Who is Australia’s Most Influential Business Voice on Twitter Now That Rupert Murdoch Has Left The Party?
After years of abrasive, entertaining and undeniably prolific tweeting (an average of over 42 posts a month), Rupert Murdoch’s Twitter feed fell silent on March 4th this year.
It was the day when he left to go on honeymoon following his wedding to Model/Actress/Whatever Jerry Hall.
“No more tweets for ten days or ever!” he posted. “Feel like the luckiest AND happiest man in world.”
He never came back. Or not to his 765,000 Twitter followers, at least.
So with Rupert out of the game, we at BrandData set out to answer the question of who can lay claim to his crown of ‘Top Australian Business Voice’ on social media.
(Bearing in mind that when we say ‘social media’ we mostly mean Twitter, which is by far the most influential social platform for business & finance).
Turning first to the world of banking, Mike Smith built up over 47,000 followers during his time as CEO of ANZ, but since his last day at the bank on 18th December 2015, Mr Smith has tweeted exactly zero times. Ian Narev of Commbank doesn’t tweet, nor does Andrew Thorburn of NAB or Brian Hartzer of Westpac.
One contender is Apprentice host and Executive Chairman of financial advice firm Yellow Brick Road, Mark Bouris, who has 27,000 followers. But according to BrandData’s analysis, only 0.24% of those followers are bothering to engage with his feed on a daily basis.
Perhaps that’s because Mr Bouris’s account tediously re-tweets nearly every mention he gets from followers, spams multiple posts advertising YBR events, and offers up regular grammatical glitches such as “Now is your chance to get the financial advice you’ve looking for.”
Another candidate would have to be Stephen Koukoulas (@TheKouk), Managing Director of macroeconomic advisory firm Market Economics. The Kouk has over 27,000 followers, whom he has blasted with over 46,000 tweets, which range from straightforward finance tips “Time to double up on AUD — looks a screaming buy to me” to political analysis “Remember the Coalition’s 2013 election costings? Breached the rules” and even animal rights postings, such as his commentary on the news that 27 animals died during filming of The Hobbit “Great — flog the shit out of animals on a movie set to entertain millions of drooling halfwits!”
The top business journalist is probably Brooke Corte (@brookecorte) of Sky News, whose Twitter followership has reached 10,000.
But leaving aside the celebrities and semi-celebrities, there are actually a host of names in the small business arena who have built substantial followings.
Donna Moritz, whose ‘Socially Sorted’ organisation helps businesses, bloggers and entrepreneurs with their social media, has over 31,000 Twitter followers. Her blog won Best Business Blog in Australia in 2014, and she is currently promoting the benefits of creating visual content (often infographics) that — in her words — “transform your social media marketing from ‘Meh’ to ‘Boom!’”
And at No.1 in the small business world is Greg Savage, founder of recruitment firms Firebrand Talent and people2people, who has over 49,000 Twitter followers, whom he keeps entertained with content such as “10 massive blunders I have made in recruitment” and “Sales meetings are like sex. The best bit is at the end.”
Mr Savage’s feed is professionally-presented, readable, and entertaining. If Rupert Murdoch succeeded on Twitter largely due to his celebrity, this guy is succeeding through his content.
So it looks like recruitment supremo Greg Savage earns the crown of Australia’s top business voice on Twitter. Assuming we exclude business-minded politicians, that is.
Ideas Boom-merchant Malcolm Turnbull has 613,000 followers, and although Treasurer Scott Morrison has only 41,000, his predecessor Joe Hockey can boast an outsize total of 176,000 followers. Although disappointingly, since being named ambassador to America, Hockey now tweets mostly about dry topics such as bilateral relations… although he does slip in the occasional personal message. “Really missing my NRL,” he tweeted plaintively this week. “Seems impossible to get coverage in the USA.”
