Tuesdata: How the social giants stack up
Welcome to Tuesdata, where we pick apart the most interesting data in the media and marketing industry.
How do some of the biggest social media brands stack up in Australia? Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram?
The information is lying around cyberspace, sometimes in plain sight. Today I’ll piece together some of the most important parts to give you a better idea of how they stack up in terms of users, advertising revenue, reach and more.
Some of the figures are certified numbers direct from the business, others are a best guess based on applying ratios from other examples.
The full content of this post is for Unmade’s paying members only. Others will hit the paywall a little lower down.
According to Data Reportal’s Digital Report 2022, 91% of the Australian population are internet users. That’s around 23.6m people.
Of those people, there are 21.45m social media users. This figure is reported in both Data Reportal’s report as well as Meltwater from Statista information. That means about 83% of the total Australian population are reported to be social media users. But there is a caveat. One user doesn’t necessarily equal an individual, so the percentage of the Australian population using social media is likely to be less.
It is virtually a sure bet that usage will continue to trend upwards across the variety of social media platforms, not least because mobile coverage and speed in Australia is getting significantly better.
Network testing and analysis business Ookla reported that Australian mobile internet connection speeds increased by 25.1% in the 12 months to January 2022. Thanks 5G. That means an average connection speed now of 81.14Mbps. Gone are the days of social video lag.
With that in mind it makes the social media landscape even more fascinating and important to the Australian media and marketing industry.
Below I’ll take a look at some of the main players and how they stack up. Sources for this post include the SMH, Bloomberg, Meltwater, Ookla, Data Reportal, TechCrunch, Chartr, The University of Canberra, Statista and more.
Comparing the big social media players
*Of the population aged 18 or above
** Estimate from South China Morning Post
*** Rough estimate based on if Australia produced 2% of the global revenue
Note: All ad revenue is for CY21 except for Australian figures for Meta and Google which are Australian FY21
Sources:
Meta Ad Revenue (local) / Meta Ad Revenue (global)
Google Ad Revenue (local) / Google Ad Revenue (global)
YouTube
Managing director, Google Australia & New Zealand: Melanie Silva
One of the original social media darlings, video sharing platform YouTube was purchased by Google in 2006, not long after it was founded. As internet speeds have increased, so has the opportunity for YouTube.
The last year has seen it make significant announcements including making videos uploaded by children between 13-17 private by default and removing “overly commercial content” from YouTube Kids. It also decided to hide the ‘dislike’ count on videos.
That statistics show it has the biggest Australian audience reach, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Google in Australia. It’s currently working through independent deals with Australian media to prevent it from potentially being designated under the News Media Bargaining Code, while it is in the cross heirs of the ACCC’s Digital Advertising Services Inquiry investigating the dominance of Google in all aspects of the digital advertising funnel.
It came out swinging recently by saying in a submission to the US Copyright Office that, “While no digital platform has been designated under the code at this stage, we believe that it should not be replicated.”
Facebook and Instagram (Meta)
Managing director & vice president: William Easton
Meta’s (then Facebook) February 2021 decision to restrict news sharing in Australia is still coming back to bite the company. Managing director and vice president for Australia and New Zealand, William Easton, recently had to defend the business following documents filed by Whistleblower Aid with the ACCC and the United States Department of Justice on behalf of a former Facebook employee.
Meta insisted that it was a technical error rather than anything more sinister that led to some non-news services being taken off the platform during the news shutdown. Services including emergency aid like the Ambulance, Police and Fire.
It also attracted blowback for its failure to negotiate with some Australian media owners to avoid designation under the News Media Bargaining Code. Media owners including SBS and The Conversation.
On the social side, Facebook and Instagram have taken a back step from the limelight lately as the business focuses on the inspiration for its new name, the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has invested heavily in the metaverse, which may be to the detriment of its stalwart businesses in the short term.
Bytedance’s TikTok is rapidly gaining on Instagram and Facebook in terms of users and ad reach.
Managing director: Angus Keene
Announced as the local boss of Twitter in May this year, Angus Keene took over the hot seat at the very start of the Elon Musk/Twitter purchase saga. A saga that continues to this day and will likely be resolved in court.
Regardless of which way it ends, the job will still be the same for Twitter both locally and globally. Increase relevance, increase users, increase market share.
It’s telling that the two youngest platforms on this list have already surpassed Twitter in terms of users, value and advertising revenue.
Twitter’s moves, including the questionable launch of subscription service Twitter Blue just over a year ago (a service which launched in Australia first) have hardly been inspirational.
According to the University of Canberra’s Digital News Report: Australia 2021, just 18% of those surveyed used Twitter compared to 67% for Facebook and 61% for YouTube.
TikTok
General manager: Lee Hunter
The one to continue watching in the social media space. TikTok’s growth has and continues to be rapid.
Last month Bloomberg reported that the platform, owned by Chinese company Bytedance, is on track to triple revenue this year and truly start to challenge Facebook. It was the most downloaded app in 2021 and its users are on it an average of 28.7 hours per month by comparison to 15.5 for Facebook (which is trending down) and 7.8 for Instagram.
A recent infographic by Chartr graphs the speed at which social platforms have grown revenue. If TikTok hits the expected US$12b revenue mark this year it would have done in six years what it took Facebook to do in 10 and YouTube to do in 14. Twitter, meanwhile, simply hasn’t reached those sorts of annual revenue numbers ever.
It’s made local moves recently as well, trying to foster First Nations businesses as well as announcing Aussie startup Tribe as a local marketing partner.
In February it also launched the TikTok Agency Accelerator Program to champion the growth of emerging leaders in the media agency sector. Not a bad idea for a platform whose business depends substantially on that specific sector.
Snapchat
APAC general manager: Kathryn Carter
While Snapchat is competing strongly in the space, locally the biggest story lately has arguably been the entry and exit of well-known adland senior executive Danny Bass.
Bass was hired in September last year to be director of business solutions but departed last month to focus on his farm and wellness retreat in the Hawkesbury region north of Sydney, although rumours circulated about a possible role at Dentsu.
Just under a year ago analyst Ben Shepherd wrote a detailed piece about the success of Snap over 2020/21. Shepherd wrote about the high share price at the time of US$77.97. A year on it’s an absolute disaster, with shares now sitting at US$9.96.
While that is alarming, the user numbers tell a different story. According to TechCrunch, “Meta reported its first loss in daily active users (DAUs) last quarter, while Twitter’s monetisable DAUs grew by 2% in the US and 15% internationally. Snap, parent company to Snapchat, grew its DAUs 18% year over year to 332 million, but for the five previous quarters, its user growth exceeded 20%.”
Enero rallies as the market falls
Holding group Enero was the main gainer on Monday with a 2.46% climb despite the Unmade Index dropping 2.75%.
Domain Holdings took the biggest hit, losing 6.12% as the property market continues its dip. Seven West Media lost 3.33% as the battle for the AFL rights continue on. It’s primary competitor, Nine, dropped almost an identical number in terms of percentage, 3.43% down.
Rain, rain, it ain’t going away
Speaking of social media, the on and off relationship most of the east coast of Australia has been having with La Niña was explained brilliantly by meteorologist Magdalena Rose on Instagram. It seems only appropriate under the circumstances to link to it here. It’s not good news but worth the watch.
That’s it for another edition of Tuesdata. The very best Tuesday to you all.
Until next time,
Damian
damian@unmade.media
