NetBase Report Reveals Aussies Love Social Media More Than Beer

Australians are showing the love to brands from overseas more than home-grown companies, according to the inaugural NetBase Top 50 Brand Love List, released today. The report places Instagram as the most loved brand in Australia with Telstra – ranking at only number 11 – the first Australian brand to make the overall list.

“Australians have a real love and passion for connectivity and social media with Social Media & SMS and Technology industries featuring heavily in the top 10 Love List. It could be due to Australia being so far away from the rest of the world geographically, that Aussies love the way social channels keep them connected to the rest of the world. This is quite different from the UK counterparts who tend to favour more luxury brands such as Chanel and Christian Dior,” said NetBase chief marketing officer, Paige Leidig.

Home-grown brands

“We would like to see more Australian brands using social to connect with and service their customers, the first local brand to appear in the list was Telstra at number 11 of the overall ranking. The most popular home-grown brands ranking showed quite a few surprises – while it is commonly perceived that Aussies hate the telcos, NetBase revealed that two of them are featured in the top five!

“Fans were very excited about Optus’ sports coverage and partnership with the English Premier League but it was Telstra that has stolen the hearts of the homeland, by providing consistent positive customer service experience even during difficult times like outages and payment errors.

“Woolworths is still winning the war on social against rival Coles in the NetBase Love List, with customers discussing the greatest value they can get from their Woolies supermarkets. Airlines – Qantas and Virgin Australia and financial services – Macquarie, Westpac, ANZ – also featured heavily in the home-grown ranking.” said Mr Leidig.

The NetBase Top 50 Love List takes a close look at the brands Aussies express the most love for in social media, using patented natural language processing technology to showcase the strongest, most positive consumer emotions towards brands.

The Automotive (16 per cent), Retail (16 per cent) and Technology (14 per cent) industries feature most within the overall Australian Top 50 Brand Love List, however that number is not reflected in the volume of positive mentions, with Social Media & SMS (71 per cent) taking up a significant piece of the pie before eCommerce (8 per cent) and Technology (6 per cent).

This report heralds the arrival in Australia of NetBase, the global leader in enterprise social analytics, as recognised by Forrester*.

“We are here to help companies understand how to enhance their social media strategy to meet business goals such as boosting customer engagement; and build a tribe of loyal followers. Social is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but should play an integral part in every business and marketing strategy,” said Mr Leidig.

View the full Australian LOVE LIST. The NetBase Australian Love List details Australia’s Top 50 Most-Loved Brands.

The Top 10 global brands within the Love List and their ranking:

1. Instagram
2. Facebook
3. Amazon
4. Twitter
5. Apple
6. Snapchat
7. Pokémon
8. Pinterest
9. Etsy
10. Playstation / Sony

The Top 10 Australian brands within the Love List, and their ranking:

11. Telstra
12. Qantas
13. Optus
14. Woolworths
15. Virgin Australia
16. Macquarie
17. Westpac
18. ANZ
19. Vegemite
20. Westfield

The LOVE LIST is categorised in to:

• Automotive (16 per cent)
• Retail (16 per cent)
• Technology (14 per cent)
• Financial Services (10 per cent)
• Entertainment (10 per cent)
• Social media & SMS (10 per cent)
• Food & Beverage (8 per cent)
• Airline (6 per cent)
• eCommerce (6 per cent)
• Telecommunications (4 per cent)

NetBase launched in Australia on 28 September 2016.