Liverpool has topped bigger city rivals Manchester and Birmingham in a new report that ranks UK cities for social media and online news mentions.
Although London unsurprisingly performs the strongest for overall digital mentions, when population is taken into account Liverpool is the champion, demonstrating the strength of the city’s online presence.
The report, The UK’s Most Talked about Cities, provides new insight into which are the most visible UK cities on social media and online news. Produced by ING Media, the leading communications consultancy for the built environment, the report takes global city indices and reorders them by their share of online conversation.
The research is designed to help city policy, placemakers and promoters understand how online presence impacts a city’s brand and highlights why we need to talk about the digital presence of cities, what controls these conversations and how digital conversations are changing the role and nature of cities around the world.
Key findings include:
In terms of the overall ranking, London comes top, and is responsible for over half of all mentions for the Top 20 cities.
Liverpool takes second spot overall, and has the second most mentions on Twitter, Facebook and forums.
Manchester is third overall, and benefiting from media concentration is second for news, blogs and Tumblr.
When population is taken into account, Liverpool tops the list with over 35 online mentions per person a year, more than double Edinburgh and London. Football (limited to 25 per cent of total mentions across mall cities), and The Beatles and its band members feature prominently.
Removing all football mentions related to Liverpool would position the city in third place between Cambridge and Edinburgh.
Oxford and Cambridge, as global centres for academic debate, come in at second and third in the per capita table.
RPA Perspective The report also compared cities’ positions in ING’s digital visibility ranking with their visibility score across 24 global city rankings – calculated by aggregating data from 24 different global city indices.
This comparison shows which UK cities are punching above their weight for digital mentions and which have the most potential tom grow their digital profile.
Along with Liverpool and Oxford, Sheffield is also a strong performer, generating significantly more mentions on digital media relative to their positions on city global city indices.
Liverpool and Sheffield’s online visibility rankings are eight places higher than their city rankings.
Sheffield has the highest proportion of conversations taking place on Twitter.
Coventry, Nottingham, Belfast and Aberdeen are the cities that have the most potential to grow their digital profile. Global city rankings highlight these as the cities we should pay attention to, but this doesn’t necessarily translate to the digital world, where these cities attract fewer mentions than their peers.
Leanne Tritton, Managing Director ING Media, said: “UK cities are investing heavily into building brands that reflect their attractiveness as cultural, business and education centres. Measuring their digital visibility provides a clearer insight into how these cities and towns perform as brands compared to their peers. London dominates but, surprisingly, Liverpool punches well above its weight, coming second overall and topping the table when weighted for population.”
Peter Griffiths, City Strategist at ING Media, said: “Global surveys benchmark cities and major towns against almost every aspect of urban life. These rankings influence investment, where talent concentrates and our travel choices. However, there is little comparative research into the impact digital messaging is having on cities as brands.
“Our ranking takes the Top 20 cities according to global city indices, and reorders them by their share of the online conversation. It shows which cities punch above their weight and which show the most potential for increasing their digital profiles – as well as which cities are talking the most about culture, technology, business, liveability and talent.”
