Case Study: Local World Media doubles social followers and triples social-driven web referrals with Hootsuite

How UK newspaper publisher Local World scaled social media across 400 profiles

Local World is a major UK regional publisher with over 100 print titles and 70+ websites that faced the challenge of adapting to rising social media use while coordinating 400 social profiles across 107 newsrooms. The organisation needed a scalable way to engage local audiences and react quickly to breaking stories while giving hundreds of staff the knowledge and tools to manage social channels consistently.

They implemented a three-part approach—standardised best practices, ongoing staff training, and Hootsuite as the collaboration and analytics platform—to enable scheduling, safe multi-user management, geo-targeted listening, and unified reporting. In ten months Local World doubled Facebook likes and Twitter followers, tripled web referrals from social to nearly 40% of daily referrals, and gained actionable audience insights that continue to improve content and performance.

Local World Media

Scott Hornsby

Head of Social Media