More than £2m spent by government on social media influencers since July 2024

While the figures cover Labour’s time in office under Sir Keir Starmer, his successor Andy Burnham has continued to use influencers to get the government’s message out.

On his first day as prime minister, Burnham was already posting videos on TikTok of him running with Sir Mo Farah and appearing on influencer Max Klymenko’s “career ladder” podcast.

Prof Andrew Chadwick, an expert in political communication at Loughborough University, said working with influencers “chimes with the change of direction since Burnham took over”, with the PM using his following on TikTok and Instagram to engage directly with the public.

He argued using influencers could be an effective way of telling the public about things like how to file their taxes, or counter health misinformation on social media.

Governments have traditionally paid for advertising through newspapers, TV, radio and social media.

But Prof Chadwick says paying content creators is increasingly used on top of this.

At a time when more people – especially younger age groups – are switching off from traditional media, he said influencers could act as a trusted source of information.

“It’s taken a while to get to this stage, but I’m surprised in a sense at how little has been spent by these departments,” he added.

However, Prof Chadwick said there were also risks, as the government had less control over what posts could appear alongside, which could damage credibility.

He added that it was difficult to predict what the public response would be to a collaboration.

“The comments are there, they’re underneath the post, and you’ll get these kind of backlash moments,” he said.

“That undermines the purpose of the original campaign.”

Earlier this year, the Department for Education faced criticism over its collaboration with reality TV star Gemma Collins to promote post-16 education.

The department said Collins was not paid for the content.

Defending the campaign, then-education secretary Bridget Phillipson said Collins could reach people politicians could not, suggesting some of the criticism was driven by “snobbery”.

Government guidelines for influencer marketing have existed since 2023.

Under the government’s influencer due diligence policy, external, departments must consider the size and demographics of an influencer’s following, as well as whether they have previously posted about political issues which could undermine the effectiveness of a campaign.

Spending by government departments on social media influencers since July 2024:

Departments including the Treasury and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said they did not spend any money on social media influencers during the period.

Some departments, such as the Home Office and Foreign Office, said they did not hold information on payments to influencers centrally.