Here are more Australia social media statistics for 2020 in Civic Web Media’s now traditional breakdown of the most popular platforms and what this means for digital marketing in the year ahead.

Most popular platforms by number of unique monthly visitors – January 2020

1. Facebook – 16 million
2. YouTube – 15 million
3. Instagram – 9 million
4. WhatsApp – 7 million
5. Snapchat – 6.4 million
6. WordPress – 5.8 million
7. LinkedIn – 5.5 million
8. Twitter – 5.3 million
9. Tumblr – 3.7 million
10. Tinder – 3 million

Statistics compiled by SocialMediaNews.com.au for January 2020. Source: Vivid Social – Social Media Agency. Figures correct as of 31/01/20.

Social media statistics 2020

• Social media in Australia continues to grow at a significant rate, the number of users increasing by 5.9% in 2019 (Talkwalker)
• Young adults aged 18–35 account for more than 75% of Australian social media users (Talkwalker)
• Image and video sharing platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are the fastest growing (Roy Morgan)
• Chinese social media apps such as WeChat, RenRen and Weibo are also growing rapidly in Australia’s Chinese community, with WeChat poised to enter the top 10 this year (Roy Morgan)
• Google Plus was closed down in 2019, though it never had much of a following in Australia

Top 10 social networks in Australia 2020

1. Facebook

16,000,000 unique active monthly users

Despite a campaign to “delete Facebook” after the company was involved in high-profile data scandals, more Australians continue to sign up for the social network, which has now reached 16 million active users (up from 15 million in 2019).

60% of Australia is on Facebook and 1 in 2 people check the site or app at least once daily.

Facebook’s user base is strong across all age demographics, but especially among 25–39 year olds. Teenagers are the most likely to shun Facebook for younger alternatives.

With such a huge audience, Facebook is usually the first port of call for businesses getting started in social media marketing, with 9 in 10 Australian businesses having Facebook accounts. Facebook posts with videos have the highest rate of engagement.

2. YouTube

15,000,000 unique monthly visitors

The world’s biggest video sharing platform is also the most visited website in Australia after Google, according to Alexa.

While it takes second place to Facebook in the social apps, it’s the number one for Generation Z Australians (aged 14–27), according to the most recent Roy Morgan Single Source survey. Use of YouTube generally declines with age.

Between Facebook and YouTube, video marketing is one of the most engaging types of content that brands can create. In 2019, the top 5 search queries on Facebook in Australia were: Songs, Music, Fortnite, IT and Kids.

3. Instagram

9,000,000 active monthly users

After rapid growth in 2019, Instagram has stabilised as Australia’s third favourite social media site in 2020.

Like YouTube, Instagram users are more likely to be younger. More than two thirds (68%) of Generation Z and over half (52%) of Millennials use the image-based platform, compared to less than one third (32%) of Generation X (Roy Morgan Single Source).

Instagram users are more likely to follow brands than Facebook users, as long as those brands post worthwhile content. Almost half of Australian businesses (46%) use Instagram, according to the most recent Yellow Social Media Report.

Instagram made drastic changes in 2019 when it removed Like counts and made follower counts less prominent to reduce social pressure on users. It also launched Instagram Checkout, to make transactions easier, and Creator Accounts, to support the lucrative influencer marketing industry. It remains to be seen how much of an impact these changes will have on Instagram marketing in 2020.

Want to start or grow your Instagram account in 2020? Find out everything you need to know about hashtags.

4. WhatsApp

7,000,000 active users

Since it was acquired by Facebook, WhatsApp exploded in popularity but now remains stable with approximately seven million Australian users per month in 2020. It’s the country’s second most popular social media messaging app after Facebook Messenger.

5. Snapchat

6,400,000 active monthly users

Another non-mover, Snapchat has matured at a stable 6.4 million monthly users. More impressively, 4.5 million people use the app every day, averaging 36 times per week.

Around half (49%) of social media users aged 18–29 are on Snapchat, the app being used less by older audiences. Like Instagram, it’s used by more females (55%) than males (45%).

6. WordPress

5,800,000 monthly users

Australia’s favourite CMS platform for creating websites and blogs, WordPress hasn’t gained or lost substantial users in 2020. It remains the top choice for its ease of use, customisable features and, most of all, the fact that it’s free.

7. LinkedIn

5,500,000 active monthly users

The first change in the social media ranking for 2020, LinkedIn has now overtaken Twitter with around one million new users year on year. The website reports that around 10 million Australians have registered accounts on LinkedIn, though just over half are active every month.

The B2B platform is used by 73% of large businesses but fewer SMBs. Users are more likely to be male (53% vs 47%).

8. Twitter

5,300,000 active monthly users

It continues to drop in the rankings, but Twitter gained more than half a million users in Australia in 2020. The site is overwhelmingly male, with almost 1.8 males to every female, and is mainly used by people in their 30s. Australian users say they check Twitter 23 times per week on average.

While it may not be the most effective platform for reaching your target audience, the speed and brevity of tweets makes Twitter popular with large businesses, which are more likely to use Twitter marketing than small businesses (60% vs. 14%).

9. Tumblr

3,700,000 monthly users

After losing users last year, following the introduction of stricter rules such as the ban on adult content, Tumblr is stable in ninth place for 2020. The image sharing and blogging site is mainly used by women, and around two-thirds of users (66%) are under 35.

10. Tinder

3,000,000 users

The world’s most popular dating app, Tinder was downloaded more times than any other app in Australia last year and is used by an estimated three million Australians every month.

While business accounts aren’t permitted on the app, advertising is. Depending on your product or service, you may find a suitable audience here.

For more industry news and online marketing tips, follow the Civic Web Media Blog.

Find out more in Civic Web Media‘s annual breakdown of the most popular social media sites in Australia as we begin 2019.

Update: Australia’s most popular social media sites 2020

How many Australians use social media in 2019?

The latest Yellow Social Media Report released in June last year found that almost 9 in 10 people (88%) have a social media profile in Australia. This figure is up from 79% in 2017 and 69% in 2016, showing remarkable growth over a relatively short period.

The average Australian now owns 3.5 internet-enabled devices, with most preferring to use their smartphones to access social media. 60% of people say they use the internet more than five times per day.

How do customers interact with businesses on social media?

The Yellow report found that 44% of consumers follow brands on social media. This increases to 52% for females and 65% for people aged 18-29.

More than 50% of social media users say they value brand interactions on social networks and are more likely to trust a business if it offers engaging and relevant content on a regular basis.

Discounts (62%) and giveaways (51%) are the most popular reasons people follow brands.

Top 10 social networks in Australia 2019

Statistics compiled by SocialMediaNews.com.au for December 2018. Source: Vivid Social – Social Media Agency. Figures correct as of 31/12/18.

1. Facebook

15,000,000 unique active monthly users

Facebook’s dominance and popularity have remained stable since this time last year, despite the organisation’s high-profile data scandals in early 2018 that saw users worldwide being urged to ‘Delete Facebook’. Around 60% of the Australian population has a Facebook account and around 1 in 2 people check it every day.

According to Yellow, 91% of Aussies who use social media are on Facebook, which includes more women than men (95% vs 88%). The average user spends almost 10 hours a week on the platform and more than a quarter (28%) watch live streaming videos on Facebook Live.

More Australian businesses use and advertise on Facebook than any other social platform – around 9 in 10 SMBs and large businesses. This connects them with Australia’s biggest online audience.

2. YouTube

15,000,000 unique monthly visitors

More than half of the population (53%) watches videos on YouTube. This includes slightly more men than women (56% vs 50%) and 65% of people under 30. 46% of people share videos or photos on social media.

Video is one of the most engaging types of content for consumers, but most businesses are still hesitant to produce video content due to the time and effort involved in making it look professional.

3. Instagram

9,000,000 active monthly users

Instagram is still Australia’s favourite image-sharing website, retaining a stable user base over the past 12 months after having doubled its users the previous year. The site is more popular with women than men (44% vs 34%).

Instagram users are more likely to follow brands than users of other social networks at 44% (compared to 39% of Facebook users). Formerly more popular with SMBs, the number of large businesses advertising on Instagram has more than doubled in the past year from 20% to 46% according to the Yellow survey of Australian businesses.

Read more: Hashtag hacks: Everything you need to know about hashtags

4. WhatsApp

7,000,000 active users

Steadily rising through the ranks – gaining two million users each year for the past two years – WhatsApp is Australia’s second most popular social media messaging service after parent company Facebook’s own Messenger.

5. Snapchat

6,400,000 active monthly users

Snapchat is once again the fastest growing social media app in Australia, rising two places from last year’s count. As well as its high monthly user base, more than 4.5 million Australians use Snapchat every day – around 36 times per week on average.

Snapchat is more popular with younger demographics, with almost half (49%) of 18-29 year olds on social media using the platform. It’s also used by more males than females (28% vs 17%).

6. WordPress.com

5,800,000 monthly users

Australia’s favourite CMS platform had a modest gain of 100,000 users over the past year. Its free business model, ease of use and extensive customisation makes WordPress the go-to option for many bloggers and SMBs creating websites and blogs.

7. Twitter

4,700,000 active monthly users

Twitter is gaining popularity in Australia, rising from 9th place and 3,000,000 users this time last year. Unlike most social networks, Twitter is most widely used by people in their 30s. It’s also much more popular with men than women (26% vs 13%). Aussie Twitter users check the site 23 times per week on average.

Twitter’s speed and ease of use make it popular with large businesses, of which 60% advertise on the platform. Small businesses are much less enthusiastic however, with use dropping to just 14%.

8. LinkedIn

4,500,000 active monthly users

Dropping down the ranks, but still gaining users, the “Facebook for professionals” is notably more popular with men than women (28% vs 17%). LinkedIn reports that approximately 8 million Australians have signed up for LinkedIn accounts, which means that just over half log in to their account regularly.

Naturally, LinkedIn is widely used by businesses. It’s the second most popular social media site after Facebook for large businesses (used by 73% that use social media) and medium businesses (48%). It’s less popular with small businesses though, which are more likely to use Instagram.

9. Tumblr

3,700,000 monthly users

The only site on this list to lose rather than gain users over the past year (though only by around 100,000), Tumblr’s slow decline continues. However, the microblogging site retains a loyal user base.

10. Tinder

3,000,000 users

Just holding on to 10th place, Australia’s most popular dating app has an estimated 3 million users. This has remained stable over the past year, after increasing in 2017 when premium paid services were introduced.

Hot on Tinder’s heels in 11th place is WeChat with around 2,900,000 active monthly users. Hugely popular with Australia’s Chinese community, WeChat and other Chinese social networks such as RenRen and Weibo are expected to increasingly challenge traditional social networks in the coming years.

For more industry news and online marketing tips for your business, follow the Civic Web Media Blog.

This overview provides a glimpse into the different uses a hashtag can have and gives some tips on how to hashtag like a professional.

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a hash symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase made up of alphanumeric characters such as #hashtag or #contentmarketingaustralia. These metadata tags are used on social media platforms to group together posts on particular topics, and to allow users to search for information.

In some parts of the world, the # is known as the ‘pound sign’ or an ‘octothorpe’.

Read more: Intro to hashtags

Why hashtags are great for business

Hashtags are a powerful social media marketing tool. They allow brands to reach a wider and more targeted audience and to drive customer engagement. Companies can promote brand awareness through online interactions and communities using simple hashtag marketing strategies.

Read more: Hashtag tips for businesses

Best practice for hashtags

Like any form of communication there are rules and guidelines which govern best hashtag practice. Some are technical, like not including non-alphanumeric symbols in your hashtags (things like -, !, ?). Others improve readability and flow, like #not #putting #too #many #hashtags #midsentence, while others still will mark you out as a pro or a rookie.

Read more: Hashtag best practice

Hashtags for different platforms

Hashtags may have started out on Twitter, but they are now used across most popular social media sites including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. While general best practices apply universally, there are a few important tips and tricks to know for tailoring your hashtags to the platform you’re using.

Read more: Hashtag tips for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn

How do you choose the best hashtags?

There is no real magic formula for picking the best hashtags, but there are several useful tools and techniques for choosing which ones to attach to your posts.

Read more: How to choose hashtags

Branded, trending and recurring hashtags

Branded hashtags are used by brands to endorse or promote things like product launches, campaigns and conferences.

Trending hashtags are hashtags that are popular at a given time. These can be found within the social media platform you’re using – for instance Twitter and Facebook have trending topic sections – or via trending hashtag sites like trendsmap and hashtagifyme.

Recurring hashtags are, as the name suggests, hashtags that get used repeatedly. Things like #throwbackthursday, #motivationmonday and #2bittues.

Read more: Hashtag groups and how to use them

How not to hashtag

Hashtags allow you to reach a wide audience and join in conversations with potentially thousands of other social media users. The downside? This means any gaffs or embarrassments in your hashtag game will be available for the world to see – or, equally discouragingly, for no one to see. Don’t underestimate the importance of knowing what not to do when it comes to hashtagging.

Read more: Hashtag mistakes to avoid

It doesn’t take much effort to go from a hashtag novice to a confident, savvy hashtagger. Knowledge is power, so arm yourself with some hashtag know-how and before long you’ll be tagging with the best of them.

Beware of Acronyms

Although acronym-based hashtags are nice and pithy, and great for keeping your tweets under Twitter’s 280-character limit, they should be approached with caution.

Firstly, make sure the acronym you plan to use doesn’t already stand for something, particularly something you would not want associated with your brand. British fashion retailer Dorothy Perkins clearly hadn’t taken double meanings into account when it launched its hashtag #LoveDP in April 2017. Despite DP standing for ‘double penetration’ in certain circles, the retailer continued to use the dubious hashtag.

Even if an acronym doesn’t already stand for something, if they’re too long or convoluted they can become cumbersome and non-user friendly. In 2017, the Greyhound bus company, in a misguided attempt to piggyback off the popular hashtag #FOMO, created the somewhat less pleasing hashtag #FOMOOGLF (fear of missing out on Greyhound low fares).

Unsurprisingly this hashtag campaign was a gigantic flop. Scrolling through a Twitter search for #FOMOOGLF, it’s populated only by the company’s posts.

How to avoid acronym-based hashtag fails: unless the acronym you intend to use is unambiguous, recognisable and easy to read, try using a different kind of hashtag.

Avoid spamming trending hashtags

Hashtag spamming is the practice of including trending hashtags in an unrelated piece of content and it is one of the quickest ways to irritate other social media users. Although there is a right way to utilise trending hashtags, spamming is highly unprofessional.

One particularly damaging instance of hashtag spamming was committed by Celeb Boutique, who used the trending hashtag #Aurora, a hashtag which had emerged in the wake of a mass shooting in Colorado, to promote its Kim K inspired dress.

How to avoid a trending hashtag fail: The golden rule before using a trending hashtag is to find out why it is trending; this can easily be done by reading content containing the tag or googling the hashtag. Make sure before you use a trending hashtag that it is relevant to your post and only use trending hashtags if you are contributing something to the conversation.

Remember to do a find-a-word before you use a hashtag

As a rule, hashtags consist of a word or phrase comprising alphanumeric characters with no spaces or punctuation – and most of the time that is fine. But a common pitfall of this particular hashtag trait is the misreading of hashtags.

One of the most famous, and most gloriously disastrous, instances of a misread hashtag was Susan Boyle’s album launch party hashtag #susanalbumparty. Instead of the innocent and informative hashtag Susan Album Party, the internet had a field day over Su’s Anal Bum Party.

How to avoid the misread hashtag fail: make sure to conduct a thorough find-a-word before you use a hashtag to make sure it can’t be misinterpreted. To help avoid misreading and improve the readability of your hashtags consider capitalising each word so that #susanalbumparty becomes #SusanAlbumParty. Note: hashtags are not case sensitive.

Timing is everything

Even a well-crafted innocuous hashtag campaign can be brought down by poor timing. When Qantas pre-scheduled its #QantasLuxury campaign they didn’t count on it going live one day after the entire Qantas fleet was grounded over failed contract negotiations.

Instead of followers using the hashtag to describe their ideal luxury travel experiences Qantas received a barrage of unsurprisingly negative tweets.

How to avoid timing-based hashtag fails: although we clearly can’t predict everything that will happen within our own company or the outside world, poor timing can be avoided by keeping a close eye on news and trending topics and by keeping track of automated social media publishing schedules.

Hashtags are great for getting content out to a wide audience. The flip side to all this publicity is when things go wrong on social media, it’s almost impossible to stop the very unforgiving online world from pouncing on a hashtag fail. As the saying goes, the best defence is a good offence, so make sure your hashtag game is strong before they go live.

These three experts — Ash Rane, Yoan Demarty and Andrew Gallagher — gave their take on what lies in store for digital marketing: data-driven marketing, inbound marketing and chatbots, and virtual reality projects.

Here are the highlights, as per my hastily scribbled notes. If you think I’ve misunderstood anything, call me out in the comments and I’ll add corrections.

Ash Rane, solutions architect at Google

First up was Ash who, because of his position at Google, was the big drawcard for me. Ash’s talk focused on three main tips for data-driven marketers in 2018:

– measure across all platforms
– remove internal data silos
– leverage machine learning

The first point was clear: that customers can engage with a company in many ways when they’re on their buyer’s journey. For something that sounds simple like researching a new car to buy, they may have as many as 900 touch points (such as dealers, friends and websites) and that 90% of people switch screens while researching a product to buy. If you’re not measuring properly, you’re not going to know which parts of your marketing, advertising and sales processes are working best.

Removing data silos means, I think, that a company should get as much data as possible and share it freely among employees. As well as data from your site and your AdWords campaigns, you should be looking to integrate information from areas like kiosks, smart TV apps and point-of-sale systems. All company information should be shared between different teams, so everyone has a full picture to work from.

To do this, you should find data sources that are easy to integrate (like, ahem, Google products) and if you create measurable KPIs based on business goals then you’re more likely to succeed.

Ash’s last point was that if you’re not already using machine learning in some way, you’re about to fall behind the curve. If not this year, then in 2020, or 2025, or… The easiest way to do this is to use automation to cut ‘monkey work’ from your schedule, as otherwise this eats a big chunk of your time on tasks that don’t require your attention.

Yoan Demarty, channel account executive at Hubspot

Having a speaker from Hubspot was another great coup (and I was delighted when Yoan’s colleague James Gilbert agreed to contribute to our article about content marketing mistakes).

Yoan’s talk was also in three sections:
– introducing the benefits of inbound marketing
– marketing automation
– the future of messaging and bots

The benefits of inbound marketing is something we’ve written about before and Yoan summed it up nicely: people are tired of interruptive ads, they want content that helps or is useful and that inbound marketing is an infinite loop as you attract, convert, close and delight.

Yoan then spoke about using marketing automation to save time and some more benefits of a strong content strategy to cover the full buyer’s journey — stating that 60% of the sales cycle is over before a customer talks to a salesperson among some other useful stats, before closing off the section by saying that you can only improve what you can measure.

His last section was about Facebook (and its 1.3bn monthly users) and chatbots. These are becoming much more popular and, as time goes on, they’re only going to get smarter and more efficient.

Andy Gallagher, founder of VRXP

Going into the event, it was Andy’s talk that I was least excited about. However, it was probably the most interesting of the three (maybe because it felt less like work than the others?). I think others agreed, as when we started the Q&A section, all the questions were for him until the MC encouraged people to ask Ash and Yoan about their work.

Andy talked about some of the different industries currently using virtual reality in their work (such as architects who can give scale model walkthroughs to clients) and where it might go. Social media was a big talking point, with the idea of virtual rooms and avatars replacing scrolling through memes on a phone (and apparently Facebook already has a system reminiscent of Minority Report). Then he started talking about how people wearing headsets were very trackable (with systems like eye-tracking, heatmaps and ads served to people based on things they looked at) and it all got a bit too much like a Black Mirror episode for my liking.

He also talked about some of the projects he’s been involved in, as well as his virtual reality studio on Watt Street (which Newcastle Afoot took members of the Roost to for our Christmas outing), he’s working on archiving historical finds from the light rail work as well as this cracking project he worked on with Enigma.

The question and answer session followed:

• Andy answered a few questions about scaling VR and the cost compared to normal video production (2-3x more expensive).
• Yoan was asked about content (not something offered by HubSpot — something that has to be done internally or outsourced to a content marketing agency, and something that can’t be done by AI) and about what’s next in inbound before marketers destroy what’s currently working (hold fast with useful content in e-books, whitepapers and the like).
• Ash answered questions about how Google Home and voice search are changing the way the search engine works but that content is still king, especially as we move more into the world of longtail keywords (and Yoan chipped in to say that we should all be writing about topics, not a couple of keywords).

In all, it was a great day and a terrific event to have in Newcastle. The only criticism I have (and I overheard at least two groups mention on the way out) was that some of the speakers were a bit salesy at times, pushing their own products and agendas over pure learning, but I guess that’s to be expected. Overall, though, it was definitely worth taking a morning off to find out from some industry experts about what to expect in the coming months and years.

Branded hashtags

Put simply, branded hashtags are hashtags specific to your brand. They can include your brand name, company tagline or something else associated with your brand. They can be used for product launches, campaigns, competitions and events.

A good branded hashtag should be:

• Brief: keep it short, searchable and easy to spell
• Catchy: choose something memorable and engaging
• Unique: make sure your branded hashtag hasn’t already been claimed – when people search your hashtag you only want content associated with your brand to turn up

These hashtags are great for business, you can engage customers and promote brand awareness by including branded hashtags in your social media posts and encouraging your audience to do the same.

Feminine hygiene product company Always launched a highly successful branded hashtag in 2014 which remains a stalwart of its brand today. The hashtag #LikeAGirl began as a campaign to empower adolescent girls and has grown into a worldwide movement.

Even if your branded hashtag doesn’t go viral, they’re still an integral part of your social media strategy. By including the same branded hashtags in social media posts on different platforms you create a consistent and recognisable identity for your online presence.

Trending hashtags

Trending hashtags are hashtags that are particularly popular at a given moment. Sites like trendsmap and hashtagify.me can show you which hashtags are trending, or you can view which hashtags are popular in the trending section of the social media platform you’re using.

How to use them: Including trending hashtags in your social media posts is a great way to gain extra exposure for your content. It’s always best practice to tailor your post to a trending hashtag rather than just tacking a trending hashtag on the end of something irrelevant.

How not to use them: It is very important never to spam trending hashtags. The quickest way to appear unprofessional and frustrate other platform users is to include irrelevant trending hashtags in your posts. If you’re not contributing anything to the conversation, don’t use the trending hashtag. If you don’t understand a hashtag, make sure you research it before you use it in any of your posts.

Trending hashtags tend to give your post ’15 seconds of fame’ – while lots of people will see your post due to its trending hashtag, your post will also soon get swamped by others using the same hashtag. It’s best to use trending hashtags sparingly and in conjunction with other hashtags.

Industry hashtags

Industry hashtags are hashtags that are used by a particular industry on social media. Unlike trending hashtags, industry hashtags are steadily popular and constantly in use. By using recurring hashtags from your industry, you can join in conversations, connect with other people in your industry and help like-minded people find your posts.

For example, someone working in the travel industry might use:
#tourismchat #traveltuesday or #luxurytraveller

Non-industry specific recurring hashtags are also a great way to join in conversations and gain extra exposure on social media. Hashtags such as #MondayMotivation and #ThrowbackThursday can be applied to almost any industry.

Any successful social media plan should include branded, trending and industry hashtags. While not every branded hashtag will go viral and not every trending hashtag will put you in the spotlight, together these three hashtag strategies will help create a recognisable, cohesive and engaging online presence for your brand.

How do you choose a hashtag?

With so many hashtags out there, choosing the best ones can seem daunting – where do you even start? To help narrow down the field consider the following factors:

• Your purpose: What are you trying to achieve? Are you marketing a new product? Promoting a competition? Just looking for extra exposure? Your intentions will help determine the kind of hashtags that are appropriate for your post.
• Your platform: The number and type of hashtags you use will depend on which social media platform you’re using. It’s important to understand the rules and etiquette for hashtags on different social media platforms.
• Your audience: Consider your target audience – what are they likely to be searching for? It’s no use using popular hashtags if they have nothing to do with your products or services – if you want like-minded people to find your posts, use hashtags they are likely to be interested in and that accurately describe your business.

When deciding which hashtags to use keep in mind best hashtag practices; remember to keep hashtags short, clear, specific and relevant.

Helpful hashtag tools and websites

Once you’ve decided on your purpose, platform and audience needs, it’s time to choose the best hashtags. When it comes to finding trending and popular hashtags, there are plenty of handy tools out there to do the heavy lifting for you:

• Platform searches: One of the easiest ways to find the best hashtags for your posts is to use in-platform search functions. Twitter gives you a snapshot of the top trending hashtags, while a quick search will show you how often a hashtag is used. Similarly, searching a topic on Instagram will show you a list of relevant hashtags and how many times they’ve been used. Facebook also has a trending topics section.
• Trendsmap: Trendsmap offers a geographic representation of which hashtags are trending on Twitter everywhere in the world, from local, to national to global. This is highly useful for targeting your company’s demographic, particularly for small or local businesses.
• Hashtagify.me: This is a very informative site which shows trends, correlations and popular hashtags, along with related hashtags and top influencers relevant to any topic you choose to search.

  Example: #hashtag search http://hashtagify.me/hashtag/hashtag

• Hashtags.org: This site shows popular and trending hashtags as well as offering a hashtag tracking service which allows you to see social media conversations and gain valuable insights.

Note: Most of these sites have free features although more advanced functions usually require a subscription.

Are popular hashtags necessarily the best?

A catch-22 of using popular or trending hashtags is the risk of your post getting lost amongst the masses. Trending hashtags tend to get spammed by users trying to give their posts a publicity boost, while over-used hashtags like #SocialMedia are used so often your post will just get swallowed up in search results.

At the same time, you don’t want to use barely-used hashtags as your customers are unlikely to search for them; it’s important to walk the line between over-used and obscure.

The golden rule is to avoid spamming trending hashtags; it’s more important that your posts are seen by the right people than by a lot of people. Use popular hashtags judiciously and only when they pertain to your post. Employ a mixture of trending hashtags (when relevant), industry-specific and descriptive hashtags.

You may have a love-hate relationship with your own social networks, but Australians are still addicted to social media in growing numbers.

2017 was a landmark year for all the major platforms, with some getting a surprise boost in popularity and others failing to keep up with changing tastes. Find out which sites you should be prioritising in your social media marketing campaigns as we catch up with Australia’s favourite social networks in 2018.

How many Aussies are on social media?

According to the latest Sensis Social Media Report, 79% of Australians now use social media – up a full 10 points from 69% in 2016. Broken down be age group, this includes:

• 99% of adults aged 18-29
• 96% of adults in their 30s
• 86% of adults in their 40s

The average Australian owns three internet-enabled devices, though 81% prefer to access social media on their smartphones. 84% of people say they use the internet every day.

Pertinently for businesses, 64% of users say they trust brands that engage with their customers on social media (up from 52% last year). People are turned off by brands that have irrelevant or unappealing content, or that bombard their followers with too many ads.

Top 10 social networks in Australia

Statistics compiled by SocialMediaNews.com.au for December 2017. Stats and research provided by the Vivid Social – Social Media Agency. Figures correct as of 31/12/17.

1. Facebook

15,000,000 unique monthly visitors

Falling from 17 million users in the middle of last year, Facebook is still far and away the most popular social network in Australia. 60% of the population has a Facebook account and half of Australians check the site every day.

According to Sensis, 95% of Australians who use social media sites have an active account on Facebook (97% female vs. 91% male). It’s also used by 90% of businesses. If you only manage one social profile for your brand, it should be on Facebook.

See our social media comparison to find out what local Newcastle banks are doing right and wrong on Facebook.

2. YouTube

15,000,000 monthly visitors

While they might not check it quite so obsessively as Facebook, YouTube now gets as many unique visits a month, with around 15 million Australians watching at least one video on the site (over half the population).

Videos are one of the most engaging types of content, holding the audience’s attention for longer than text or images. However, only 11% of SMBs and 17% of large businesses have a presence on YouTube.

See how CSR uses YouTube videos as part of their content marketing activities.

3. Instagram

9,000,000 monthly active visitors

Australia’s favourite image-sharing site is also its fastest growing social network, almost doubling its user base from this time last year. Its popularity with adults is roughly inverse to age, with around 70% of under-30s having an account.

Curiously, Instagram is almost twice as popular with medium-sized organisations (39%) as small (19%) or large (20%) businesses.

If you’re on Instagram or you need to source images for your business blog, read our guide to how to use images legally.

4. WordPress.com

5,700,000 monthly visitors

Australia’s favourite CMS platform continues to grow in popularity with businesses and civilian bloggers alike. Its ease of use, extensive customisation and the fact that it can host your business website for free are all points in its favour.

Find out how to get started with a WordPress blog.

5. WhatsApp

5,000,000 active users

Another grower that gained almost two million users through 2017, this versatile instant messenger service is used by over a billion people worldwide.

Facebook bought WhatsApp for a record $22 billion in 2014, but more people still use the company’s own Facebook Messenger (81% to 18%).

6. LinkedIn

4,200,000 monthly visitors

The Facebook for professionals, LinkedIn is most popular with men (22% vs. 14% of women), the 50-64 age bracket (25%) and Queenslanders (22%), make of that what you will.

82% of large firms are active on LinkedIn, which falls to 41% of medium and 35% of small companies. It’s still the second most popular social media site for businesses of all sizes after Facebook.

Read more about how Australian brands use social media.

7. Snapchat

4,000,000 daily visitors

The social success story of 2016, Snapchat’s Australian user base has remained stable over the past year, but it’s still noteworthy that four million people use the app every day (one in six people).

The ephemeral image and video sharing app appeals mostly to young people under 30 (77% of users), who use it to share visual content that disintegrates shortly after viewing.

8. Tumblr

3,800,000 monthly visitors

Tumblr is still popular with many younger Aussies, but the micro-blogging site continues to fall down the ranks and lose relevance. With many users jumping ship in 2015, today it’s only visited by 11% of internet users.

Many of the most popular Tumblrs revolve around comics, reaction gifs and film quotes, but some game creators, TV stations and newspapers have had success there too.

9. Twitter

3,000,000 monthly active users

Twitter continues to be less popular locally than globally, even following a revamp that saw tweet lengths double and a greater emphasis on visual content. The majority of Twitter users are in the 18-29 age group (70%).

Formerly the social platform with the highest drop-off rate, it seems most dissatisfied users left in 2016 as Facebook has now taken pride of place with a 15% decline since last year (Twitter at 11%).

Read our hashtag hacks for Twitter and other platforms.

10. Tinder

3,000,000 monthly visitors

Australia’s top dating app has grown by around a million users over the past year, which was also the year it introduced its premium paid services for more discerning singles.

Tinder’s ruthless swipe function inspired LinkedIn to create a similar app for professional networking, but Tinder itself isn’t a network that lends itself to business use.

Find out how to look after your customers on social media.

Enter Newcastle, a place that many people in Australia refer to as a country town. It’s hardly NYC, but definitely not the outback. Over the last decade, Newcastle has been experiencing a rebirth and renaissance of sorts. The creativity is oozing and the community engagement is thriving right down to local banks and building societies and how they manage their content.

Today we’ll be comparing and contrasting the social media campaigns and content of The Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent.

Despite the fact that both are based in Newcastle, one clearly has a Greater social media presence. Big jokes aside, The Greater is casting a wider net to generate and interact with customers, but first let’s look at Newcastle Permanent and how they are going.

Newcastle Permanent on social media

To start with, Newcastle Permanent has a YouTube channel. Here you can find videos that have been viewed 12 times, and videos that have been viewed 75,000 times. This 10-second commercial with a Newcastle Permanent logo in the cappuccino leads to reflection on latte art and interest rates. Their annual general meeting didn’t quite garner the same attention with fewer than 60 views, but it is a meeting, and meetings are boring.

Releasing these two videos on the same platform to the same audience may show a lack of foresight into who they’re targeting. On top of this, the Permanent’s videos appear to be arbitrarily released as well, which might lead customers to believe their YouTube channel is not their number one priority.

Their YouTube channel is by no means terrible, but their Facebook is better. The first thing you see is events they’re holding in the community, which is a big part of their branding. Clearly their events coordinators and their marketing team are working in harmony to release a clear message.

Another article could be written about the benefits of businesses giving back to the community, but good deeds aside, they’ve got a clear and engaging content marketing plan. They post almost every day, sometimes twice a day, and while you will find blatant advertisements in their content, as well as the occasional blog post, the vast majority leads you to believe that this company does good for the community.

The Greater Bank on social media

Although Newcastle Permanent has done well, The Greater has been a little bit more engaging in the online field.

Upon the time of writing, their YouTube channel had uploaded eight new videos just three hours ago, and their highest number views came in at more than half a million for the 15 second video of Alex the first home buyer. The Greater joined YouTube in 2009, two years later than Newcastle Permanent, but with more views and more subscribers, they are clearly fast learners.

If you head to their Facebook page for a comparison, two things are immediately evident. Number one, The Greater is not holding free events for the community, and number two, their background photo’s moving image is more sophisticated than Newcastle Permanent’s. However, The Greater is specifically catering to Newcastle Jets fans, so if you happen to not be into sports (and/or have kids) the childish Facebook background that advertises free activities from Newcastle Permanent is probably more appealing, despite its lack of motion.

Like Newcastle Permanent, The Greater also plugs all the feel good things it’s doing in the community, from partnering with CanTeen Australia to fight cancer to videos of happy families with adorable babies balancing their lifestyle and budget. They’re heavier on videos compared to Newcastle Permanent, and they often post two to three times per day.

Overall, it seems they have the hang of well-produced content, and their biggest risk is getting so heavily invested in the Newcastle Jets, which isn’t political or controversial, simply runs the chance of abandoning customers who also aren’t sports fans.

It’s not really possible to compare The Greater and Newcastle Permanent when it comes to Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Instagram other to say that The Greater uses them and Newcastle Permanent doesn’t. The Greater tends to recycle their Facebook material on all of LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and Twitter to increase their reach, and it’s interesting to speculate why Newcastle Permanent doesn’t do the same. It wouldn’t be much more costly to include the same content across all platforms and engage more potential customers.

Ultimately both businesses have recognised the importance of involving the community in what they are doing, and each have clearly identified a direction in which to corner their customers. From videos and blog posts to family events and sports teams, these two businesses are making bank from being involved.

Read more social media comparisons from Newcastle

Newcastle City Council vs Lake Macquarie Council

Newcastle Jets vs Newcastle Knights

Why people contact brands on social media

Increasingly, customers prefer to contact brands via social media over traditional methods:

• Nearly 35% of consumers nominate social media as their preferred method of customer care
• Less than 25% prefer website or live web chat customer care
• Less than 20% prefer email-based customer care
• Call centre customer care comes in last place with just over 16% of consumers preferring phone-based customer care.

They may reach out to:

• Request pre-sale information
• Give feedback
• Complain

Customers also post about their customer care experiences on social media, with 47% of consumers aged 18-34 complaining about a brand’s customer support via social media.

Customer expectations online

Customer care is one of the most important aspects of running a business. Quality customer service leads to greater brand loyalty and higher customer spending, while poor customer service may force customers to abandon a brand.

With more than 60% of customers now expecting brands to offer customer support on social media, it has never been more important to provide social media customer care.

Customer expectations on social media response times are high with:

• 42% of customers expecting a response to their social media complaint within one hour
• 32% expecting a response in under 30 minutes
• 11% expecting an immediate response.

Thirty per cent of customers will switch to a competitor if a brand does not respond to their enquiry or complaint.

Benefits of social media customer care

When done well, social media customer care can have huge benefits for your company.

Social media customer care is highly cost-effective. It costs one dollar to resolve an issue on social media, which is one-sixth the price of resolving an issue via a call centre. Social media customer care agents are more than 160% more efficient than voice agents.

Facebook and Twitter are 48% more accurate and 44% faster methods of delivering customer care responses than email.

High quality social media customer care can yield:

• 92% customer retention
• 81% greater annual increase in revenue from customer referrals
• Increased customer spending of 20%-40%
• Annual return on investment increase of 30.7%
• Improved customer satisfaction rates by a margin of 26.6%

Providing good quality timely customer care via social media reduces call centre and other customer care costs and, most importantly, creates happy customers who will stay loyal to your brand.

Stats and images from Websitebuilder.org. See the full infographic here.