Stewart Kirkpatrick

Stewart Kirkpatrick is the Head of Digital for Yes Scotland.
Since he became involved in YesScotland its Facebook likes have grown from 5,000 to more than 250,000, Twitter followers from 5,000 to 72,000. YouTube views have grown from 25,000 to 630,000. Website traffic has quadrupled. And he has built a large committed team of online volunteers. He is an expert in targeting key messages to multiple target audiences across all digital platforms using great content. He is also highly skilled at setting up, building and managing teams, as well as effectively engaging with stakeholders. This study by Edinburgh University shows the effectiveness of his work

Previously he was Editor (as well as part-owner and director) of The Caledonian Mercury, Scotland's first truly online national newspaper. Launched on 25 January, 2010, it was read by 150,000 unique users per month during his editorship. Stewart was named "Multimedia Publisher of the Year 2010" in the Regional Press Awards and the Caley Merc was 'Highly Commended' in the UK Newspaper Awards 'Best Digital Service' category - coming joint second with The Guardian and beating the Telegraph and WSJ.com.

He is a leading expert in content strategy, digital marketing and media management.
Previously he was the Content Marketing Director of w00tonomy, part of the Scottish Government's digital roster. He was Editor of scotsman.com from July 2000 to May 2007. In that time traffic has increased tenfold, the site was one of Google News's top 30 sources and it won and was shortlisted for many national and international awards.

The UK Press Gazette has named Stewart as one of the top 50 people shaping online journalism.