In 2023, Instagram claimed the top spot as the preferred social media platform for shopping among Gen Z and millennial consumers. However, Gen Z also showed an inclination towards shopping via TikTok, while millennials leaned towards both YouTube and Facebook over the trendy Chinese short-video platform. Conversely, older generations exhibited similar preferences for social commerce, with both favoring Facebook and YouTube over the more visually appealing Instagram and TikTok.

As of September 2023, YouTube as the most popular social media platform for global users, with 97 percent of respondents reporting to use the popular video platform. YouTube was also the most popular social media among Gen Z users, with 96 percent of respondents in this age group reporting to have used the video platform as of the examined period. Facebook's usage kept steady among among the general digital population, with around eight in 10 reporting to have used the platform. In comparison, the social media's popularity was in free fall among gen Z users with only four in 10 among those surveyed reporting to engage with the Meta-powered platform.

A report held in June 2022 among Gen Z and millennials in the United States found that these consumers, aged 16 to 40 years old, were using Facebook most often, with 40 percent saying they did so daily or more. LinkedIn, Twitch, and Nextdoor were the least used social sites for news, whereas YouTube and Instagram were used almost as often as Facebook in this respect.

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.

In a survey of millennial consumers in the U.S., around 31 percent of women said Instagram had the most influence on their shopping habits, compared to 25 percent of the men surveyed. Younger millennials between the ages of 25 and 29 stated they were most influenced by more visual content-focused platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Meanwhile, those in their 30s and 40s said Facebook was the primary platform shaping their shopping behavior.

As of 2020, Snapchat was the most popular social media platform among Gen Z and Millennials in the United States to connect to others. TikTok and Youtube ranked second and third, with respective shares of 91 percent and 87 percent of respondents using these social networks to connect to others.

WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform for Gen Z, or 15-to-19-year-olds, in the Netherlands in 2020, with nearly all respondents using the service. This according to domestic survey information. The messenger service already ranked as the Netherlands' overall most popular social medium in terms of users. YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat were also very popular, all reaching a penetration rate of over 70 percent. Karaoke app TikTok, on the other hand, was much less popular, as only 17 percent of them used the video application.

Why is TikTok low in this ranking?

Chinese video and sing-along application TikTok, formerly Musical.ly, made a global name as being one of the most popular smartphone apps for Generation Z. Here, it seemingly ranks low as the source used ages 15 and up. This age group might potentially fall outside TikTok’s user base. While there is no data for the Netherlands that investigates the age groups below 15, download numbers suggest the app grew in popularity in the Netherlands after Bytedance (TikTok’s owner) merged Musical.ly and TikTok in August 2018.

A clash of generations
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gen Z uses Instagram and Snapchat much more often than their Millennial counterparts (defined by the source as 20-to 39-year olds). Interestingly, Pinterest was also more popular among the younger generation. The picture gallery app does not rank among the most popular apps in the Netherlands, reaching less than five million people in 2019. Facebook, on the other hand, was more preferred by Millennials than it was by Generation Z.

According to a survey run in Spain in March 2023, 86 percent of Millennial respondents used WhatsApp, making it the most popular social media platform in the country among that population group. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube followed closely, with an audience reach of 75 percent, 74 percent, and 73 percent respectively.

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, 71 percent of respondents used the Instagram mobile app daily as of October 2022. Approximately seven in 10 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 three in 10 respondents aged between 16 and 24 years.

According to a survey conducted in the United States between July 2023 and June 2024, 65 percent of Generation Z were using Meta's Instagram, and 63 percent were using YouTube. Moreover, 58 percent of Gen Z in the United States were on TikTok, and 56 percent were using 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.

According to a survey among Gen Z consumers from 2023, the most used social media platform type was instant messengers in China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Social networks like Facebook were the most popular among Gen Z in Vietnam and Thailand, with 83 and 78 percent of the respondents using it regularly in 2023. About Gen Z consumers in Asia Gen Z consumers are one of the largest cohorts of consumers worldwide. According to a survey, social media websites and apps were widely used product research sources for Gen Z consumers. In China, various consumer electronics were popular among Gen Z consumers, and nearly 87 percent had smartphones in 2022. Popularity of TikTok among Gen Z TikTok is a video-sharing app based in China and saw a massive growth in the number of users in the Asia-Pacific region. About 29 percent of Gen Z respondents in Thailand had spent more than two to four hours a day on TikTok. The advertising reach of TikTok in Asian countries was relatively high, especially in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. With the rise of social commerce, shopping on TikTok is also gaining traction. However, most consumers in the Asia-Pacific region still research inside and outside the app or switch apps while shopping.

In the second quarter of 2023, Facebook was the most popular social media platform to purchase products on for all generations except for Gen Z, who preferred using Instagram. Gen Z shoppers also liked using TikTok for social commerce, with nearly half using the paltform for purchasing products.

According to a survey in Spain in March 2023, 91 percent of Generation Z respondents used WhatsApp, making it the most popular social media platform in the country among that population group. Instagram followed closely, with an audience reach of 91 percent, then YouTube and TikTok, each used by 81 percent and 60 percent of Gen Z respondents.

According to a survey among internet users conducted in Vietnam by Decision Lab, in the third quarter of 2024, Facebook was considered the primary social media platform by 46 percent of the respondents among Generation Z. Meanwhile, ten percent of them listed the Vietnamese platform Zalo as their primary app.

A 2023 survey conducted in Indonesia found that more than half of Generation Z respondents frequently used Instagram. Furthermore, about 36 percent of female respondents used TikTok frequently, compared to 29 percent of male respondents.

WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used social media in the Netherlands, both having the highest overall number of users but also seeing much daily use. WhatsApp had over 13 million Dutch users, whereas Facebook had around ten million users. The daily active users (DAU) of social media in the Netherlands like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat increased in recent years. As of 2023, roughly 4.7 million individuals in the Netherlands used Instagram every day.

Most popular social media among Millennials in the Netherlands WhatsApp and Facebook ranked as the most popular apps for 22-to-36-year-olds. 90 percent of the Millennials said they used the messaging app, whereas the social network reached a usage rate of 79 percent. Instagram and Snapchat, however, were more popular among respondents aged 15-19 years old.

Is social media use expected to increase or decrease? Estimates from Statista’s Digital Market Outlook indicate that social media use in the Netherlands is believed to increase until 2024. The social media user penetration was projected roughly 70 percent that year, compared to 61 percent in 2018.

In the second quarter of 2023, Instagram and TikTok were the most popular social media platforms for German Gen Z consumers to purchase products. According to a survey, 64 percent of respondents aged 18 to 26 stated that they had made purchases on Instagram, and on TikTok roughly 65 percent of respondents had bought something. On the other hand, among older generations, Facebook stood as the preferred social media network for making purchases.

According to a January 2023 study of iOS users in the United States, 92 percent of Gen Z users aged between 16 and 25 years used YouTube. Instagram and TikTok followed, with 85 percent and 78 percent of U.S. Gen Z users, respectively. Communication and VoIP platform Discord was used by 42 percent of surveyed U.S. users aged between 16 and 25 years.

According to a 2023 survey, 41 percent of users of social media platform users in Brazil were Millennials. Among these platforms, Tumblr and Twitch had the youngest audiences, as with 38 percent and 37 percent of each app were from Generation Z. Meanwhile, Reddit and Snapchat were more popular among Millennial users than the average of other researched networks.