Last week The Online Circle released their second annual Australian Facebook Performance Report, offering an in-depth look into how consumers and brands are using Facebook across the nation.

The report, which was collated from data collected throughout January and February 2013, contains some interesting data, including the fact that Australians appear smitten with television, retail therapy, snackfoods and giant animated bananas. 

With Facebook sitting at number two (behind Google) for top brands with unique Australian audiences, having a Facebook presence and strategy has never been more important. Here's how some of the best in the country are winning on Facebook. 

Top Facebook Pages by Fans

Australians are bananas about food, nostalgia and television when it comes to Facebook.

Bananas in Pyjamas – with 2,032,296 fans – is the most popular Facebook page in Australia.

Coming in second place is the equally retro Bubble O'Bill Ice Creams (1.27m), with Pringles Australia (1.25m), Home and Away Official (1.04m) and MasterChef Australia (1.03,) finishing off the top five.

Top Industries by Fans

TV programs win the Facebook ratings by a country mile, with over 9m fans across the industry.

A distant second is retail-fashion with 5.5m fans, followed by FMCG – Snackfoods (4.8m) and FMCG – Beverages (3.9m).

Banks remain crucial but not popular, clocking in at #20 with a little over 534,778 fans. Of these CommBank leads the pack with 285,608 fans, compared with nearest rival NAB on 87,719 fans.

Television

Not one free-to-air station made it in the top three TV  – Channels and Networks list. These were awarded to [V] Music – Channel [V] Australia (774,523 fans), Foxtel (442,889) and MTV Australia (193,246). 

ABC made fourth spot, with Channel 9 scraping into #5. Channel 10 made #12, while Channel 7 did not make the top 20. 

FMCG – Beverages and snackfoods

In the world of FMCG the gulf is huge between first and second place. Coke is still top of the soft drinks on social, with 882,306 fans it's almost double second place getter V Energy Drink Australia (486,832). 

Rounding out the top five were Lipton Ice Tea ANZ, Slurpee Australia and Pepsi Australia.

In the snackfood arena the outright leader was Pringles Australia with 1.2 fans, virtually four times the amount of Cadbury Dairy Milk – Australia in second with 347,976.

The rest of the snack pack is made up of Vegemite, Nutella Australia and NZ and Maltesers Australia. 

To read the full report visit theonlinecircle.com.

Check out SMK’s upcoming industry leading training courses in: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Auckland, Adelaide and Wellington.

Also, browse through hundreds of online social media video tutorials on eSMK Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more!!