No business can afford to ignore social media as part of its marketing mix. But, unless you are a global multinational, it is also impossible to effectively manage all of the social media networks that are on offer.

To be most effective, organisations should look to be active in two or, at most, three networks. This means you can become proficient in understanding the nuances of the platform, how to generate the right sort of engagement and sales through that platform.

The difficulty for Australian organisations is understanding the nuances of which social media channels are most effective and active locally. Typically the published social media statistics focus on a United States or global centric view of the data.

This post collates Australian social media statistics from across a wide variety of sources. We have then analysed those statistics to provide recommendations to for businesses on which platform are most effective indifferent use cases.

Overall Australian Social Media Statistics

In general, Australians are reasonably avid consumers of social media. At least as avid as the US market, but not as active as some Asian countries.

Key facts include:

• Some 18 million Australians have active social media accounts, i.e. 72% of the population and active social media users grew in Australia by 5.9% over the 12 month period Jan 2018 to Jan 2019, this substantially out strips population growth over the same period. Source
• Australians spend an average of 1.5-1.75 hours per day on social media, and this has been increasing slowly over the past 8 years. Source
• Australian’s have one of the lowest number of social media accounts per person in the world (and average of just 6.2 per person. This should be compared to Japan (3.5) and India (10.0.) Source

Australian Social Media Average time on Site and Traffic Ranks

It’s not surprising that social media sites are some of the most commonly accessed in Australia. Below is an analysis of traffic rank Vs the average daily site visit time.

Of course, higher trafficked sites with longer visit times are of most interest to companies wishing to leverage marketing opportunities.

There are two items of particular note in this analysis:

• Reddit, not normally known as a social media site has a very high traffic and dwell time and may present good opportunities for marketers.
• LinkedIn, while not being the highest traffic site, has a respectable dwell time.

Social Media Advertising Statistics For Australia

Social media platforms ebb and flow over time – when was the last time you logged into your myspace account? So when investing in a platform it is important to not just identify which platforms your potential customers use but also which are growing and which shrinking. This allows you to invest your time wisely for the longer term.

As you can see below: while Facebook’s Australian audience is flat, LinkedIn continues to grow (+10% year on year) and some others, Snapchat and Twitter have definitely passed their peak.

This is good news for B2B companies looking to leverage the LinkedIn as one of their key social networks.

Unfortunately there are no locally available data on social media advertising fees for Australia but the following global statistics provide an effective ready reckoner on what to expect on a relative basis.

What is clear here is the predominately B2B network (LinkedIn) has much higher cost per click rates AND much lower click through rates. This generally equates with the value per sale being higher in B2B marketing and the cost per lead being acceptably higher.

It should be noted that Facebook conversion rates have been dropping over time, 65% in 2018 alone, and this trend can be expected to continue.

Key Australian Facebook Facts

• Facebook is Australia’s 3rd highest trafficked site after Google and YouTube. (Source)
• As at January 2019 there were 15,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users – which is steady on the previous period (Source)
• While users skew to the 25-34 age group, there are more than 1.25 million Facebook users over 65 in Australia

Key Australian LinkedIn Facts

LinkedIn is the premier B2B Social Media platform. We have already established that it has large and growing audience with members that stay a long time on the site. However, it is also important to examine how often members return to the site. The chart below indicates 59% of users return fewer than 3 times a week.

The implication for B2B business using LinkedIn is that they need to post new content several times a week to ensure that it gets in front of the majority of uses in the infrequent number of times they visit the site.