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Australian businesses plan to spend less on social media claims Sensis

Australian businesses are falling out of love with social media as they find it the return on investment too uncertain and the platforms too time consuming Sensis found in this year’s Social Media Report.

Rob Tolliday Sensis Digital Spokesperson

Sensis’ Rob Tolliday

Having surveyed 1,100 Australian companies, 900 of them small businesses, the survey found businesses are planning to spend less time and money on social media over the next twelve months.

Sensis digital spokesperson, Rob Tolliday said businesses are ditching social media because they lack the time to manage their accounts and they struggle to develop new content on a regular basis.

“We know that time is an important commodity, with many small business owners managing their own social media pages,” he said. “For many the time taken to look after their accounts has proven too much to handle.”

The second, business focused, part of the 2017 Sensis Social Media Survey – released a week after the consumer report – found the  number of businesses with a social media presence fell in every category this year, down one point to 47% for small businesses and down five points to 49% for medium businesses, according to the report.

Nearly all the businesses surveyed nominated Facebook as the social media service they are most likely to advertise on, however the average annual budget invested this year in social media fell in every category.

Facebook and LinkedIn remain the most popular sites with Australian businesses. Twitter is third for small and large businesses, while Instagram is the third most popular social media service for medium sized companies.

Businesses not spending on social media could be missing opportunities, Sensis’ Tolliday believes: “There is a real opportunity for businesses to capture their customer’s attention on social, as we have seen the consumer response become more receptive towards engaging with advertising. The survey found 56% of consumers now pay attention to ads on social media.”

Businesses’ estimates for return on their social media investment were 26% for small businesses, 13% for medium sized businesses and 19% for large businesses. For SMBs, the estimates are similar to last year’s but the ROI for larger businesses collapsed from 40% to 19%.

The hospitality sector is most likely to be on social media (70%) with transport and storage the least likely have a presence on the services.

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