Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently sits at more than three billion monthly active users. Meta Platforms owns four of the biggest social media platforms, all with more than one billion monthly active users each: Facebook (core platform), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. In the third quarter of 2023, Facebook reported around four billion monthly core Family product users. The United States and China account for the most high-profile social platforms Most top ranked social networks with more than 100 million users originated in the United States, but services like Chinese social networks WeChat, QQ or video sharing app Douyin have also garnered mainstream appeal in their respective regions due to local context and content. Douyin’s popularity has led to the platform releasing an international version of its network: a little app called TikTok. How many people use social media? The leading social networks are usually available in multiple languages and enable users to connect with friends or people across geographical, political, or economic borders. In 2025, social networking sites are estimated to reach 5.42 billion users and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction in previously underserved markets.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately 44 percent said Facebook was the most important social media platform. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 25 and 21 percent of respondents. Why marketers use social media as a branding channel According to the same study, the leading benefits of social media marketing were increased exposure and traffic. In other words, mastering a brand's presence on such platforms can make a company's products and services known across multiple demographics as well as generate traffic for its online sales. Marketers' favorite social media platforms That survey also revealed that business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers' top social media can vary. While B2C professionals bet on Facebook and its still massive usage rate, B2B strategists focus on LinkedIn, where companies can see and be seen. However, the social media video platforms in which marketers wanted to invest more were Instagram and YouTube.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, around 86 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 79 and 65 percent of the respondents. The global social media marketing segment According to the same study, 59 percent of responding marketers intended to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes throughout that year. LinkedIn and Instagram followed with similar shares, rounding up the top three social media platforms attracting a planned growth in organic use among global marketers in 2024. Their main driver is increasing brand exposure and traffic, which led the ranking of benefits of social media marketing worldwide. Social media for B2B marketing Social media platform adoption rates among business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers vary according to each subsegment's focus. While B2C professionals prioritize Facebook and Instagram – both run by Meta, Inc. – due to their popularity among online audiences, B2B marketers concentrate their endeavors on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn due to its goal to connect people and companies in a corporate context.

As of the third quarter of 2023, Facebook and WhatsApp were the most used social media platforms in Mexico, reaching 93.2 percent and 92.2 percent of the country's online audiences. Instagram and Facebook Messenger followed, being used by 80.4 percent and 79.4 percent of Mexican internet users each. TikTok was accessed by around 76.5, while X, Telegram, and Pinterest accounted for smaller shares.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, around 86 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 79 and 65 percent of the respondents. The global social media marketing segment According to the same study, 59 percent of responding marketers intended to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes throughout that year. LinkedIn and Instagram followed with similar shares, rounding up the top three social media platforms attracting a planned growth in organic use among global marketers in 2024. Their main driver is increasing brand exposure and traffic, which led the ranking of benefits of social media marketing worldwide. Social media for B2B marketing Social media platform adoption rates among business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers vary according to each subsegment's focus. While B2C professionals prioritize Facebook and Instagram – both run by Meta, Inc. – due to their popularity among online audiences, B2B marketers concentrate their endeavors on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn due to its goal to connect people and companies in a corporate context.

In March 2023, Facebook accounted for 45 percent of all social media site visits in the United States, confirming its position as the leading social media website by far. Other social media platforms, despite their popularity, had to make do with smaller shares of visits across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined. Pinterest ranked second with 21 percent of all U.S. social media site visits, while Instagram accounted for 14 percent of the total visits in the country. Additionally, the U.S. is home to the third largest social media audience worldwide.

Facebook: mobile vs desktop usage

At the beginning of 2022, around 81 percent of Facebook users across the globe were using the platform’s social networking services exclusively via mobile phone, while only 1.5 percent reported using their desktop or laptop devices. In October 2021, three Facebook Inc. products occupied the leading positions as most downloaded social networking apps on the Apple App Store in the United States. Facebook’s social media platform ranked first with nearly 2.5 million downloads, while Facebook-owned instant-messaging services Messenger and WhatsApp followed with 2.1 million and 1.4 million downloads respectively.

Social media evolution

Between 2012 and 2020, the daily time spent on social networks worldwide experienced a constant increase, with users reaching an average of 145 minutes per day in 2019 and maintaining the same engagement levels throughout 2020. However, users’ favorite platforms have changed since 2019, and the power balance appears to be shifting further from Facebook’s market dominance. Not only Facebook’s user growth rate is estimated to slow down in the next years, but users belonging to Generation Z appear to prefer video-first social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.

In 2024, Facebook was the leading social media platform for news in Thailand, which was used by 64 percent of respondents. Other leading platforms for news consumption were YouTube and LINE. LINE, a popular messaging app in Thailand, has also recently created the ‘LINE Today’ section as a news source within the LINE app. Social media as a news source for the younger generation Social media is an efficient way for audiences to access news and share content, especially since it is less regulated than other forms of media in Thailand. Popular social media platforms among Thais such as Facebook and YouTube are the major sites for audiences to join in on live events and exercise freedom of speech. The LINE messaging application is also the main platform for users to share the news. Additionally, Twitter and TikTok are playing an increasingly significant role in shaping how news and sentiment on recent events are discussed, such as the recent youth-led protests in Thailand. The fast and unregulated form of communication on social media, therefore, has cultivated a preference for online news among the younger generation in Thailand. The rise of fake news   The ease of sharing news and stories through social media has also led to an issue of fake news in Thailand. Recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the political movements in the country have led to a proliferation of fake news. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, has been one of the major causes of the increase in the spread of fake news, especially regarding the information on COVID-19 preventative measures. Since fake news has been rampant in the country, there have been legal restrictions on how content is created and shared in Thailand.

As of September 2023, 29 percent of Facebook users in the United States were aged 30 to 39 years, while a further 29 percent of users were aged 50 to 64 years, making these demographics the biggest audiences of the online network in the country. Meta’s Instagram was also popular among users aged 30 to 39 years, who accounted for 32 percent of the audience of the photo-based platform, while those aged 18 to 29 years accounted for another third of the network’s U.S. users. Overall, TikTok and Snapchat were the most popular social media platforms amongst younger audiences, while LinkedIn was the least used platform by those aged 18 to 29 in the United States as of 2023.

The social media market in the United States

The number of social media users in the United States has shown continuous growth in the past years, and it is forecast to continue increasing to reach 342 million users in 2029. As of 2023, the social network user penetration in the United States amounted to an impressive 91.56 percent, meaning that more than nine in ten people in the country engaged with online platforms. Furthermore, Facebook was by far the most popular social media platform in the United States, accounting for 45 percent of all social media visits in 2023, followed by Pinterest with 21.2 percent of visits.

The global social media landscape

As of April 2024, 5.07 billion people were social media users, accounting for 62.6 percent of the world’s population. Northern Europe was the region with the highest social media penetration rate with a reach of 80.2 percent, followed by Western Europe with 78.2 percent and Eastern Asia 74.9 percent. In contrast, less than one in ten people in Middle Africa used social networks. Facebook’s popularity is not limited to the United States: this network leads the market on a global scale, and it accumulated more than three billion monthly active users (MAU) as of 2024, which is far more any other social media platform. 272014 YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp followed, all with two billion or more MAU.

More than three-quarters of the Russian online population aged 16 years and older used the Telegram messenger, thus making it the most-used social media platform among those listed in the ranking. WhatsApp ranked second, with a penetration rate of nearly 74 percent, followed by VK and TikTok. Social media usage in Russia In 2024, the daily time spent on social media in Russia was recorded at roughly two hours and 20 minutes per user on average. After Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) were blocked in Russia at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, a significant increase in activity was recorded on VK and Telegram. For example, the daily audience on VK increased by almost nine percent, while the number of friends requests and feed views grew by 250 percent and 25 percent, respectively. YouTube From the global perspective, YouTube ranked second after Facebook, which remained the leading social media platform with about three billion active users. The U.S.-based channel MrBeast had the highest number of subscribers on YouTube with around 343 million as of January 2025. India-based T-Series followed with 284 million subscribers as of that month.

WhatsApp was the leading actively used messenger service in Germany in 2021. Almost 84 percent of users confirmed this. While WhatsApp is foremost a messaging service, certain features indicate similarities with social media networks, as sharing and posting between users still occurs, just not necessarily on a publicly accessible website. Delivering the message For most of the population, modern life is unimaginable without messenger apps. Texting has become much more varied as a form of communication thanks to extended file and content sharing options within messages. There is no doubt that WhatsApp is a popular messaging app in Germany. In 2023, almost 85 percent of people were messaging on WhatsApp every day. By 2025, it is estimated that over 53 million people will be using WhatsApp in Germany, suggesting it's popularity as a messaging app will not diminish with time. Personal data While Facebook is extremely popular in many different countries, long-term questions and concerns from users continue to arise, with personal data security being one of the leading topics of discussion. In general, the there have been many breaches of personal data online. At the same time, social media continues to enjoy rising popularity and use among the German population, both in a private and professional context.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was by far the most used and favorite social media platform in Spain. Up to **** percent of the country's internet users used the instant messaging app, while networks like Instagram and Facebook followed were used by around **** and ** percent of online audiences, respectively. TikTok and Telegram were accessed by around **** and **** percent of users each, while X and Facebook Messenger accounted for smaller shares of the population.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was the most used social media platform in Chile for 91.9 percent of the country's online audiences. Instagram and Facebook followed, being used by around 87.2 percent and 82.1 percent of the Chilean internet users. TikTok and Facebook Messenger were accessed by around 68.5 and 59.8 percent of users, while X, Pinterest, Telegram, and LinkedIn accounted for smaller shares.

In the third quarter of 2023, nearly 75 percent of the internet users in Morocco used Facebook each month. Instagram was the second most popular social media platform in the country, as it was used by roughly 70 percent of the people. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger followed, with a share of 60.8 percent and 58.3 percent, respectively. Social media users keep increasing With the rising internet penetration rate and mobile internet adoption, the use of social media has increased in Morocco in recent years. In 2022, social media users in the country amounted to around 24 million. The number grew steadily in the previous years, rising from roughly 14 million in 2017. As the most popular social media platform, Facebook accounted for about 22 million users in 2022, with the number being forecast to increase to 27 million by 2025. In comparison, approximately 10 million people actively used Instagram in 2022, and it is projected to reach 15 million in 2025. Sending messages is the primary online activity Among the different types of social media, Moroccans regularly used instant messenger platforms, such as WhatsApp, and social networks like Facebook as of 2021. In contrast, consumer review networks and discussion forums were the least used platforms. In the same year, the most popular activities among Moroccan social media users were sending private messages, commenting on posts, liking other users’ posts, and following people. As of 2020, users in Morocco spent an average of two hours and 30 minutes per day on social media. The average time was lower than in other African countries such as Nigeria (three hours and 45 minutes) and Egypt (two hours and 50 minutes).

As of December 2024, 52 percent of women in the United States were using Meta's Instagram, compared to 48 percent of men. Overall, three-quarters of women in the U.S. were using Facebook, as were 66 percent of men.

In 2022, Instagram was the most popular social media platform among Asian influencers, with more than 38 percent of influencers in the region using the platform. YouTube ranked second, after having been the most popular platform among influencers in Asia in 2020 and 2021.

In January 2025, X, formerly known as Twitter, held a market share of more than 58 percent in Hong Kong's social media scene in terms of pageviews across all devices, followed by YouTube and Facebook. The American social news and discussion website Reddit has gained traction since the anti-government protests in the city in 2020. Facebook is losing ground A few years before 2017, Facebook controlled over 80 percent of the social media arena in Hong Kong. The drastic change started in 2018, when the networking site lost nearly 11 percentage points and another 19 percentage points in the following year. For many Gen Z and Millennials in the financial hub, Instagram became the favorite social media platform and YouTube was used more often than Facebook. Facebook was still the second place to go after Instagram for product research, it has been losing its appeal among young users and advertisers. Platforms claiming the new spots When it came to advertising audience size, X took the lead. YouTube came in second, however, its ad reach in Hong Kong was among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. In comparison, the fourth placeholder Instagram has been picking up steam, reaching 51.6 percent of internet users in Hong Kong. However, the biggest industry threat was TikTok, the most downloaded social media app in Hong Kong as of the time of writing. TikTok’s rising popularity among teenage users may probably change the game of video consumption.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was by far the most used and favorite social media platform in Colombia. More than **** percent of the country's internet users used the instant messaging app, while networks like Facebook and Instagram followed were used by around **** percent and **** percent of online audiences, respectively. TikTok was accessed by around **** percent of users.

Facebook's market share in Taiwan's social media arena has been falling. As of January 2025, the flagship product of Meta held less than 50 percent of the social media market in Taiwan across all devices. X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram covered about a third of the market together.

In 2022, Instagram was the world's leading social media app, with 547 million downloads WhatsApp ranked second with 424 million downloads, while Telegram surpassed the remaining mobile versions of Meta-owned social media platforms Facebook and Messenger. Newcomer BeReal, a photo-sharing social media app launched in 2020, entered the ranking in tenth position with over 90 million global downloads during the examined year.

According to a survey on digital usage in China, around 91.8 percent of respondents had used WeChat as of the third quarter of 2023. The short video app Douyin, the social commerce site Xiaohongshu, and the Twitter-like site Weibo, were among the most popular social media platforms in China. How successful is WeChat in China? The country’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, boasts over one billion monthly active users. For many Chinese consumers, WeChat is part of daily life, helping them to organize tasks such as paying bills, ordering food delivery, and calling a taxi. On average, WeChat users spent about an hour and 20 minutes per day on the app. Large user base with high engagement The social media scene in China is huge and mobile-centric. In 2023, the social media penetration rate amounted to 74 percent in China, slightly higher than in countries like the United States and Japan. While the user number has shown signs of reaching a saturation point, Chinese consumers have been spending more time online, with a considerable daily usage of social media.