Social Media Wars: What Is Australia’s Favourite Platform?

Even after a scandal-plagued past few years, Facebook is still the preferred social media site for Australians, but a recent study shows the rest of the field is quickly catching up.

Over 17 million Australians aged over 14 check out Facebook in an average four weeks, says market research firm Roy Morgan.

This is up 4.2 million from 2015, representing a 32.4 per cent spike.

Although impressive, most of this growth occurred between 2015 and 2017, with only 540,000 new Australian users taking to the site since 2017.

YouTube takes out second place, with 15.3 million Australians visiting the site in an average four weeks – a 29.7 per cent increase from 2015.

And while Facebook and YouTube are at the top of the pile when it comes to total traffic, it is Instagram (owned by Facebook) that is growing the fastest.

The number of Australians visiting the photo and video sharing site was up by over 238.1 per cent from 2015, growing from 2.4 million to 8 million.

This makes Instagram Australia’s third most popular social media platform.

Pinterest also attracted impressive growth of 173.4 per cent, finishing fourth.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said the changing face of social media in Australia represents the interests of different demographics.

“Although Instagram and Pinterest are undoubtedly the ‘hottest’ Social Networks in Australia for attracting new users, the two are attracting different audiences,” she said.

“Instagram appeals strongly to a younger audience with 68 per cent of Generation Z and 52 per cent of Generation Y using Instagram in an average four weeks.

“The two youngest generations are over 70 per cent of Instagram’s total users.

“In contrast only 33 per cent of Generation Z use Pinterest and the highest penetration of Pinterest users is found with Generation X of whom 40 per cent use Pinterest.

“The majority of Pinterest’s users (53 per cent ) are in the three older generations of Pre-Boomers, Baby Boomers or Generation X.”

Facebook attracts the most users aged between 43 and 58 (Generation X), with 87 per cent of the demographic accessing Facebook at least once every four weeks.

YouTube is the favourite for the younger Generation Z, visited by 89 per cent of Australians aged between 14 and 27 in an average four weeks.

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