The gap between the number of consumers and the number of businesses using social media has grown in the past year, a recent study shows. The Sensis 2017 Social Media Report shows that 47% of Australian SMBs are now on social media, compared to 79% of consumers.

According to the report, the number of large businesses using social media has fallen 19 points to 60%. For medium businesses, the number has dropped 5 points to 49%, while small businesses have remained steady falling only 1 point to 47%. 

Of those businesses with a social presence, Facebook is the most popular platform, used by around 9 in 10 of every size business. The second most popular platform is LinkedIn, used by a majority of large businesses (82%), 41% of medium size businesses and 35% of small businesses. Twitter increases in popularity with business size, from 24% of small businesses to 36% of medium size businesses and 55% of large businesses. Instagram is more prevalent in medium (39%) than small (19%) or large (20%) businesses.

Most businesses are unlikely to offer incentives such as discounts and coupons via social media (29% small, 25% medium, 17% large), despite the appeal of these strategies with consumers. Interestingly, incentive offer seems to correlate to business size. Discounts are the most common offer from small businesses (84%), while it is give-aways for medium size businesses (70%) and discounts for large businesses (80%).

Despite the fall in presence, it appears that an increasing number of businesses have a social media strategy. Large businesses lead the way, with 90% now having a strategy (up from 76%). Although SMBs lag behind, there has been an improvement this year, up from 31% to 40% among small businesses and from 36% to 43% for medium businesses.

Advertising on social media has also become more popular among small (up from 20% to 26%) and medium (up from 27% to 35%) size businesses this year, although large businesses still lead the way (42%).

Sensis surveyed 800 Australian consumers and 1,100 Australian businesses for this study. For the purposes of this report, the term social media refers to social networking websites as well as online blogs and online rating and review mechanisms. 

Find the full report here.