Telstra, Qantas and Optus are the most ‘loved’ Australian brands on social media.

According to the ‘Netbase Top 50 Brand Love List’, Telstra, Qantas, and Optus are the most ‘loved’ Australian brands on social media.

By looking closely at consumer emotions toward brands, 50 top brands were chosen based on positive mentions.

“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,” says NetBase CMO, Paige Leidig.

While it’s perhaps surprising to see two phone companies top the Love List for Australian brands, Optus’ sports coverage and Telstra’s consistent customer care through issues such as outages and payment errors were listed as reasons they performed well.

Other Australian brands ranking highly on the mention count but not making the top 50 include NAB (8000), JetStar (5000), Bunnings (5000), JB Hi-Fi (4000), Coles (4000), Hungry Jacks (3000), Officeworks (2000), and Big W (2000).

Spirits and alcoholic beverages failed to make the love list, which presents opportunity for brands in this space to leverage social media  as an untapped source of brand engagement via conversations.

Here’s the top 50 global brands loved by Australians on social:

1. Instagram, 1.8 million mentions,
2. Facebok, 1.3 million mentions,
3. Amazon, 310,000 mentions,
4. Twitter, 212,000 mentions,
5. Apple, 210,000 mentions,
6. Snapchat, 91,000 mentions,
7. Pokemon, 69,000 mentions,
8. Pinterest, 56,000 mentions,
9. Etsy, 55,000 mentions,
10. Playstation/Sony, 51,000 mentions,
11. Telstra, 51,000 mentions,
12. Netflix, 51,000 mentions,
13. Disney, 50,000 mentions,
14. eBay, 41,000 mentions,
15. Qantas, 39,000 mentions (Australia),
16. Microsoft, 33,000 mentions,
17. McDonald’s, 29,000 mentions,
18. Ford, 28,000 mentions,
19. Optus, 26,000 mentions,
20. Nintendo, 26,000 mentions,
21. Target, 24,000 mentions,
22. Samsung, 23,000 mentions,
23. Lego, 21,000 mentions,
24. Woolworths, 16,000 mentions,
25. Nike, 16,000 mentions,
26. Toyota, 15,000 mentions,
27. Coca-Cola, 15,000 mentions,
28. BMW, 14,000 mentions,
29. Virgin Australia, 14,000 mentions,
30. HP, 13,000 mentions,
31. Visa, 12,000 mentions,
32. KFC, 12,000 mentions,
33. Mercedes, 11,000 mentions,
34. Macquarie, 11,000 mentions,
35. LG, 11,000 mentions,
36. Westpac, 10,000 mentions,
37. ANZ, 10,000 mentions,
38. Canon, 10,000 mentions,
39. Ferrari, 10,000 mentions,
40. Chanel, 9000 mentions,
41. Porsche, 9000 mentions,
42. Intel, 9000 mentions,
43. Vegemite, 9000 mentions,
44. Westfield, 9000 mentions,
45. Honda, 9000 mentions,
46. Myer, 9000 mentions,
47. Adidas, 9000 mentions,
48. Delta, 9000 mentions,
49. Commonwealth Bank, 8000 mentions, and
50. Nissan, 8000 mentions.

Netbase released the report to celebrate its launch in Australia in late September.