Social media has snowballed in importance over the last decade. However, just how much do people love their Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and lately TikTok accounts?
We’ve looked at the numbers and come up with some key social media statistics and facts. The figures are truly mind-boggling. While some might still shun this new type of media, there are undoubtedly many people who have embraced social media and use it daily.
While we have tried to gather the most up-to-date statistics and facts for this article, the nature of social media means that they will always be changing. Not only that, 2020 and 2021 have had a major effect on social media. With stay-at-home orders across the globe to help curb the spread of COVID-19, increasingly more people have been “forced” to use social media in other ways and/or more frequently. It would be interesting to see how our use of social media will be shaped by the pandemic years going forward.
Before we explore each of the main platforms in more detail, we first share a few stats about social media use in general. This way you can evaluate each network's strengths in context.
Social Media Statistics for 2023 [+ Internet in Real Time Live Infographic]:
General Social Media Statistics
To give you an overview, here are the latest findings of We Are Social and Hootsuite as shared in their Digital 2023: Global Overview Report about the general state of social media:
1. As of April 2023, there were 4.8 billion social media users.
2. Nearly 60% of the total population use social media.
3. Since 2012, the number of social media users has increased every year.
4. The average daily time spent using social media was 2 hours and 31 minutes.
5. On average, people use 6.6 social platforms per month.
6. The main reason why internet users use social media platforms is to stay in touch with friends and family.
7. 25.3 of internet users use social media channels to find products to buy.
8. 72% of Millennials and Gen Z follow influencers on social media. 22.1% of global internet users also follow influencers, highlighting the significant impact and reach of influencer marketing platforms in connecting with diverse audiences.
9. The top five favorite social media platforms are WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, WeChat, and TikTok, respectively.
10. The top five most-used social media platforms are Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and WeChat, respectively.
13 Facebook Statistics
1. According to data shared by Statista, Facebook had 2.037 billion daily active users as of Q1 2023. In other words, these users visit Facebook (or one of its other core products) at least once a day.
2. With regards to Facebook’s monthly active users, according to the Global Overview Report, it’s nearly 3 billion.
3. India is the country with the most Facebook users. As of April 2023, the country had the biggest Facebook audience with 369.9 million users. The United States has the second biggest audience with 186.4 million Facebook users, followed by Indonesia with 135.1 million users.
4. While the US doesn’t have the biggest Facebook audience, it’s still the leading social media website by far in the United States. In March 2023, it accounted for about 53% of all social media site visits.
5. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on Facebook is estimated at 2.25 billion, according to the Digital 2023: Global Overview Report.
6. Only 1.5% of the advertising audience use their laptop or desktop computer to access the platform.
7. 81.8% of Facebook users aged 18+ access the app from an Android device and 14.8% do so from an Apple iOS device.
8. In Q3 2022, more than 382 million hours of live streams were watched on Facebook Gaming. While it’s a lot, it doesn’t come quite close to the 1.29+ billion hours of streaming content that were watched on Facebook Gaming in Q3 2021.
9. Facebook is also clearly a favorite platform for businesses. Over 200 million small businesses around the globe use its tools.
10. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2023, Facebook is still the social network that people use most for news, though it has been declining in recent years.
11. The brand with the most-followed Facebook page is Facebook itself with 182 million followers, while Cristiano Ronaldo is the athlete with the most-followed Facebook page with 159 million followers.
12. As of January 2023, Shakira is the musician with the most Facebook fans (just over 119 million). Rihanna is in second spot and Eminem in third place.
13. In Q4 2022, Facebook removed 1.3 billion fake accounts. Fake accounts are regarded as accounts that are created to represent non-human entities or with a malicious intent.
9 Twitter Statistics
1. According to data shared by Oberlo, as of Q2 2023, Twitter boasted 353.9 million monetizable daily active users. It’s up by 30 million users in a year.
2. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on Twitter is estimated at 372.9 million, according to data shared by Digital 2023: Global Overview Report. This shrank 19.8% or by 92 million users from the reachable audience the previous year.
3. In 2021, Twitter generated just over $5 billion in ad revenue. It’s anticipated that it will reach nearly $10 billion by 2026.
4. Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s biggest user base is located in the United States with 64.9 million users as of April 2023. Japan has the second biggest audience based on the number of Twitter users (51.8 million), followed by Brazil in third place (16.6 million) and the United Kingdom in fourth with 16.1 million.
5. As of January 2023, former US president Barack Obama had the most Twitter followers with nearly 133.6 million. Elon Musk has the second most with 127 million followers, and Justin Bieber is in third place with 113.81 million followers. The athlete with the most followers is none other than Cristiano with just shy of 108 million followers.
6. A global online survey completed in 2022 revealed that more than half (55%) of weekly Twitter users prefer seeing informative content on Twitter. Only about 32% wanted to see inspirational tweets.
7. The most-liked tweet ever was posted in August 2020 to announce the death of Chadwick Boseman. To date, the tweet has received nearly 7 million likes. The tweet with the second-most likes was posted by none other than Elon Musk. The tweet that reads, “Next I’m buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in,” was posted at the end of April 2022 and has received nearly 5 million likes.
8. 64.3% of Twitter’s users are male and 35.7% are female. There is no current data on non-binary users and other gender identities.
9. Twitter is the 14th most-used social media platform.
22 YouTube Statistics
1. India has the biggest YouTube audience size. As of January 2023, there were 467 million subscribers, followed by the United States with 246 million and Brazil with 142 million.
2. As of 2022, the YouTube mobile app had 868.02 million monthly active users on iPhone and iPad. On the other hand, there were only about 23.76 million monthly active users on the YouTube Android app. Combined, that’s seriously a lot of people watching YouTube videos each month on mobile devices.
3. The average time spent per user via the mobile app per month is 23.1 hours. In South Korea, it’s the highest — at 40 hours per user per month, while in Germany it’s the lowest at 10.8 hours. Keep in mind this data only takes Android devices into account.
4. Brand awareness of YouTube is estimated at 94% in the US, making YouTube and Facebook the leading social networks ranked by brand awareness in the US in 2022. Of the 94% who were familiar with YouTube, 69% used it and 64% indicated that they liked it.
5. The most watched video on YouTube is "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong Kids’ Songs & Stories. As of February 2023, it has had 12.3 billion views. What’s more, it was the first YouTube video to exceed 10 billion views. It’s followed by “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee (8.1 billion views), while “Johny Johny Yes Papa” by LooLoo Kids was in third spot with 6.59 billion views.
6. “Dynamite” by BTS earned more than 101 million views in its first 24 hours, setting a new record for the biggest music video debut. In fact, eight of the top 10 24-hour debuts are from Korean pop artists. Equally impressive is that when it premiered in August 2020, 1.54 million concurrent viewers tuned in to watch it, another new record for the biggest YouTube premiere. Since then, it has been watched over 1.7 billion times and received 36 million likes.
7. In 2023, the top search queries on YouTube are BTS, pewdiepie, ASMR, Billie Eilish, and baby shark.
8. According to Earth Web, there are approximately 25,000-30,000 YouTube channels with over 1 million subscribers.
9. In 2022, YouTube rated MrBeast as the #1 Top Creator in the US for the third year in a row. Across his channels, there are over 275 million subscribers. MrBeast's videos were watched over 1 billion times in April 2021 alone and have likely only increased from there.
10. T-Series, the biggest music label and movie studio in India, is the top YouTube channel by subscriber count, having broken the 200-million mark with 237 million subscribers, as of February 2023. Per month, it generates about 3.5 billion views.
11. According to the Digital 2023: Global Overview Report, the potential reach of ads on YouTube is 2.51 billion, a 1.4% decrease from the year before.
12. In Q4 2022, YouTube earned worldwide advertising revenues of $7.963 million. YouTube’s advertising revenues decreased to $6.693 billion for the first quarter of 2023.
13. As of June 2023, Salvadoran gamer Fernanfloo has the most popular YouTube gaming channel with 46 million subscribers.
14. YouTube Gaming Live generated a total of 1.17 billion hours of content watched in the third quarter of 2022.
15. While Gen Z viewers have listed video games as their favorite, an Ipsos survey found that 65% of Gen Z agree that content that’s relevant to them is more important than content that loads of people are talking about.
16.As of November 2022, T-Series was the most-viewed YouTube channel owner of all times, with over 217 billion views.
17. YouTube is more popular among men. As of April 2022, about 40.4% of users were male compared to 33% who were female.
18. 83% of Gen Z have used YouTube to watch soothing content that helps them relax.
19. 78% of people agree that they use YouTube because it serves them with content that’s personally relevant to them.
20. Launched 18 years ago, YouTube’s Partner Program had 2 million members as of August 2021. To qualify, you need a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of overall watch time or 10 million Shorts views during the past year.
21. 36.9% of people aged 18+ around the world use YouTube today.
22. In Q4 2022, more than 1.9 billion comments were deleted from YouTube. The biggest reason was spam with 91% of the comments that were removed being classified as spam or misleading content. Cyberbullying and harassment accounted for only about 2.7%.
12 Instagram Statistics
1. According to data shared by Statista, Instagram had just over 1.2 billion monthly active users. It’s predicted that it will have 1.44 billion users by 2025. To give you a better idea of its impressive growth rate, DataReportal reveals that the platform’s audience grew by 310 million users in Q1 of 2023.
2. As of January 2023, India is the country with the biggest Instagram audience size (nearly 230 million users). This followed a significant increase over the last year and is now noticeably higher than the audience size in the United States where 143 million users access the photo-sharing and editing app. Brazil is in the third spot with 113 million users.
3. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on Instagram is 1.63 billion. Instagram Stories ads can reach nearly 1 billion users each month and Instagram Reels ads can reach just shy of 800 million users each month.
4. Instagram Stories ad revenue is projected to reach $20.03 billion in 2023.
5. While Brunei doesn’t even feature in the top three countries with the most Instagram users, it has the highest Instagram reach, as of January 2023. In other words, it’s the place where Instagram reaches the biggest percentage of a population with a percentage reach of 74%. Kazakhstan is in second spot with a reach of 72.5%.
6. More than half of the platform’s global population worldwide is younger than 35, according to Statista.
7. Somewhat surprisingly, Instagram is more popular among men than women in the 13-34 age group, according to data shared by Statista.
8. According to the Digital 2023 Global Overview Report, the average time that users worldwide spend on Instagram is 12 hours per month. It’s the highest in Turkey (an average of 21.4 hours), and the lowest in South Korea (an average of 6.1 hours).
9. For posts published by Instagram business accounts, the average engagement rate is around 0.65%. Carousel posts have the highest engagement rate (0.76%), while photo posts have the lowest average engagement rate (0.59%).
10. The most popular post on Instagram as of December 2022 is of Lionel Messi sharing the Argentinian team’s World Cup 2022 win with 61.2 million likes. In second place, the previous record holder was posted in January 2019 and has nearly 60 million likes. The third most popular post on Instagram is a photo of @cristiano and @georginagio announcing their pregnancy with twins. By the end of December 2022, it had received more than 32 million likes.
11. As of July 2023, Instagram itself is the user with the most Instagram followers (648 million followers). In second spot is Cristiano Ronaldo (595 million), followed in third place by Lionel Messi (477 million).
12. The most popular hashtags on Instagram of all time include: #love, #instagood, #fashion, #photooftheday, and #instagram.
14 TikTok Statistics
1. TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media apps, especially among younger users. Globally, TikTok reached 1 billion monthly active users in September 2021.
2. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on TikTok is estimated at about 1.092 million.
3. In 2021, the platform generated $4 billion in ad revenue. According to data shared by Statista, it’s expected to reach nearly $14 billion by 2026.
4. As of April 2023, the US had the biggest TikTok audience with about 117 million users. It was followed by Indonesia with approximately 113 million and Brazil with 85 million users.
5. According to data shared by Business of Apps, TikTok was the top grossing app of 2022. It generated $2.05 billion revenue. In second spot was YouTube with $1.05 million.
6. The average number of hours per month that each TikTok user spends on the app via Android devices are about 23.5 hours. It’s the highest in Australia with an average of 29.6 hours.
7. With regards to age, as of April 2023, 21% of the platform’s global audience were women between the ages of 18 and 24.
8. Khabane Lame has the greatest number of TikTok followers (161.5 million). In second spot, it’s Charlie D’Amelio with 151.1 million followers, and Bella Poarch in third place (92.6 million).
9. In 2021, 66.96% of TikTok influencers had between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Micro-influencers with between 10,000 and 50,000 followers accounted for 23.06%, while mid-tier influencers with 50,000 to 500,000 followers were at 9.04%.
10. A survey completed in 2022 in the UK revealed that over 45% of fashion and lifestyle consumers that use TikTok spend anywhere between one and three hours per day on the platform.
11. The all-time most popular hashtags that have been used in the greatest number of TikTok posts are #fyp (which stands for For You Page), #foryou, #foryoupage, #viral, and #tiktok.
12. In 2022, TikTok was the most popular brand on TikTok. Netflix and NBA came in second and third, respectively.
13. In Q4 2022, 46.9 million TikTok videos were removed automatically from the platform. In total, 85.7 million TikTok videos were removed during this period. This number decreased from the previous three quarters.
14. Nearly 80 million TikTok accounts were removed in Q4 2022 alone.
15 Pinterest Statistics
1. Pinterest is the fastest social network to have reached 10 million unique monthly visitors. Considering that it was invite-only for a long period during its initial launch, this achievement is even more impressive.
2. According to info shared by Statista, as of Q1 2023, Pinterest has 463 million monthly active users across the world.
3. As of January 2023, Pinterest was ranked as the 15th most-used social network across the globe based on global active users.
4. There are considerably more female Pinterest users than male users. As of the beginning of 2023, over 75% of its user base were women.
5. While it was ranked only the fourth most popular social media network in the US in 2021, the US boasts its biggest user base by far. Statistics shared by Statista reveal that as of the beginning of 2022, it had more than 84.6 million users in the United States. To put this into perspective, while Brazil has the second most Pinterest users, there are only 28 million users across Brazil. Mexico is in third place with nearly 20 million users.
6. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on Pinterest is estimated at nearly 282.5 million according to the DataReportal.
7. It’s anticipated that its global ad revenue will be $4.1 billion by 2026, according to info posted by Statista. To put this into perspective, in 2021, this was slightly more than $2 billion.
8. The number of full-time employees have gradually increased since 2018. In 2018, there were 1,797 full-time employees. Fast-forward to 2022 and there were nearly 4,000 full-time employees.
9. Each year since 2016, the visual bookmarking website managed to increase its annual revenue steadily. In 2022, it was estimated at nearly $2.8 billion.
10. The majority of US Pinterest users (40%) have an annual household income of more than $75,000.
11. According to SimilarWeb, between April 2022 and June 2022, the average visit duration was almost six minutes.
12. 97% of the top Pinterest searches are unbranded.
13. Just over 61% of Pinners in the UK have indicated that when they start a new project, they go to Pinterest. In the US, 85% of Pinners use the platform in this way.
14. Pinterest is no longer just a platform for static images. In a blog post, the platform shared that their community of Pinners is watching almost one billion videos on a daily basis.
15. Pinterest posts have a lifespan of six months and their Pinterest Predicts 2022 report suggests that it can even be as long as a year. To put this into perspective, the lifespan of posts shared on other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok is merely a few hours.
10 Snapchat Statistics
1. As of Q1 2023, the Snapchat app had approximately 383 million daily active users, an increase of 18 million in a quarter. In fact, numbers have increased every quarter since Q4 2018. As with most other social networks, Snapchat's use accelerated with the outbreak of COVID-19.
2. It’s anticipated that the photo-sharing platform will reach over 500 million global users by 2024.
3. India boasts the biggest Snapchat audience, as of April 2023, with 182.35 million users. The United States is in second spot (108.8 million users). There’s a huge jump between second and third spot, though. While Pakistan has the third biggest audience, it has just 26.35 million users.
4. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads via Snapchat was estimated at 654.4 million as of April 2023.
5. The brand awareness of Snapchat is estimated at 84% in the US.
6. A semi-annual survey of 10,000 US teens has revealed that Snapchat is the second favorite social platform among this age group, being beat out by TikTok. 28% of the teen respondents favored Snapchat. Instagram is in third spot.
7. There’s a slight difference in the distribution of Snapchat users by gender. It seems that the platform is more popular among women. Statista reports that, as of April 2022, 51% of users were female, and 48.2% were male.
8. The total time spent viewing Spotlight content increased by more than 170% year-on-year.
9. A survey completed in 2022 in the UK revealed that nearly three out of ten fashion and lifestyle consumers that use Snapchat spend anything between one and three hours per day on the platform.
10. Snapchat saw a slight decrease in revenue generation in Q1 2023 compared to the same quarter the previous year, bringing in $989 million to Q1 2022’s $1,063 million.
15 LinkedIn Statistics
1. According to LinkedIn’s own statistics, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with more than 930 million users in over 200 countries and territories across the world.
2. The United States is the country with the most LinkedIn users. As of April 2023, there were 200 million users across the US. India has the second biggest network of users with 99 million.
3. While the US boasts the most LinkedIn users, the platform’s brand awareness in this country isn’t that impressive. According to Statista, it’s only 69%. What’s more, of this 69%, only 26% like the brand and less than 18% of US social media users in the US use it.
4. The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads on LinkedIn is estimated at just over 922.3 million.
5. The platform generated $3.8 billion in ad revenue in 2021. According to data shared by Statista, it’s expected to increase to $7.7 billion by 2026.
6. Across all age groups, LinkedIn is more popular among male users. As of January 2023, just over 56% of all its users worldwide were male.
7. The LinkedIn personal accounts with the most followers are: Bill Gates (36.1 million followers), Richard Branson (19.7 million followers), and Jeff Weiner (10.8 million followers).
8. Each week, 61 million people use the platform to search for jobs.
9. Every second, 117 job applications get submitted, while 8 people get hired every minute on LinkedIn.
10. In addition to being popular among job seekers, it’s also used by companies for marketing. According to the platform’s most recent statistics, there are more than 63 million company profiles on the platform and 131,000 schools listed.
11. It’s also used by companies to find new talent. According to their own statistics, 45% of companies on LinkedIn use skills features to identify job candidates (there are nearly 40,000 skills listed).
12. Compared to Pinterest, LinkedIn has a much bigger workforce. According to their own data, they have 20,000 full-time employees and 36 offices in over 30 cities across the globe.
13. Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram aren’t the only social media networks where hashtags are used often. On LinkedIn, the hashtags with the most followers are: #India, #Innovation, #Management, #HumanResources, and #DigitalMarketing.
14. Wyzowl found that 79% of video marketers include LinkedIn in their video marketing strategy.
15. For LinkedIn, long-form content works best. OkDork found that the longer your posts are on LinkedIn, the better the results. Posts with word counts between 1,900 and 2,000 words performed better and got more engagement.
Wrapping Things Up
There are countless more statistics that prove the power of social media to brands and their marketing teams. Though, if we were to list them all, you would never get to be social, whether that’s online or in person.
Over the years there might have been a few changes regarding which platform is king, but the popularity of social media shouldn’t be questioned. Along with the changes in which platform reigns supreme, there’s also been a shift in how social media users consume content and what type of content they prefer. With the emergence of platforms like TikTok and new features being introduced by other platforms, video is generating a lot of engagement nowadays. You just need to look at YouTube’s impressive stats to know that we love video…
As mentioned, it would be very interesting to see how these numbers will change over the next few years. The pandemic had a huge impact on how we go about work and social interactions. We started relying much more on social media platforms to complete both these tasks. You could say that it’s become an extension of ourselves — a huge part that we won’t be able to give up. And, if we do, that replacement still needs to be invented...
As of April 2023, there were 4.8 billion social media users worldwide, representing nearly 60% of the total global population. Facebook has the most daily active users, with 2.037 billion users visiting the platform or one of its core products at least once a day as of Q1 2023. The average daily time spent on social media by users is 2 hours and 31 minutes. India has the largest Instagram audience, with nearly 230 million users as of January 2023, followed by the United States with 143 million users and Brazil with 113 million users. The potential advertising reach on YouTube is estimated at 2.51 billion users, though this represents a slight decrease of 1.4% from the previous year.Frequently Asked Questions
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