Australian Social Media: 3 Priorities for Brands

I am back from Australia, Brian Giesen and Graham White lead a terrific team of 360°Digital Influence strategists down under. They showed me a lot of what is happening in that market. I spoke with several journalists from The Australian, CBS and others and heard a POV that I just don't agree with. Simply put many people said, "we're behind (the development of social media) the US." Having been through a few markets during this most recent trip in Asia, I can't say strongly enough that the US is not the end of the rainbow. There is not one evolutionary path for the adoption of social media especially as it relates to digital marketing. 

Where is Australia heading? If anything, they like Brazil, may be heading towards a faster adoption of social networking for marcom purposes and a faster adoption of mobile social networking than the US. Unlike the US and many other markets, their newspaper business is not dying. That may be a "yet" but as one veteran reporter put it, they may just not have the heritage of bloated staff counts grown when print was the way people consumed media. They may have less "right-sizing" to do. In general, traditional media remains strong in Australia. 

Three Priorities for Brands:

1. Jump directly into adopting Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and manage the group via a conversation calendar-model. Brands have a terrific opportunity to grow their 'social grassroots' base of followers. This is doubly important because Australia doesn't have the same breadth of influential bloggers as the United States (not as many segements). 

2. Put half your effort into building out the mobile experience form your brand which, of course, includes how they interact with Facebook, Twitter and teh up-and-comer in market, FourSquare.   

3. Embrace integrated social media programs that make use of other forms of marketing and communications and marketing. That means use paid media to drive engagement with whatever you are doing in Facebook or Twitter. Don't waste time exploring whether social media is the miracle "cheap" replacement for traditional marketing. 

Four Telling Trends

Here are four trends that I find telling about Australia. Each has been compiled by our Australian team in a great snapshot of the region.  

 

Australians spend the most time worldwide consuming social media. With almost 7 hours per month spent in social media they "out-social" the US, UK and Italy (one to watch btw). If you factor in the relative population size that puts 17 million users online (80% of the population with 62% via broadband) vs. about 230 million US users or almost 77% of the population). 

The social network story is dominated by Facebook. And before we say "duh!" remember that in many Internet-rich countries around the world like Brazil, Japan and Russia, Facebook is not the leader. In Australia, no one stands in Facebook's path towards commanding mass-attention, even the 55+ crowd in Australia is jumping on board.

 

The biggest gain in year-over-year change in social media usage is interacting with a brand via social networks. That means Facebook and Twitter. Australian consumers are willing to engage with brands via these platforms just as readily as in the United States. 

 

The under 35 crowd wants to access social networks like Facebook and Twitter via their mobile device. With 89% SMS penetration and 20% Web access via mobile (and likely 20% smart phone penetration), all eyes should be on developing the mobile experience for brands.  

Australia has its own path towards adoption of social media and it will likely leapfrog other countries including the US in terms of how brands take advantage of their particular usage. 

Comments

[Laurel Papworth]

Yep its MEDIA that is lagging not AUSTRALIA. With nearly 10 million facebookers active monthly and 29% of Australians (Forresters) uploading content each month, we lead worldwide.
PS social networking is for OVER 30's - the yoof stick to SMS. Too busy figuring out their place in the world to reflect on it I guess.

[Michele Smorgon]

Hello John,
What a very nice article! I agree with your sentiments, re Australia and the adoption of Social Media and certainly do not agree with "we're behind (the development of social media) the US." That may have been the case in 2008, however as the stats have shown Australia has most definitely caught up with the US, Canada & Europe ...
Australian are known for "giving it a go"
Cheers
Michele Smorgon @maxOz
"Down Under"