Stormont’s Executive Office spent more than a quarter of a million pounds on social media adverts about Brexit and Covid, it has emerged.
The full sum spent on all advertisements on platforms including Facebook, Twitter (now X) and Instagram over a five-year period was revealed following an Assembly question by DUP Stangford MLA Michelle McIlveen.
The Executive Office, headed by first and deputy first ministers Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little Pengelly since last February, paid for the ads on behalf of Executive departments.
A breakdown of advertising costs shows that a total of £230,650.22 was spent between 2020 and 2024, on ads for public information campaigns on Brexit, Covid and the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.
The largest annual sum, £122,937.98, was spent by the Executive Office in the 2020/21 period, with £101,037.97 going towards ads on Covid at the height of the pandemic.
The remainder of that period’s spend, £21,900.01, went towards ads on Brexit, including on the EU Settlement Scheme.
Of that period’s total ad spend, the largest payment, £50,505.91 was made to Facebook, while £27,210.55 was made to Twitter.
The previous 12 months had seen a total social media ad spend of £6,665.60, solely on Brexit information ads.
In 2021/22, a total of £83,831.57 was spent on ads, with the bulk, £80,487.22 going towards Covid-related content.
Once again, Facebook and Twitter received the largest payments for the ads, with the former being paid £37,883.70 and the latter £19,812.43.
The remainder of that period’s ad spend went to Instagram (£24,374.75), Snapchat (£11,601.05), and TikTok (£9,245.72).
In 2022/23, social media ad spending fell to £13,011.14, and focused solely on Covid.
Three payments of just over £3,500 was paid to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X in that period, with just over £1,250 each paid to TikTok and Snapchat.
The spending in 2023/24 was solely on Historical Institutional Abuse content on Facebook and Instagram, at a total cost of £4,203.93.
The written response to Ms McIlveen’s question, states: “The Executive Office currently operates fifteen social media accounts on behalf of the department and the NI Executive, as well as specific business areas.
“The Executive Office undertook a number of public information campaigns over the last five years to communicate important information on key issues, including Covid-19, Historical Institutional Abuse and EU exit.”
Ms McIlveen told The Irish News social media accounts “provide an important mechanism for departments to convey information to the public”.
She added: “With such online advertising it will be possible to receive detailed analytics on the delivery and reach of such campaigns so it will always be important for departments to monitor this and ensure that every pound spent on advertising is having the greatest impact.”