Online capital of Europe: London is most "digitally visible" city with more mentions on social media than Paris and Madrid

London is the online capital of Europe, with more mentions on social media, news sites and Internet forums than any other city, according to a study published today.

Just under one in six — 15.6 per cent — of all “online conversations” about leading European cities last year, referred to London, putting it just ahead of Paris on 15.3 per cent.

The British and French capitals had almost twice as many mentions as third placed Madrid, which had an 8.4 per cent share. Rome came fourth on 7.1 per cent and Barcelona fifth.

In the five categories used to compile the rankings, London was top in business and talent, reflecting its status as the biggest financial centre in Europe.

But it came only third in culture, behind Paris and Rome, and third behind Madrid and Barcelona in technology.

London, Paris, Moscow and Istanbul led the way for Instagram postings, each captured twice as often as any other city.

The rankings were drawn up by communications firm ING Media and presented at the MIPIM property conference this week.

Researchers looked at digital mentions of 40 cities on Twitter, forums, blogs, news, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram.

Leanne Tritton, managing director at ING, said: “Visibility matters to cities, influencing investment, where talent concentrates and whether we decide to visit or not.

“The challenge is to ensure the quality of conversations happening across all forms of media — including digital — helps each city to not just climb the rankings but also activate its unique story."

Britain had five cities in the top 40, more than any other country, which included Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The findings follow a separate survey last week from holiday rental site HomeToGo, which found that London had more Instagram posts and hashtags than any other city in Europe.

London topped the list with almost 120 million in total, with Paris second at 100 million and Barcelona third with 47 million posts.