Scottish Government social media subscriptions and advertising spend: FOI release

Information requested

You asked how much money has the Scottish Government spent on i) advertising and ii) subscriptions, upgrades or memberships for the following social media platforms:

Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Tik Tok, Instagram, LinkedIn

And could this be broken down by the following financial years:

2024/25, 2023/24, 2022/23

Response

The following table sets out the total advertising spend for social media marketing expenditure as requested for the financial years 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024- 25 broken down by platform/supplier. Please note that advertising expenditure is not split out separately for Facebook and Instagram, as placements are purchased through Meta's unified platform.

Channel	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
Meta (facebook/Instagram)	£745,406.00	£476,498	£278,942.14
X	£136,494.45	£0	£0
Tik Tok	£58,532	£0	£0
Linkedin	£63,414.73	£24,780	£7,437.96
Total	£1,003,847.18	£501,278	£286,380.10

The table below shows total spend on subscriptions, upgrades or memberships across the requested channels. The costs incurred are for a Linkedin subscription only and are in relation to recruitment advertising.

Channel	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
Meta (facebook/Instagram)	£0	£0	£0
X	£0	£0	£0
Tik Tok	£0	£0	£0
Linkedin	£75,100	£92,887	£92,887
Total	£75,100	£92,887	£92,887

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.