The Aussie Brands That Crushed It On Social Media This Year

It’s been a big year – in a run of big years. After the shockers that were 2020 and 2021, most of us headed into 2022 like nervous rabbits, unsure if we should head back into the big wide world, or if we should stay safe and protected in our little bunny burrows.  

With all these nervous, uncertain consumers, brands and businesses have had their work cut out for them. The pandemic has made people more online than ever, and it’s online that people continue to vent their frustrations and fears.  

Because of this, striking the right tone on social media was more important than ever.  

We pulled together the top posts of 2022* and identified the brands that consistently hit their social media content out of the park – and what we can learn from them. 

P.S. Curious where your brand fits in? Find out how you stack up against your direct industry competitors by downloading a free Social Media Content Benchmarks report now – created by social media brand health tool Zavy. Download by the end of the year and you’ll go in to win 6 months of Zavy! 

* from the brands in Zavy’s Top 25 Australian Scoreboard

#5: JETSTAR

Starting out the top five best performers on social this year was low-fare airline, Jetstar. Jetstar had a number of great content ‘wins’ in 2022, not in the least due to their light-hearted, humorous tone and low-production posts, like these three below.

These posts – simple text posts and a humorous Messenger exchange – are a great example of how high-performing content doesn’t necessarily need to be high-production value, it just needs to find a way to break through the noise and resonate.

Jetstar showed us that one way to break through the noise is to strip away sleek design and focus on curating an authentic, casual voice that makes people laugh. 

Lesson: Use humour to engage 

#4: BUNDABERG RUM

Bundaberg Rum was a surprise high-performer on Facebook this year, mainly due to the posts below. These are great examples of product-first social marketing, creating products that your customer base is genuinely interested in, and then using their enthusiasm on social to create a buzz.

You can see this in action in the metrics – the high number of shares and tags in the comments suggest that most of the interactions on these posts are people tagging their friends to get excited for the new product.

This explains why Bundaberg’s Campfire Rum post had the highest engagement-sentiment ratio out of all the brands on the list, with a large number of interactions and high positive sentiment. Letting your audience push your message and create buzz is a great reason to create exciting, shareable content. 

Lesson: Create buzz around a product 

#3: TELSTRA

Hey look, another messaging screenshot! Do we sense a theme? Telstra used their social content to identify frustrations their customers were having (like dodgy scam texts or international helpdesks) and shared that they were working towards a solution.

The content varied from simple text posts to high-production video, but they kept the messaging consistent throughout. It’s clear these posts struck a chord – customers were quick to comment about their own individual experiences, boosting the posts even further. 

Lesson: Acknowledge and solve a customer problem 

#2: QANTAS

Qantas was above-and-beyond the winner on Instagram this year. In fact, Qantas had the top 24 Instagram posts of our Australian scoreboard brands in 2022. Qantas really took advantage of Instagram’s focus on quality, user-generated photography to get people excited about flying again after a tough couple of years.

Your users can be your best marketers – and their content is more likely to feel authentic and engage others. Over on Facebook, Qantas launched their I Still Call Australia Home video – a remixed version of a campaign first done 35 years prior.

People flooded to the comments to express how the video affected them (hint: there were tears!) Across all platforms, Qantas had the best, most consistently high Zavy score. 

Lesson: Take advantage of user-generated content 

#1: NRMA INSURANCE

The clear winner across the board: NRMA Insurance. 

From the outset, NRMA’s social strategy was clear: tell real stories about real Australian heroes. The impact was immediate – the combination of intimate photography and personal quotes got people’s attention, and, perhaps more importantly, it captured their hearts. 

Stories were often paired with meaningful initiatives like rehabilitative music programmes in correctional facilities, or knitted cardigans for children in need – heart-warming projects NRMA’s community could get behind and would be tempted to share far and wide. 

There’s a number of ways we can track the success of NRMA’s social. Their posts consistently rank at the top for engagement metrics such as likes, shares and comments. And – using Zavy’s Map tool – we can see that NRMA have the highest sentiment for their brand across all brands in our Top 25 Australian brands list. It’s an impressive feat – and a testament to the power of good, authentic storytelling featuring real, inspirational Australians. 

Lesson: Nothing beats real humans and good storytelling 

Want to know how your social media measures up?  

For the first time,  Zavy has released a set of industry-leading social media benchmarks – aggregated from over 1.3 million posts across Australia and New Zealand. 

 Zavy’s Social Media Content Benchmarks report is a fast and simple way to compare your content metrics against your industry competitors.  Reach out at hello@zavy.co if you want to find out more – and keep an eye out for an exciting new tool with even more benchmark data coming your way in 2023.