Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what amount her Department spent on (a) advertisements placed on social media websites, (b) other promotional activities on social media, (c) social media consultants and (d) other activity related to social media in each of the last five years.

The total spend since April 2010 by the Department in total is:
a) Advertising placed on social media websites: £460,389
b) Other promotional activities on social media: £20,000
c) Social media consultants: £0
d) Other activity related to social media: £31,064
The following table outlines spend by the Department on social media advertising and promotional activity over the past five financial years.
To note:
• Spend includes net media costs, excluding production and related fees, and VAT.
• Costs for 2014/15 shows campaign spend to date.
• There was no spend in the 2010-11 Financial Year due to a Government-wide freeze on marketing and advertising spend.
• Costs regarding ‘other activity related to social media’ include the cost to measure online conversation (‘buzz monitoring’) on social media channels as a way to evaluate campaign effectiveness.