Australian social media users put Facebook first and LinkedIn and Twitter far, far behind
Consumer usage of social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn is vastly outstripped by Facebook, newly released research for Sensis and the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association suggests. A second part of the study signals that Australian businesses are preparing to pile into social media in the coming 12 months.
The consumer part of the research was based on a telephone survey of 803 people carried out in the first three months of 2011 and weighted to reflect the demographics of the Australian population.
It found that 62% of them said they used social media which the survey defined as including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, blogs and group buying sites.
And of those 62%, Facebook dwarfed all other social media usage. A total of 97% of the social media users said they used Facebook.
Slightly more make use of LinkedIn than Facebook, the report said.
After Facebook, came LinkedIn with 9%, followed by Twitter on 8% and MySpace on just 4%.
However, Twitter users are the most loyal to the site, saying that they used it on average 23 times per week – just ahead of Facebook on 16. 2times per week.
Another finding is that on average, social media users estimate they have 217 friends, followers or contacts.
On average, those Twitter users surveyed follow just 35 people each. (However, the sample size for this was just 38 Twitter users, stretching the statistical reliability of the data.)
The survey also suggested that brands are missing out on opportunities to connect via Twitter. A total of 64% of the Twitter users said they did not follow any brands at all.
Meanwhile among users of group buying sites, Cudo was by some way the most popular. (The base for this was 49 respondents, so again the detailed statistics should be treated with some caution).
A second part of the study – based on interviews carried out with business people in January and February for the Sensis Business Index – quizzed Australian businesses on their social media strategies.
The study indicated that Facebook is the most popular social media presence.
And the report also examines what brands are spending on their social media presence.
On average, large companies said they were spending just under $80,o00 a year on social media marketing. Medium sized companeis averaged $6,500 and small companies just over $2,000.
For most companies, the proportion of marketing spend shifting to social media is still relatively small though.
However, most companies – small and large – see the next 12 months as a period where they will increase their spending on social media. And they anticipate that the effort will result in increased sales.
The full report is available in PDF format via this link
Linkedin
Is anyone surprised that MySpace is pretty close to Twitter? I thought it might have been 20% to 4%.
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Hey, Thanks for presenting and commenting on these stats.. We needed a new broader range study into Aussie Social media usage… Love ya work!!
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Is it ironic that this research was conducted by telephone?
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myspace biggest in 30-39??
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$1000 says the words “fundamental shift” are used somewhere in the report…..oh, wait, there it is….
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More fodder for social media experts like this guy;
http://finzen.tumblr.com/
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Is Twitter “social media”? I think it’s actually a communication network
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Can’t say I’m surprised that Facebook is way out front, but at 97%, I’m a little shocked.
I personally don’t use Facebook. It’s mainly LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr and my blog for me.
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Anyone got any tools for looking at Australian news sites and finding mentions of “twitter” vs “Facebook”. Even I’m sick of seeing Twitter or someone’s tweets referenced in every single article. Best I can do in 2 mins is this – http://www.google.com/insights.....038;cmpt=q
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Twitter may have fewer users but this doesn’t mention their influence. Most SMH.com.au articles if not using it as the basis of the entire article will mention it at some point
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Facebook is personal social media. Linkedin is more akin to professional social media. Twitter is little more than ego social media. And the findings are based on a survey of 803 ‘consumers’ out of a potential, what… 16 million? So what does this very, very thin survey really have to offer? Four fifths of five eights of bugger all. And to then link it in one sentence to a prediction that businesses will be ‘piling into social media’ simply beggars belief.
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Curious to get Grono’s thoughts on the accuracy of some of these stats (based on the relatively small sample sizes)
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Those figures look a little rubbery to me probably because of the small sample size involved, Myspace 30-somethings at 9%?
Anon – Twitter is indeed considered to be part of the social media sphere which is often defined something like “a sharing of user generated news or other content” (as opposed to a one way distribution of centrally generated news or other content) Social media and communication networks can blur at their intersection. Skype anybody?
Great article, would love to see more of this
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Aidan, quite right about the definition ‘user generated news’. Twitter indeed has been exceptional in spreading news in times of crisis especially in regions known for media censorship. As to Skype, I use Skype for communication but would consider it another ‘business communication platform’ rather than social media.
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I understand that Nielson released some data last week on social media uptake by business year on year. I haven’t seen it but it would be interesting to compare the results.
http://www.communityengine.com.....index-2011
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Hi Geoff,
yeah I suppose it depends on where you want to draw the lines and in some cases how you use the particular services. I tend to think of Skype and user generated content like Hubpages stuff in the wider interpretations of the term.
Just for fun checked how ‘wiki peed’ has it interpreted – as of this moment it includes Skype as social media but does not mention hubpages…
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23% of me found that interesting
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Hi Reader.
It’s hard for me to comment because none of the graphs (well I assume they are graphs or tables) in the Mumbrella report are rendering in any of the three browsers I use.
I did however have a cursory look at the PDF (hey, it’s nearly midnight). The methodology of phone is fine by me as it is (aside from face-to-face) probably the least biased method. It would be interesting to know whether they included ‘mobile-only’ households in the n=803 sampling frame. Mind you if the haven’t I epxect the usage figures for SM would be even higher. The distribution and weighting of the sample look fine. The sample size for the SME data is very robust, and to get 200 large businesses employees to respond is a tough call – so well done.
I’ve had a look at the topline results and none of them look out of kilter. My only word of caution would be in ‘slicing and dicing’ the data too fine. That is, if you cross-tabbed by age, gender and location a question like ‘frequency of usage of SM’ then I think the results would be more directional that absolute quantities.
Overall, a very interesting piece of research – kudos.
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@John Grono
Thanks for the reply!
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47% of large companies don’t know how much they spend on social media?
Geez.
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