforms where companies act as hosts for debates or

provide a forum for customers and business contacts to engage with

one another. Interaction is important, as are calls to action and the

establishment of relationships. We assess the tone, corporate imaging

and messaging and how they are adapted to the different platforms as

Methodology

Ultimately the metrics for engagement with your audiences and market should

be rooted in your own organisational objectives. Just as no two organisations

are likely to share the same business objectives, no two organisations can

share the same metrics for social engagement.

Stephen Waddington @wadds

‘‘ ‘‘


Facebook

• The number / quality of likes;

• The frequency / quality / variety of content

distribution;

• The comments on posts (are relationships being

made/built?) and the quality of the interaction;

• Calls to action: polls, competitions and

campaigns where relevant;

• The use of plug-ins /photos /links; and

• The tone of voice and image projected.

Twitter

• The number / quality of followers;

• The quality of the people the company is

following;

• Level of interaction and conversations;

• The number / quality of tweets distributed;

• The number / quality of re-tweets both by the

company and by others; and

• The tone of voice and image projected.

Google+

• The number of people included in circles;

• The number of people who include them in

their circles;

• The number of posts distributed and the quality,

variety and tone of their content;

• The number of comments and type of

interaction;

• The quality, content and relevance of posts

distributed; and

• How many posts have been +1.

YouTube

• How regularly the videos are posted;

• Levels of interest in the videos posted and

videos posted by customers;

• The quality and relevance of the videos; and

• The comments posted to the videos and the

replies.

LinkedIn

• The number / quality of connections;

• The distribution of quality content relevant to

the platform; and

• The quality of company information available.

Blog

• The number / quality of posts;

• Thought leadership – an analysis of whether

they reflect the opinions and expert voices of a

variety of company representatives;

• The comments / replies on posts; and

• Relevant links to website(s)/social media site(s)

as well as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),

accessibility and the signposting of the blog

from other platforms.


What are we looking for during the scoring process?

=13 Benfield Motors 45

=13 A Shares & Sons (SCS) 45

=15 Draeger Safety UK 41

=15 Nissan Motors UK 41

17 Faithful & Gould 40

18 Carillion Energy Services 38

19 Go North East 37

=20 Barchester (CB Care) 35

=20 Arriva UK 35

=22 PII Group (GE Energy) 33

=22 Priory Healthcare 33

=24 Northumbrian Water 32

=24 Marlow Foods (Quorn) 32

Rank Company Score

1 Newcastle United 73

2 Sage UK 72

3 Sunderland Football Club (SAFC) 70

4 Barbour 68

5 Virgin Money 62

6 NIKE ACG 60

=7 Magnet Ltd 50

=7 SG Petch 50

=9 Parsons Brinckerhoff Holdings 49

=9 Hays Travel 49

11 Greggs 47

12 P D Parks Ltd (Parkdean Holidays) 46

The Rankings


39 Rettig UK Ltd (Purmo) 24

40 The Kerfoot Group 22

41 BEL Valves 21

=42 Grundfos Manufacturing 20

=42 Vertu Motors Plc 20

=42 Heerema Fabrication Group 20

45 SMD Ltd 19

=46 Camerons Brewery 18

=46 LSL Property Services 18

48 Simpsons Malt 17

=49 Springfield Cars 16

=49 Home Group 16

=51 Fujifilm Diosynth Biotech 15

=26 Gentoo Group 31

=26 Bannatyne Fitness 31

=28 Ineos Newton Aycliffe 30

=28 Northern Power Grid 30

=28 Thorn Lighting Ltd 30

=28 Mill Garages 30

=32 D S Smith Packaging 27

=32 Grainger Plc 27

=34 Intraining Group 26

=34 A & P Group Marine 26

=36 Sabic UK Petrochemicals Ltd 25

=36 Positive Solutions 25

=36 Husqvarna Group 25


=65 Fabrick Housing Group 11

=65 P D Portco Ltd 11

=65 Vestbrown Ltd (Esh Holdings) 11

=68 Hargreaves Services Plc 10

=68 Newcastle Building Society 10

=68 Pearsons Engineering (Reece Group) 10

=68 Saica Pack Ltd 10

=68 Renolit Cramlington 10

=73 Cleveland Potash Ltd 9

=73 CTC Marine Projects Ltd (Deep Ocean) 9

=73 Ensus 9

=73 Fenwick Ltd 9

=77 Spartan UK (Metinvest) 8

=51 Hertel UK 15

=51 Komatsu UK Ltd 15

=51 Sembcorp Utilities Ltd 15

=51 Svitzer Marine Ltd 15

=51 Thyssenkrupp Tallent (Gestamp Tallent) 15

=57 Darchem Engineering 14

=57 ISG Holdings (Stelrad) 14

=57 Tolent Plc 14

=60 Ineos Nitriles UK 13

=60 Bellway Homes 13

=62 Cleveland Cable Company 12

=62 SSI UK 12

=62 Northgate Plc 12


=87 Aesica Pharmaceuticals 4

=87 Kitwave Ltd 4

93 Hutton Chemicals (HCL) 3

=94 Lotte Chemicals UK 2

=94 NEPIA (North) 2

=94 NFPA Holdings 2

=94 Tioxide Europe Ltd 2

=94 T Crossling & Co 2

=94 R&R Icecream 2

100 Indigo Taco 0

=77 CAV Aerospace 8

=77 Heavy Construction Machinery Ltd (H M Plant) 8

=77 S Jennings Group Ltd 8

=81 BMSL Group 7

=81 DuPont Teijin Films Uk 7

=81 GrainCo Ltd 7

=84 Sunderland Marine Mutual 5

=84 Texon International Group 5

=84 Pyeroy Group 5

=87 Gibson O’Neil Company (Bulkhaul Org) 4

=87 Paragon Group 4

=87 R-Tek Ltd 4

=87 Unipres UK Ltd 4


individuals have learned best practice and how to communicate online

and, in turn, promote and steer social media communication within their

own areas of the company. A Sage Business Experts programme has

also been established to support selected key members of the business

community via social media.

Now, out of a hundred North East companies, Sage has achieved the

second highest rating in the Admiral PR SocialLIGHT Index.

Catherine Sheldon says they are thrilled because the ranking shows that

“the hard work of the last few years has been validated”.

What is more, the extension of the company’s ability to engage in dialogue

with its customer base means that valuable interaction is relayed back to

product developers and managers within the company.

In the future, Sage plans to build on its existing programme of

developing its people and continuing interaction with customers while

refining new ways to measure and monitor this. Catherine says that

“great content” is still essential to add value and that the unique qualities

of social media features will continue to be essential for research and

development into the future.

When Catherine Sheldon, Digital PR Specialist at software giant Sage

UK, took the first steps along the company’s journey into social media

four years ago, it was with “a little trepidation”. A member of the PR

team, her goal was to make sure that Sage was represented in the best

light, communicating with customers and new business prospects in a

new two way dialogue which gave them “an extraordinary customer

experience”. The focus at this time was on “doing a few things really

well” and Catherine concentrated on a blog and Twitter. The results

were carefully evaluated in terms of people’s reactions and responses,

not simply the number of followers, but the impact this social media

communication had on the brand through a sophisticated tracking

process, including the use of Google Analytics.

Two and a half years later, social media communication at Sage went to

another level. A budget was agreed, an external agency employed and a

wider sweep of social media was introduced, while Catherine continued

to be a “dedicated internal resource”. The company’s strategy focused

on advocacy for its brand online and an increase in the quality and

quantity of digital conversations being held. A Social Media University

was established, delivering an intense course twice a year to individuals

across the company. As the thirty-five Social Media Champions, these

CASE STUDY - SAGE UK


Other businesses may take comfort from the fact that Sage’s success in

this sphere did not happen overnight but that with the right strategic

input from a specialist in social media communication great results were

possible. “Thankfully,” Catherine says, “it’s been a process of evolution

and not revolution”.


The Sage: sponsored by Sage Group PLC

What we’ve learned

Admiral’s SociaLIGHT Index rates the top North East Businesses. There

is much that they have in common in terms of platforms adopted and

basic level of engagement.

The businesses that are most active in social media typically score highly

against our Facebook and Twitter metrics, but also have high levels of

engagement on other platforms.

Generally speaking, we were expecting B2C companies to be further

along their social media journeys, and this was largely the case.

Companies that by nature communicate directly with consumer

audiences generally get significant reaction to content that they post on

social platforms and therefore usually have high content traffic.

B2B businesses, even those in very niche sectors, do have social platforms

- but are less likely to use them actively and have a lower social media

journey score.

The following provides some further insight by type of company and by channel.

InsightsTop Scoring - B2B

Company Index Score out of 100

Sage UK 72

SG Petch 50

Parsons Brinckerhoff Holdings 49

Drager Safety UK 41

Faithful and Gould 40

Carillion Energy Services 38

PII Group (GE Energy) 33

Ineos Newton Aycliffe 30

D S Smith Packaging 27

Grainger Plc 27

Top Scoring - B2C


Newcastle United 73

Sunderland AFC 70

Barbour 68

Virgin Money 62

NIKE ACG 60

Magnet Ltd 50

Hays Travel 49

Greggs 47

P D Parks Ltd (Parkdean Holidays) 46

Benfield Motors 45

The Results: By Company Type (B2B or B2C) and By Platform


Top Scoring - TwitterCompany Index Score

out of 100

Newcastle United 85

Sunderland Football Club (SAFC) 85

Virgin Money 75

NIKE ACG 74

Sage UK 74

Barbour 64

Greggs 64

Go North East 63

S G Petch 63

A Shares & Sons (SCS) 58

Top Scoring - FacebookCompany Index Score

out of 100

Barbour 80

Nissan Motors UK 80

Newcastle United 70


Greggs 70

Go North East 70

Virgin Money 60

Sage UK 60

PII Group (GE Energy) 60

NIKE ACG 50


Arriva UK 50

Hays Travel 50


Magnet Ltd 50

Draeger Safety UK 50

Marlow Foods (Quorn) 50

Komatsu UK Ltd 50

The Results: By Company Type (B2B or B2C) and By Platform


Top Scoring - LinkedInCompany Index Score

out of 100



Sabic UK Petrochemicals Ltd 50

NIKE ACG 40

Barchester (CB Care) 40

Faithful & Gould 40

Sage UK 35

Virgin Money 35

Gentoo Group 35

Newcastle United 30

Hays Travel 30


Hertel UK 30

Thorn Lighting 30

Heerma Fabrication Group 30

Ineos Newton Aycliffe 30

Positive Solutions 30

Top Scoring - Google+



NIKE ACG 60

Newcastle United 50

Barbour 45

Sage UK 45


Magnet Ltd 45

Virgin Money 40


S G Petch 35

Northumbrian Water 35

Camerons Brewery 35


Top Scoring - YouTube


Virgin Money 60


Sage UK 40

Newcastle United 40


Barbour 40

Arriva UK 40

Nissan Motors UK 40


NIKE ACG 30

Barchester (CB Care) 30

Thorn Lighting 30

Positive Solutions 30



Magnet Ltd 30

S G Petch 30

Priory Healthcare 30

Benfield Motors 30

Northern Powergrid 30

A & P Group Marine 30

Bannatyne Fitness 30

Marlow Foods (Quorn) 30

Mill Garages 30

Top Scoring - BlogsCompany Index Score

out of 100

Sage UK 60

Barbour 50

Faithful & Gould 50

Newcastle United 40

S G Petch 40

Benfield Motors 40


Magnet Ltd 30

A & P Group Marine 30

Bannatyne Fitness 30

Mill Garages 30

Hays Travel 30

The Kerfoot Group 30

LSL Property Services 30


Twitter

The micro-blogging platform is home to every kind of niche community

imaginable. From financial journalists to fans of every sports team,

Twitter is where news is broken, content is originated and shared, and

gossip goes global. Twitter is the most popular social platform for UK

companies using it as part of their social media marketing or online PR

activity, with that proportion of companies standing at 87%.

Google+

One of the more recently-launched social platforms, Google+ was met

with some media cynicism, yet has more than 100 million monthly

active users as of October 2012. These users are still considered “early

adopters” at this stage, but Google+’s growth rate has convincingly

established it as a competitor to Facebook. The latest addition to the

platform, Google+ Hangouts, is anticipated to speed up the process.

Facebook

Still by far the biggest social network in the UK and globally, with a

billion active users every month, astonishingly Facebook is still growing.

A recent social media report by Econsultancy shows that 82% of

UK businesses actively use Facebook as part of their marketing and

communications strategy, while 100% of the UK’s top 250 businesses

have at least a presence on the network.

LinkedIn

The business networking site, particularly effective for business-to-

business connections, is comfortably in the top four of social platforms

used by UK businesses, and is 6th across the whole UK population,

with almost 5 million unique UK visitors every month and 175 million

members worldwide.

Facts and Figures


Blogs

Central to a business that is on its way to integrating social media fully

as part of its culture is the company blog and the SociaLIGHT index is

weighted to reflect this. Not every section on a website labelled ‘blog’

can genuinely lay claim to the name. Nor should a regularly updated,

topical, opinionated column not be counted because it carries a different

name. The requirement for a blog is that it is a section of a website

which has a personality of its own, distinct from the main corporate

pages. Industry issues, current affairs, topical advice and opinions are all

included. Rolling news feeds containing press releases are not.

In a company that is advanced in its social media journey, the content

of all platforms, but the blog in particular, are within the ownership of

all departments, not just the marketing and PR teams, and the content

should reflect this.

Also essential to a good blog is the way it works with other social media

platforms. Signposting, links to and from the blog, SEO and integration

are therefore also important.

Unlike previous forms of communication

social media activity is measurable and

a lot more efficient than advertising,

marketing or traditional public relations.

Every click on the web leaves a footprint.

Stephen Waddington

@wadds

‘‘ ‘‘


and commentary and pursuing an “open all hours” policy, the number

of Facebook followers rose rapidly to 9,000. “We became a dependable

friend,” says Stephen.

Over the appalling winter of 2010/2011 the service was adopted by

some motorists as a vital resource to help them deal with extreme

weather needs, the customer service team was given additional resources

and with better organisation, extended hours and faster response

times, Facebook likes numbers rose to 30,000. The use of blogs and

the promotion of big attractions or events taking part along bus routes

extended the scope of the service and during 2011 Go North East also

addressed the growing importance of mobile communications.

‘Key Mobile’, a set of mobile phone apps, was introduced providing

operational updates as well as news and offers with a wider appeal.

Subsequently “M-ticketing” was incorporated into the app and the social

networking mix extended to include mail, email, phone, live online chats

and one to one chats with directors. Twitter numbers remain modest

relative to Facebook but Stephen King says “it is not a concern given the

demographics and relative strengths/benefits of the two channels and

the fact they are growing all the time.”

“With a consumer market increasingly sceptical of hard sell and puffery,

social media couldn’t have come along at a better time for Go North

East,” says Stephen King, Marketing and Sales Manager.

Realising that there had been a widespread take up of Facebook among

its customer base, the leading bus operator in the North East saw that

social media was the way forward to provide customers with an excellent

level of information rich, informal communication.

Traditional channels like newspaper and local radio were slow and when

it came to operational updates, they were entirely inadequate. With the

population in general becoming used to accessing information in real

time, the company saw the enormous business potential for those in a

public transport environment to develop “a multi-channel offering” and

they began by investing in a Facebook presence and put resources into

its development.

In terms of social media communication Stephen says “the severe winter

of 2009/2010 provided a boost”. Commercial team staff monitoring

and engaging in social media channels were supported by depot staff

in the early mornings, evenings and weekends. By posting live updates

SIMPLY GO DIGITALCASE STUDY - GO NORTH EAST


Robust statistics show what Go North East has achieved: there are

55,000 likes on Facebook and 10,000 followers on Twitter while there

have been almost 5.5 million views on mobile simplygo, 27,000 ‘Key

Mobile’ app downloads and 10,000 ‘M-ticket’ app downloads. Into the

future, a drive to increase digital communication with customers remains

central to the company’s marketing plans. Into 2013, they state that

“social media is at the core.”


• Do we have a set of objectives in place that social media can

measurably help us achieve (e.g. higher and more relevant web traffic)?

Seven years ago, Twitter did not even exist. This year, more people in the

UK are expected to access the Internet via mobile devices while out and

about living their daily lives, than on desktop computers. That should put

into context the astonishing speed with which the Social Age has taken

over. Today, every organisation knows that online is fast becoming a

default environment for human interaction, and there only remains one

option: participate!

Putting this number of businesses under the social performance spotlight

provides an opportunity to reflect on what is working for them, and

what the challenge ahead might be.

The first challenge most businesses will consider when looking at

their ranking will be how to improve against their direct competitors.

Questions they should therefore be asking themselves might be:

• Do we really understand where our customers are participating online

and do we understand what content interests them?

• What are our competitors doing that we are not doing?

• Are we being proactive or only reactive?

• Are we genuinely contributing to conversations or just broadcasting

our own messages?

• Is our content interesting, engaging and worth sharing?

• Are we best equipped to deal quickly and effectively with any negative

conversations that people might be having about us or with us on

public platforms?

• Do we have the resource in-house or with our PR agency to participate

meaningfully in social media?

The issues – and what next?


Influencers: key people in communities who are either well read by, or

looked up to, by the community that they inhabit.

Social Age: The period of time since Web 2.0 emerged in the early part

of 2000, enabling individuals to network, share information, collaborate

and create content.

Social Network: An online service, platform or site that facilitates the

building of social relations among people.

For more information contact:

Admiral PR

Milburn House

Dean Street

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 1LE

Tel: 0191 222 0722

Email: [email protected]

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