As you drive into White Rose County, a large sign greets you with, “we’re right, you’re wrong” and that just about sums up the traditional perception of Yorkshire: straight-talking, cap-wearing, tea-drinking, pudding-eating folk who have a fondness for small dogs.

Behind this stereotyped façade is, of course, another Yorkshire: a contemporary hive of manufacturing industries, service businesses and professional expertise. Some vast international companies have headquarters in the county. Like all other regions of the country, Yorkshire is beginning its evolution into a technologically savvy state, embracing the web with all the benefits it brings and rooting social media at the heart of its businesses. It is this aspect of the region that we celebrate with the launch of our Yorkshire SociaLIGHT Index.

The first SociaLIGHT Indices were launched by Admiral in the North East and North West, in response to our clients’ requests to understand better their social media environment. Over a period of six months Admiral researched and developed a sophisticated metric, assessing the scope and content of a range of platforms and indices. With this information, we have been able to compile an index which scores individual companies on the extent of their social media engagement, rather than just record the number of followers or likes they may have.

The index enables businesses to see clearly how effectively they are communicating with their client base and see where their comparative strengths and weaknesses lie. They can also compare their social media engagement with that of their neighbours and competitors in a way that has not been previously possible.

For businesses engaging directly with customers, social media may already have become a vital aspect of their sales and marketing strategy. For companies who deal with a small number of specialist industrial clients, the use of social media may be justifiably limited. There is no right or wrong here, but simply an opportunity to gauge where a company is at the moment in the context of its region and business sector. We also see SociaLIGHT as a benchmarking tool to monitor a company’s future development in the social media sphere.

We hope you will find the Yorkshire 2013 SociaLIGHT Report interesting. Please click on the link www.admiralpr.com/socialight