UK Ranks 27th In Global Social Media Activity Poll

The Social Engagement Benchmark of GlobalWebIndex, a measure of attitudes and engagement of Internet users across the globe, has placed the UK 27th in terms of consumers’ activity on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, published in a report from the authors of the study this morning.

The study, which uses data from 31 countries, shows that consumers in countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil are more active on social media and are more likely to be posting on social platforms, uploading pictures or video, writing in microblogs or reviewing products and brands than people in the UK. Still, the country has larger numbers of socially engaged consumers when compared to the US and France for example.

It comes as little surprise that those least active on social media in the UK are aged between 55 and 64. Unmarried people who live together with friends tend to participate most often in social media. People in London and the southeast are the most active on social platforms, while those living in the northeast are the least engaged.

GlobalWebIndex rated each aspect of social media use, namely participation, creation and brand involvement, with a maximum score of 400. The marks were then added together and converted to a percentage of the combined 1200 result. The UK scored 41, with China coming first with a 91 mark in the survey. In Europe alone, the best performers were Turkey and Russia with scores of 75 and 61, respectively.

Tom Smith, GlobalWebIndex founder, explains that in more mature markets like the UK most consumers went online before social media became mass market. Because of this, many have never engaged in the same way as those in emerging markets.