Social media is an increasingly important mechanism to support stakeholder engagement in the social care sector.
Last year, we produced a series of reports investigating the use of social media among the country’s leading care home groups. Following the success of this research, we have decided to publish a second series of reports, updating our analysis to include those groups – and their homes – at the forefront of care provision in 2024.
In this, the first in the series, we examine the use and applications of social media in the adult social care sectorusing carehome.co.uk’s list of Top 20 Small Care Home Groups 2024. We construct a ‘power list’ of runners and riders among some of the leading care groups and each of their respective homes,unveiling the statistics behind the social media use of each care group, which platforms they use most prominently, and what they use these platforms for.
As with last year’s reports, we look at five of the most popular and relevant social media platforms to the adult social care sector: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. We explore which are growing in number and influence, and which are not. Within our analysis, we also consider the implications of the age demographics of each platform’s users.
We then use this information to identify the most appropriate platforms for common applications of social media for the sector, from community-building, marketing, and reputation management to domestic and overseas recruitment.
We then reveal the raw statistics behind the social media use of the Top 20 Small Care Home Groups.
After analysing our results, we turn our attention to the relative merits of group versus individual care home social media accounts to help you determine which is likely to be most effective for your group or home’s needs.
Key Findings
Facebook followers accounted for 53 per cent of the total follower count of the top 20 small care home groups (excluding Cygnet).
LinkedIn accounted for 37 per cent - an increase of 19 per cent compared with last year’s investigation.
The groups and their respective homes had a combined total of 35,000 followers (excluding Cygnet).
Boutique (9,327) was a clear outlier in the combined group and home rankings, and dominated LinkedIn figures with more than 7,000 followers.
Sanders Senior Living had the largest Facebook following (2,951).
Doveleigh Care topped Instagram figures with 1,014 followers.
On X (Twitter) it was the Rotherwood Group that topped leaderboards with 254 followers.
The Burlington Care Home, belonging to Boutique Care Homes, topped the individual home rankings with 1,100 followers, coming exclusively from Facebook.