Social Media Strategy

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 8 March 2022.

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Photo of Tom Giffard Tom Giffard Conservative 2:30, 8 March 2022

I thank the First Minister for that answer. First Minister, you will recall a few weeks ago, when I asked you about the Welsh Government's moribund Wales.com social media, you said that I needed to spend

'a little less time trailing Instagram'. 

You will be delighted to know I followed your advice; I've been looking at TikTok instead. [Laughter.]

You will recall that my colleague Andrew R.T. Davies submitted a freedom of information request last year, and discovered, in the financial year of 2021 alone, the Welsh Government spent over £135,000 on advertising on TikTok. That's one year on one social media website. But, when Andrew R.T. Davies asked what the total reach of the posts was in return for the money spent, he was told the Welsh Government didn't store that data. If that's true, it means the Welsh Government has no idea how many people that spending reached, whether it reached the right people, or whether the money was well spent. No trail, no nothing.

Do you share my concerns, First Minister, that spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in this way, and having no means whatsoever to judge whether that was effective or not, is an incredibly poor way of spending taxpayers' money?