Social media gains ground in Australia
An article published today in WARC suggests that the vast majority of brands in Australia intend to make greater use of social media over the next year, with marketers diverting resources away from traditional media to fund this process.
The study was produced by Community Engine (a social network plugin) which reported that 70% of the 347 advertisers interviewed intend to use Facebook and Twitter as part of their brand building activities. This surprised me, as I was expecting to find that the majority of advertisers already utilised social networking sites, so it will be interesting to see (when I’m in Australia) how much of an impact social media has in on both consumers and advertisers in comparison to the UK.
From an article in late 2009, Burson-Marsteller reported that many of Australia’s top brands were failing to exploit social media. The PR agency aimed to show how effectively Australian brands were utilising Facebook, Twitter and corporate blogs. Telstra, Woolworths and Billabong were among the 15% of brands utilising just two channels. Only 20% of companies had corporate blogs, 50% had a Facebook page and 40% had a Twitter page. This suggests that social media does not yet have a prominent place in Australian advertising but is gradually increasing it’s presence.
However, 61% of Community Engine’s respondents identified that their main motivation in social media is its potential for branding building, with securing customer feedback on 53%. Failing to join the conversation through social media sites means that many brands risk “losing touch” with their customers - using platforms to stimulate genuine interactions on a wide range of issues will enable Australian brands to effectively engage with their customers and stakeholders.
