Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party are significantly outperforming Anthony Albanese and Labor in the contest for younger voters on TikTok as the federal election edges closer, analysis by ABC NEWS Verify shows.
But since the beginning of last year, the prime minister has seen slightly higher-than-average interactions on posts on Instagram and Facebook, which are platforms popular with older voters.
Social media will matter more than ever this election, with just under half of Australians using it to get their news, and nearly two-thirds of Gen-Z relying on it as their primary news source.
ABC NEWS Verify analysed recent posts on the TikTok, Instagram and Facebook feeds of both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, as well as the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia accounts.
Here’s what we uncovered.
Battleground TikTok
Video posts to TikTok show both the Liberals and Mr Dutton outperforming the incumbent government.
The social media app claims to have more than 8.5 million active monthly users in Australia, making it a vital way to reach voters — especially younger ones.
Analysis shows the Liberals are way ahead on average plays per video post despite Labor having been on the platform longer.
The data was captured on February 5, so it is likely some videos have received more plays since then.
Mr Dutton’s videos, on average, are being played considerably more than Mr Albanese’s too, though there is less data to compare because both leaders only started posting late last year.
This is despite the prime minister posting more often than the opposition leader, with six video posts in December and 11 in January, against Mr Dutton’s two in December and four in January.
Mr Dutton’s videos feature snippets of podcast interviews and a reaction video. But most address the viewer directly, with him looking straight at the camera.
Susan Grantham, lecturer of communications at Griffith University, who researches the use of platforms such as TikTok in politics, said the Liberal Party TikTok account featured a lot of memes, while Mr Dutton’s individual account focused more on the personal.
“You are very much seeing this separation between party memetic humour and individual political authenticity, which I think is really strong and definitely being noticed,” Dr Grantham said.
She said Mr Dutton had some advantage, having been on the platform slightly longer. The opposition leader first posted in September, while Mr Albanese first posted in December.
Andrew Hughes, a marketing lecturer at the Australian National University who specialises in political marketing, told ABC NEWS Verify the Liberal Party clearly saw TikTok’s advantages over other forms of communication.
“They look at it and go, ‘We’re not going to reach you on TV, radio, or other forms of media, but where I can really get you is on TikTok.’
“[They are] construct[ing] it for a younger audience — very targeted, very directed, and very specific.
“Labor’s trying to put [Mr Dutton] into that category of being very negative, and a very dark personality, whereas the Coalition strategy is the complete opposite — which is to go shareable, likeable, ‘Uncle Peter’,” he said.
Dr Hughes speculated the Liberal Party account could be run by younger people considering its mix of shareable content such as memes, and clips from Mr Dutton’s recent podcast appearances.
ABC NEWS Verify understands both leaders are managing their social media accounts from within their offices, and both parties are managing their own social media accounts.
It has been widely reported that the Liberals have enlisted support from Topham Guerin — an advertising agency credited with helping conservative parties retain or win power in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
“They’ve gone outside really quickly in the campaign. They’ve got Topham Guerin in, who brought in their own team of people, who make this short-form content,” Dr Hughes said.
“They don’t care how rough it looks because that actually is more effective.”
Neither the ALP nor the Liberal Party responded to questions about engaging external social media strategists.
Battleground Instagram
The fight for voters on Meta’s platform Instagram is closer according to the data, captured on February 4.
ABC NEWS Verify has calculated the account’s average interactions by dividing the total number of monthly interactions by the total number of monthly posts to gain an insight into whether posts are performing better.
Interactions on Instagram include liking and commenting on a post.
Interactions do not indicate whether the person liking, commenting, or sharing the post was doing so in a positive or negative light.
“There could be very negative, nasty comments added in that, but that’s still adding to the engagement, which then adds to the algorithm, which then pushes it out further,”
Dr Grantham said.
“A lot of people who use social media … will say that all engagement is good engagement because of the fact that more people will then see your content.”
Since the beginning of last year, the Liberals have had the edge on Labor for all but one month.
However, Mr Albanese, on average, is far outperforming Mr Dutton.
“I would say that Anthony Albanese’s account has a much more significant following because of the fact that he is our prime minister,” Dr Grantham said.
“Instagram is an interesting platform because people tend to engage more heavily with issues, versus somewhere like TikTok, where it’s … scrolling, scrolling, scrolling,” she said.
Dr Hughes thinks Labor and the prime minister could be doing better because their content is not targeted enough.
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“I think it comes across as being too broad and not directed and specific enough on certain target groups,” he said.
“Now we’re getting close to the election, he has to show a bit more heart, a bit more spirit.“
Battleground Facebook
The prime minister has also outperformed Mr Dutton on Meta’s Facebook since the beginning of last year.
Average monthly interactions show Mr Albanese in front in 11 of 13 months, with a considerable edge in January 2025.
On the major parties’ Facebook pages there is little daylight between them, with both seeing rising interactions in the past two months, suggesting more reactions, comments, and shares in the lead-up to the election.
Dr Hughes said voters should look at what is being shared during the election campaign to understand who is winning the battle for attention on platforms.
“Is it the Labor content, the Albanese content, is it the Dutton content, or is it the Coalition content?
“I think it’ll be quite revealing on who’s being quite effective,” he said.
About the data
- Data was extracted from social media tracking tool Newswhip on February 4 (Facebook and Instagram) and February 5 (TikTok) Australian time
- Posts are divided into months based on Universal Time (UTC)
- Average video plays per post on TikTok by month is calculated by adding the total video plays recorded for video posts published in a month and dividing that figure by the total number of video posts published in a month
- Average interactions per post on Facebook and Instagram is calculated by adding the total number of reactions on all posts published over a month and dividing that figure by the total number of published posts for the month
- Interactions on Instagram include liking and commenting on a post
- Interactions on Facebook include all reactions (like, love, care, angry, sad and surprised), comments and shares
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