Social Media Growth Continues in the NT

Social media participation in the Northern Territory continues to grow, particularly the number of Territorians now connecting via LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has seen a massive 12.4 per cent growth in the two months from 30 June to
31 August, up from 8277 to 9303 members. If this growth rate continues, we could see more than 16,000 members in the NT by this time next year.

Facebook achieved just 3.3 per cent growth over the same period, up from 69,620 members to 71,900.

This growth is mirrored in a recent recruitment campaign we implemented on behalf of a client, which saw a much higher response rate from LinkedIn advertising compared with Facebook.

Twitter remains notoriously difficult to measure but even so appears to have achieved less than 1 per cent growth.

Facebook

Katherine and Batchelor led the growth in Facebook members, up 5.3 and 10.3 per cent respectively. The number of members in Alice Springs actually decreased.

The percentage of population on Facebook is now 32.7 per cent, with a much higher usage in Darwin at 45.2 per cent and Katherine at 46.3 per cent.

	June	July	August
All NT	69,620	70,000	71,900
Darwin	50,240	50,320	51,580
Alice Springs	10,060	10,160	9,840
Katherine	2,640	2,700	2,780
Nhulunbuy	1,280	1,280	1,280
Tennant Creek	780	800	860
Batchelor	NA	NA	60
Other	4,620	4,740	5,560

Source: These statistics were sourced using Facebook’s advertising tool, setting parameters for state and town and includes all age groups. Be aware that while Facebook works hard to understand the true demographics of its users as its advertising model depends on it, it still relies on individual account owners to name their home town. Many users do not.

LinkedIn

Just over 4 per cent of Territorians in major centres are now connected via LinkedIn, with Nhulunbuy continuing to lead the pack with a whopping 12.8 per cent of residents holding an account, up from 11 per cent in June.

	June	July	August
All major centres	8,177	8,768	9,303
Darwin	6,219	6,533	6,923
Alice Springs	1,344	1,415	1513
Katherine	252	269	282
Nhulunbuy	462	486	536
Batchelor	NA	65	49

Source: These figures were prepared by using LinkedIn’s advanced search tool. We searched for accounts within 80km of each major centre in the Northern Territory. Tennant Creek is not shown in this table, as our search did not reveal any users. Again, we need to remember that account holders self-identify their location and research shows a large number of people never visit their profile again after the initial rush of excitement.

Twitter

Twitter remains difficult to measure, and our analysis showed less than 1 per cent growth over the two-month period.

	June	July	August
Estimated users	598*	612	642

Please note we have adjusted our estimate downward for the month of June based on using a more advanced search process through TweetAdder.