Social Media Usage in Australia 2019

There are 18 million active social media users in Australia, that’s 72% of the total population. Not only is it two-thirds of the population, but it’s also up +5.9% from 2018. Incredible to see the growth in just one year, especially after the Facebook Zuckerberg data drama last year predicting social media users to drop. That’s great news for us here at New Beach Media but what other insight does it tell us?

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, Youtube is now neck and neck with Facebook in regards to the most active platforms, followed by Facebook Messenger with 62% and then Instagram with 46%. It’s been a long battle between Facebook and YT and whilst most people expect Instagram to be bigger than YT, YT will always dominate in video engagement and also in the male demographic who, collectively, watch more video.

We’ve actually been receiving notifications from Facebook suggesting creating videos 3 minutes and longer, as they will be favoured organically. We can see Facebook pulling out all the stops to try and gain some of Youtube’s market share, but honestly we think that on Facebook, short sharp content will also do better unless it’s cinematic quality. The truth is, and always will be, that people go to Youtube to watch videos whilst people go to Facebook to find out what their friends are up to, see the latest trends, look for education (whether that’s news or cooking etc).

On Facebook, consumption of video occurs as distribution, not a purely viewing purpose like it is on YouTube.

Advertising to Social Audiences in 2019

We’re also starting to see the consistent drop in advertisers pulling out of Snapchat. The US figures also demonstrate the platform is not worthy of advertising. Snapchat in USA is down -15% QTR change in advertising, Australia is down -14%. Twitter always continue to be a very niche market of journalists and news hunters. It serves a purpose for some industries, but for most, the value is not there. It’s seen a drop in advertising that mirrors Instagram’s rise in ad spend, so it could be said that brands are funnelling their dollars into Instagram instead.

Page Reach Benchmarks in 2019

And lastly, benchmarks in relation to reach on Facebook. We’ve been super interested in this ever since the algorithm changes happened. Everywhere you read something different and it’s important to remember this can differ by industry. Hootsuite and We Are Social are reporting that organically, your posts will be seen to 6.9% of your page likes vs the total reach of 8.6%. These numbers are quite similar to Ogilvy in 2014 with 6% but the bigger the brand, the more likely it is to drop to 4-2%. Another article by Hubspot suggest the figure is more likely to be 6.5%. So in reading all of this, a brand should measure their organic reach success from anywhere bewteen 6-7% and if it’s more than that, like a lot of our clients, then you’re doing pretty well!