The main driver behind social media uptake from businesses is to aid marketing and sales, but over the last year, there was a reduction in the number of businesses with a social media presence. Among small and medium businesses (SMBs) only 47% have a social media presence while for large businesses numbers are higher at 60%.

Read the main points written below to discover more about how Australian businesses are using social media in 2017:

Social Media Usage

• Approximately 10% of SMBs without a social media presence said they would add one in the next year.
• Nearly 9 in 10 small (90%), medium (87%) and large businesses (93%) using social media have a Facebook profile.
• LinkedIn is the second most popular platform in each business segment especially large businesses (82%).
• Twitter is the third most popular platform for small (24%), medium (36%), and large businesses (55%).
• 88% of large, 36% of small, and 34% of medium businesses make daily updates for their social media.
• In 2o16, 76% of large businesses using social media platforms as a two-way communication channel but now almost all do so (95%).
• All large businesses in addition to 90% of small and 62% of medium businesses advertise on Facebook.

Business Investment in Social Media

• Only 34% of the small firms and 45% of the medium firms don’t know how much money they have invested in social media.
• 25% of small businesses and 10% of medium businesses don’t have an annual budget for their social media.
• Only 39% of large, 23% of small and 20% of medium-sized businesses measure their ROI on social media.
• 95% of large businesses measure their success on social media by the number of likes, followers, and subscribers, compared to 52% of small and 43% of medium-sized businesses.
• 90% of large businesses have a strategic plan for social media, compared to 43% of medium and 40% of small-sized businesses.

Methodology:

Data were driven from 1,000 small & medium businesses (SMB) and 100 large business proprietors/managers across Australia.