According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents used the ********* mobile app daily as of October 2022. Approximately ***** in ** respondents reported using social video app TikTok and YouTube on a daily basis, respectively. New social app app BeReal, which prompts users to post content once per day, was used by less than ***** in ** respondents aged between 16 and 24 years.

As of September 2024 in the United Kingdom, 98 percent of Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2012, were using social media. The same was true for 97 percent of millennials in the country. Overall, 92 percent of Gen X were on social networks, as were 86 percent of Baby boomers.

In 2024, some ** percent of Generation Z survey respondents in the United States and the United Kingdom stated that their most valuable social platform for food recommendations was TikTok. Instagram was the second most valuable platform for Generation Z.

According to a survey of users in aged between 15 and 24 conducted in the United Kingdom in August 2023, respondents spent approximately *** minutes daily engaging with TikTok. The most popular social media platforms was Instagram, with a reach of approximately ** percent across the examined demographic, despite users engaging with the platform for less than ** minutes per day on average.

According to a survey of social media users conducted in the United Kingdom between April 2023 and March 2024, ** percent of Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2012, were using social media to send private messages. The same was true for around ** percent of Millennials in the country. **** of Gen Z reported liking content published by influencers and content creators, while only ** percent of UK Baby Boomers and ** percent of Millennials reported doing the same.

This survey represents the top social media platforms in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 according to the 15-25 age group (Gen Z). The most popular app for them is Instagram with 27 percent of respondents claiming it is one of the social media platforms they can least do without. It is followed by WhatApp and Messenger, which are essential for 19 percent and 13 percent of respondents respectively.

Audience reach

Its ability to engage users and serve highly relevant advertisements based on visitor habits and interaction on a platform makes social media a highly effective marketing tool. Facebook, the leading app amongst Gen Z has roughly 2.7 billion active users globally and is able to reach a large audience at relatively low cost. According to a 2019 survey, it is also the preferred way 18-24 year-olds in the UK want to hear from brands.

Gen Z and social media marketing

According to a survey conducted in 2019, whilst different age groups followed brands on social media for varying reasons, Gen Z and Millennials mainly did so in order to receive discounts as well as product updates. This makes them ideally positioned for social media advertising. Despite this, opinion still varies when it comes to influencer led marketing, with a majority of UK consumers believing brands should be more transparent in disclosing their use of influencers and 88 percent believing they should be informed in such a case.

In 2023, around ** percent of Gen Z consumers in the United States and the United Kingdom stated that TikTok was their main social media platform for beauty product and trend dicovery. Instagram ranked second.

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents reported spending between one and two hours per day using TikTok, while ** percent reported spending between three and four hours per day on the social video app. Video platform ******* commanded the second highest engagement in terms of time spent, with ** percent of respondents reporting spending between one and two hours on the platform, and ** percent of respondents reporting spending five or more hours on YouTube daily. Approximately *** in ** respondents reported spending ** minutes or less daily engaging with the social and photo app BeReal.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, TikTok was the most popular social media platform for Gen Z consumers to buy products from in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to be the preferred choice for older generations. Additionally, millennials displayed an equal preference for TikTok and Instagram, with ** percent of respondents stating that they had shopped through each platform.

As of April 2021, YouTube was the most popular platform among UK Zoomers for car shopping, with 61 percent of them using the platform for that purpose. Instagram and Facebook were the second and third most used social media platforms for car shopping by Gen Z.

As of October 2024, the internet users in the United Kingdom reached **** percent of the country's Generation Z consumers. At the same time, digital video viewing had a penetration rate of **** percent among this young generation. Podcast listening was possible for **** percent of UK Gen Zers.

The number of Instagram users in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 2.1 million users (+7.02 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Instagram user base is estimated to reach 32 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Instagram users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here with regards to the platform instagram, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

A survey conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 among teenagers and young adults asked participants whether they had a public or private social media profile. Slightly over half reported having a public profile, while only **** percent had made theirs private. ** percent of respondents however claimed to have a mix of both public and private social media profiles. This relatively high level of trust when it came to social media can perhaps be explained by a 2019 survey, where ** percent of respondents in the UK claimed they had never been a victim of social media or email account hacking before.

Facebook and WhatsApp lead in the UK

Among the leading social media platforms, Facebook emerged as the most frequently used among young adults aged 18 to 24 years old in the UK. Nearly ** percent of all respondents cited the social media giant as the app they reached for most often. The second most used app within this age group in the UK was WhatsApp. In contrast, only *** percent used Twitter the most.

Social media – the new marketing trend

As social media becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, brands have been taking note. Social media marketing is a fast growing industry and spend on social media advertising by corporations has been on the rise each year. What began as a nationwide spend of merely **** billion British pounds in 2011 had risen to **** billion British pounds by 2018. According to an annual survey, roughly ** percent of teenagers aged 12 to 15 already have at least one social media account.

According to a survey of social media users conducted in the United Kingdom between April 2023 and March 2024, ** percent of Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2012, were using social media daily. The same was true for around ** percent of Millennials and Generation X users in the country. Surprisingly, Baby Boomers had the highest share of daily usage frequency, as ** percent of respondents in this age cohort reported engaging with social media daily.

According to an October 2022 survey of social media users aged 16 to 24 in the United Kingdom, approximately ** percent of respondents reported using social media daily. Music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music were said to be used daily by ** percent of the respondents. In comparison, podcasts were used by less than *** out of every*** respondents. In 2022, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube were the most popularsocial media platforms among Gen Z users in the UK.

The number of Pinterest users in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 0.3 million users (+3.14 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Pinterest user base is estimated to reach 9.88 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Pinterest users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here regarding the platform pinterest, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

The number of LinkedIn users in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 1.5 million users (+4.51 percent). After the eighth consecutive increasing year, the LinkedIn user base is estimated to reach 34.7 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. User figures, shown here with regards to the platform LinkedIn, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents reported using Instagram and TikTok multiple times per day, respectively. Around ** percent of users reported accessing the social app BeReal once a day, which prompts users to post content simultaneously and only *** time per day. In comparison, ** percent of respondents reported never using BeReal, while respondents never accessing TikTok were ** percent of the total. Additionally, only ***** percent of young UK users reported never accessing the photo and social app Instagram.

UK’s Generation Z consumers are more keen to follow brands on social media for the financial perks it brings than any other generation. According to the results of a 2019 survey carried out by Attest, special offers and discounts were the primary reason to follow the social media accounts of brands for Gen Z consumers. For Millennials, on the other hand, the most prominent reason was products updates. Zoomers go to YouTube When they cared to hear from brands on social media at all, a clear favorite with Gen Z was Facebook with ** percent of respondents to a survey expressing positive opinion on the platform. Yet compared to the responses given by other demographics, Facebook was more popular with Millennials, whereas Youtube triumped with Gen Z. It is fair to say that these two generations also represent social media’s transition from being ‘networking’ platforms to ‘content’ platforms. While Millennials were more drawn to networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, Gen Z were driven more by visual content, as in platforms like YouTube and Snapchat. Online complainers Brands have online presence on social media not just to keep consumers in the know on discounts and other updates, but also to support customer experience, including managing complaints. Of all the generational groups, Millennials and Gen Z had the highest track record of complaining about or to brands on social media, with over ** percent of Millennial and ** percent of Gen Z respondents saying they have done so. This share was the lowest for Boomers.

According to an October 2022 survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 in the United Kingdom, approximately half of respondents reported using YouTube multiple times per day. At the same time, almost *** out of 10 respondents used the video platform once a day, while ** percent of Gen Z users engaged with YouTube every two or ***** days. YouTube is one of the most-used social platforms among Gen Z in the UK in 2022.