If agencies want to impress clients with their social media expertise, it is important to invest in their own social media presence. Facebook and Twitter are the obvious sites to focus on, and recent research carried out by Kantar Media discussed in its report Walking the Walk, analyses which agencies are most prominent on these sites in France, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Top PR Agencies in Print and Online News Media

Source: Kantar Media

It is interesting to see the different focus of the countries, as UK agencies dominate the Twitter rankings, accounting for 65 per cent of top agencies by number of followers. Spain appears most often in the Facebook rankings, although even on Twitter it is a Spanish agency, apple tree communications, which tops the tables.

Top PR Agencies on Facebook (Fans)

Source: Kantar Media

Facebook is the social network that agencies embrace more than others, yet some agencies still do not believe it to be worth bothering with for business communications. François Nicolon, chief marketing officer at Kantar Media News Intelligence, gives some examples: “Italy’s Soluzione Group features a Facebook button on its website that links to a page reading ‘Facebook is not a B2B social media. For this reason Soluzione Group has decided not to make use of this tool in its communication plan.’ Other Italians seem to agree, with only Conca Delachi and (Hill and Knowlton Strategy outpost) Digital PR appearing in our ranking of top PR agencies by number of Facebook fans; UK agencies are also conspicuous by their absence.”

Top PR Agencies on Facebook (Interactions)

Source: Kantar Media

Spain is the country most keen on Facebook. Half of the top agencies on Facebook, whether measured by number of fans or the level of fan engagement are from Spain says Nicolon, adding: “As the financial crisis takes its toll on Spanish media and advertising, local PROs appear to be looking for more affordable channels that allow more direct access to consumers.”

Top PR Agencies on Twitter

Source: Kantar Media

Twitter is seen as a more useful source of PR leads by agencies. The Spanish agency apple tree has profiles not only for the firm itself, but also for each of its three founding partners. Nicolon says: “The integrated Twitter strategy at apple tree includes live tweets about working sessions (‘bytes’) on the latest online trends, which can be followed under a dedicated hash tag.” Other agencies that build strong relationships with followers include Ogilvy PR London and Camron PR. Nicolon notes how UK agencies “humanise their feeds by introducing the personality of the person behind the profile to otherwise corporate, information-rich accounts”.

Summarising how Twitter is the strongest social media platform for growing business, Kantar’s report quotes TJ McCue, a Forbes contributor, who says: “Twitter is the strongest social media channel for generating B2B leads, outperforming Facebook and LinkedIn nine-to-one, with 82 per cent of social media leads coming from Twitter.”

Background
 

The research was carried out by Kantar Media. A total of 480 PR agencies from France, Italy, Spain and the UK were benchmarked. Data was extracted on 20 February 2013. Where agencies have no region-specific social profiles, global Facebook pages and global Twitter accounts were ignored. Where an agency has more than one region-specific profile on Twitter, only the one with the most followers was used.