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, 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, 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 5.44 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 the third quarter of 2020, it was found that Facebook was accessed by ** percent of U.S. internet users aged 26 to 35 years. Overall, ******* was the most popular social platform across all age groups.

Over the five years through 2025-26, industry revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 20.3% to reach £12.5 billion. Social media platforms are integral to people's lives, offering ways to communicate, create and view content and share information. According to Ofcom, approximately 89% of UK internet users in 2023 used social media apps or sites. Teenagers and young adults are the biggest users. Advertising is the primary revenue source for social media platforms, although subscription-based services are gaining momentum as platforms seek to diversify their incomes. TikTok is the success story of the past five years, becoming the most downloaded app between 2020 and 2022, according to Apptopia. The short-form video platform has over 30 million monthly users in the UK in 2025. After Musk's takeover, X, formerly known as Twitter, adjusted its content moderation and allowed previously banned accounts to return. As a result, over 600 advertisers pulled their ads from the site because of fears their brand may be associated with malcontent. In response to falling ad revenue, X has introduced a subscription-based service which enables users to verify themselves and boosts the number of people who view their tweets. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have responded by introducing a similar service. In 2025, more social media platforms are using AI to boost user engagement. This improves click-through rates and drives higher advertising revenue. Industry revenue is expected to grow by 6.3% in 2025-26. Over the five years through 2030-31, social media platforms' revenue is projected to climb at an estimated 9.2% to reach £19.4 billion. Regulations relating to how data is collected, stored, and shared will force advertisers and platforms to rethink how they can target their desired demographics. The tightening of regulations will raise industry compliance costs, weighing on profit margin. Older age groups present a new revenue opportunity for social media platforms if they can bridge the gap between passive TV consumption and interactive digital engagement. Augmented Reality (AR) technology will move beyond filters to become standard for immersive product trials, interactive ads, and virtual meetups

As of 2020, ******** was the most popular social media platform among Gen Z and Millennials in the United States to connect to others. ****** and ******* ranked second and third, with respective shares of ** percent and ** percent of respondents using these social networks to connect to others.

In 2020, YouTube had the most number of active users in Australia with around *********** people using the platform. TikTok showed rapid growth with *********** users actively using the social media app in Australia.

WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform in Finland in 2020. ** percent of the respondents reported in a survey that they use WhatsApp, followed by ** percent who use Facebook, and ** percent who use YouTube. Only *** percent of the survey respondents in Finland used the microblogging and social networking website Tumblr. The most common reason to use Facebook in 2019 was to keep contact with friends and family, according to ** percent of Finns. Who is using social media? A survey investigated how often Finns used social networking sites in 2019. ** percent of the surveyed men and ** percent of the surveyed women had followed a social networking site in the past three months. In contrast, ** percent of the men and ** percent of the women said that they were following social media platforms several times a day. Over ** percent of Finns followed social media at least weekly that year. ** percent of the youngest respondents to the survey, aged between 16 and 24 years, were weekly social media users. Finns and social networking over the years A sequence of surveys was conducted between 2011 and 2019, regarding social media participation among Finns. ** percent of all respondents in 2011, and ** percent of all respondents in 2019 used social networks in Finland.

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.

This dataset provides detailed rankings and key metrics for 100+ social media platforms and sites in 2025. It includes information such as user base, popularity trends, and global reach. Ideal for analyzing social media growth, user engagement, and market trends. Whether you're a data scientist, marketer, or researcher, this dataset offers valuable insights into the evolving digital landscape.

In 2022, Instagram was the most popular social media platform among Asian influencers, with more than ** 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 recent years, Facebook has been the most popular social media site among Swedes, used by ** percent of respondents in 2020. The second most popular social media site was Instagram, used by ** percent.

The share of Swedes on social media had increased steadily over the past decade, reaching ** percent of Swedes participating in a social media platform.

WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube ranked as the most popular social media for Dutch Millennials or 20-to-39-year-olds in 2020, beating, for example, Instagram. In 2020, roughly 90 percent of the Millennial respondents in the Netherlands said they used WhatsApp. Facebook was also popular, with 82 percent indicating they actively used this platform. Both social networks had over ten million users in the country, of which 9.1 million were daily users for WhatsApp and 6.8 million for Facebook. Millennials are less active on Facebook Despite that Facebook ranks as the second-most popular social media platform, the Silicon Valley application experienced upheaval in the Netherlands. In a different question asked by the source, 57 percent of the Millennials agreed with a statement that said they spent less time on Facebook than they used to. Privacy concerns were one possible explanation for this. Some respondents also mentioned, though, that the platform had become too time-consuming and would rather spend it on “real life” activities. Instagram and Snapchat a gateway to Generation Z, not Millennials Are Dutch Millennials leaving Facebook then for other social networks, such as Instagram or Snapchat? The ranking provided here does to indicate that the 23-to-37-year-olds are part of the user base of the two photo apps. Data looking at the growing penetration rate of the two platforms by different age groups in the Netherlands confirms this. This same data does mention, though, that consumers aged 15-19 used the apps a lot more. Between 2015 and 2018, Instagram’s penetration rate among Generation Z increased by roughly 25 percentage points whilst the youngest generation was the first in the Netherlands to use Snapchat.

Weibo is one of the mainstream social media platforms in China. Among its features, trending topics serve as an important real-time information source for Weibo users, consisting of the most popular search terms at the moment. Weibo's official platform does not provide corresponding tag information for these trending topics, making it difficult for users to access specific categories of topics. To address this issue, we collected over 6,000 trending topic data entries from November 24th to December 23rd, 2020. Each entry was manually categorized into one of eight major categories: "(时政)Politics", "(科技)Technology", "(科普)Popular Science", "(娱乐)Entertainment", "(体育)Sports", "(社会讨论/话题)Social Discussions/Topics", "(时事)Current Affairs" and "(经济)Economy". This categorization aims to facilitate subsequent applications. Besides, we provide another dataset of hot search that are unlabeled. - Politics: The current political news happening now. - Technology: News related to high-tech products. - Popular Science: News topics about popularizing knowledge. - Entertainment: News related to celebrities or variety shows. - Sports: News related to sports events or sports celebrities. - Social Discussions/Topics: Hot topics being discussed by the general public. - Current Affairs: Current social events happening now. - Economy: News related to the economy.

Cristiano Ronaldo has *** of the most popular Instagram accounts as of June 2025. The Portuguese footballer is the most-followed person on the photo sharing app platform with *** million followers. Instagram's own account was ranked first with roughly *** million followers. How popular is Instagram? Instagram is a photo-sharing social networking service that enables users to take pictures and edit them with filters. The platform allows users to post and share their images online and directly with their friends and followers on the social network. The cross-platform app reached *** billion monthly active users in mid-2018. In 2020, there were over *** million Instagram users in the United States and experts project this figure to surpass *** million users in 2023. Who uses Instagram? Instagram audiences are predominantly young – recent data states that almost ** percent of U.S. Instagram users are aged 34 years or younger. Fall 2020 data reveals that Instagram is also one of the most popular social media for teens and one of the social networks with the biggest reach among teens in the United States. Celebrity influencers on Instagram Many celebrities and athletes are brand spokespeople and generate additional income with social media advertising and sponsored content. Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo ranked first again, as the average media value of one of his Instagram posts was ******* U.S. dollars.

A study held in 2025 revealed that ** percent of X (formerly known as Twitter) users regularly used X for news. By contrast, users of major platforms Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube were less inclined to get their news from those sites, though usage of TikTok for news increased to ** percent in 2025 compared to 2020, with the platform especially popular among younger audiences.

This survey represents the top social media platforms in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, according to the group aged 56 and older. The most popular app for them is WhatsApp, with 19 percent respondents, who claim it is one of the social media platforms they can least do without. It is followed by Facebook, which is essential for 12 percent of the respondents.

According to a 2020 survey run in the United Kingdom (UK), Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform among those aged 26 to 35. Out of all the respondents, 85 percent had an account on the social networking site. Facebook came in second place, with 80 percent of respondents claiming they used the service while YouTube and Instagram featured third and fourth respectively.

Facebook as a leading digital ad platform

Facebook continues to dominate the social media market in the UK, its penetration rate having been on the rise since 2015. By 2022, the social media platform’s share of monthly active users is forecast to reach 62.44 percent of the United Kingdom’s population. As a platform with such widespread reach not just within the UK but around the world, Facebook is perfectly poised to become a leading online advertising tool. In fact, the social network giant brought in nearly 23 percent of all digital advertising revenue in the United Kingdom in 2018, the highest among all social media platforms. This is forecasted to reach 28 percent by 2021, narrowing the gap with market leader Google.

The news and social media

Facebook remains, albeit to a lesser extent, a news source for nearly 30 percent in the United Kingdom according to figures until 2018. Although this number is significantly lower than in countries such as Italy and Spain where around half of the surveyed population turned to Facebook for news, it is no small figure and one would think that such numbers would reflect a positive perception of social media as a news source. A 2019 survey demonstrated however, that this was not the case with social media ranking lowest in terms of level of trust against other sources such as traditional media, online media, and owned media.

This survey represents the top social media platforms in Germany in 2020. The most popular app was WhatsApp, with 51 percent individual claiming it is one of the ***** social media platforms they can least do without. It is followed by YouTube, which was essential for ** percent, and Facebook for ** percent of respondents.

In a survey conducted among digital marketing executives in the Asia-Pacific region in ************, ** percent of the respondents selected Facebook as one of the social media networks their company used for digital marketing campaigns.

How many people use social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2025, over *** billion people were estimated to be using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over *** billion in 2030. Who uses social media? Social networking is one of the most popular digital activities worldwide, and it is no surprise that social networking penetration across all regions is constantly increasing. As of January 2023, the global social media usage rate stood at ** percent. This figure is anticipated to grow as less developed digital markets catch up with other regions when it comes to infrastructure development and the availability of cheap mobile devices. In fact, most of social media’s global growth is driven by the increasing usage of mobile devices. The mobile-first market of Eastern Asia topped the global ranking of mobile social networking penetration, followed by established digital powerhouses such as the Americas and Northern Europe. How much time do people spend on social media? Social media is an integral part of daily internet usage. On average, internet users spend *** minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of ** minutes since 2015. On average, internet users in Latin America had the highest average time spent per day on social media. What are the most popular social media platforms? Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass *** billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately *** billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide. In June 2023, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

In 2021, messaging and video sharing platform Snapchat was more popular than TikTok among Gen Z users in the United States. TikTok counted around 37 million users who were born between 1997 and 2012, while Instagram reported around 33 million users in the same period. Snapchat, which counted 42 million Gen Z users, is projected to reach 49.5 million users in the examined demographic by 2025. Overall, platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit had significantly less users amongst this age group.