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.

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.

Instagram’s most popular post

              As of April 2024, the most popular post on Instagram was Lionel Messi and his teammates after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted by the account @leomessi. Messi's post, which racked up over 61 million likes within a day, knocked off the reigning post, which was 'Photo of an Egg'. Originally posted in January 2021, 'Photo of an Egg' surpassed the world’s most popular Instagram post at that time, which was a photo by Kylie Jenner’s daughter totaling 18 million likes.
              After several cryptic posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself to be a part of a mental health campaign aimed at the pressures of social media use.

              Instagram’s most popular accounts

              As of April 2024, the official Instagram account @instagram had the most followers of any account on the platform, with 672 million followers. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) was the most followed individual with 628 million followers, while Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) was the most followed woman on the platform with 429 million. Additionally, Inter Miami CF striker Lionel Messi (@leomessi) had a total of 502 million. Celebrities such as The Rock, Kylie Jenner, and Ariana Grande all had over 380 million followers each.

              Instagram influencers

              In the United States, the leading content category of Instagram influencers was lifestyle, with 15.25 percent of influencers creating lifestyle content in 2021. Music ranked in second place with 10.96 percent, followed by family with 8.24 percent. Having a large audience can be very lucrative: Instagram influencers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom with over 90,000 followers made around 1,221 US dollars per post.

              Instagram around the globe

              Instagram’s worldwide popularity continues to grow, and India is the leading country in terms of number of users, with over 362.9 million users as of January 2024. The United States had 169.65 million Instagram users and Brazil had 134.6 million users. The social media platform was also very popular in Indonesia and Turkey, with 100.9 and 57.1, respectively. As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social network in the world, behind Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was the most used social media platform in Brazil for 93.7 percent of the country's online audience. Instagram and Facebook followed, each being used by 92 and 81.5 percent of the Brazilian internet users. TikTok and Telegram were accessed by around 63.9 and 57.1 percent of users, while Facebook Messenger, Pinterest, Kuaishou, and LinkedIn accounted for smaller shares.

As of April 2024, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook largest audience, accounting for 18.4 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years.

              Facebook connects the world

              Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger,
              as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

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 2024, WhatsApp was the favorite social media platform for 37.7 percent of internet users in Spain. Besides being the favorite social network in the country, it was also the most used platform in the country. Instagram and TikTok were the platforms of choice for 24.3 percent and 12 percent of the respondents each, while Facebook was the favorite for 8.8 percent of interviewees. Other messaging apps like LinkedIn, Discord, and Facebook Messenger ranked much lower in terms of popularity.

This statistic shows the results of a survey question on which social media are used by profit and non-profit organizations for customer services in the Netherlands in 2018. The respondents indicated that Facebook and Twitter were the most popular channels for digital human-to-human communication. Instagram, LinkedIn and WhatsApp were other ways used to communicate with customers.

As of 2018, roughly 90 percent of Millennials in the Netherlands indicated they actively make use of WhatsApp. WhatsApp and Facebook remain the two most popular online social platforms in the Netherlands, with more than ten million users each.

As of 2024, Facebook was the most daily used social media app among Finns age 75 years and older. Other daily used social media apps in the age group were WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. LinkedIn and Instagram Stories reached a share of three percent of daily users each.

As of January 2025, ** percent of social media users in the United States aged 40 to 49 years were users of Facebook, as were ** percent of ** to ** year olds in the country. Overall, ** percent of those aged 18 to 29 years were using Instagram in the U.S. 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 *** million users in 2029. As of 2023, the social network user penetration in the United States amounted to an impressive ***** 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 ** percent of all social media visits in 2023, followed by Pinterest with **** percent of visits. The global social media landscape As of April 2024, **** billion people were social media users, accounting for **** percent of the world’s population. Northern Europe was the region with the highest social media penetration rate with a reach of **** percent, followed by Western Europe with **** percent and Eastern Asia **** 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. YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp followed, all with *** billion or more MAU.

In 2024, the most popular social media and messaging platforms among adults in Australia were Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Facebook was used by ** percent of adults, WhatsApp by ** percent, and Instagram by ** percent. New popular formats of social networks In addition to traditional social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, alternative formats are gaining popularity in Australia. Snapchat, known for its ephemeral content, is steadily growing nowadays. Between 2024 and 2028, the platform's user base is expected to increase by *** million, reaching a peak of **** million users. Similarly, LinkedIn, a prominent platform for professional networking, is projected to expand by *** million users during the same period, reaching a peak of ***** million users by 2028. This consistent growth across both platforms highlights the diverse ways Australians are engaging with social media, whether for personal expression or professional connections. Social media growth increasing In Australia, social media remains a dominant force in digital engagement, with ** percent of respondents in a 2024 survey identifying social media websites and apps as their most used online services. This aligns with the global increase in social media engagement. As of February 2022, about **** percent of Australians were active on social media, a significant increase from ** percent in 2015. This rapid growth shows the expanding role of social media in daily life, indicating its increasing significance and integration into various forms of communication and entertainment.

Social media usage in Sweden became more and more common over the past decade. The share of users constantly increased, starting at 28 percent of respondents in 2010 and reaching as many as 89 percent of the interviewed internet users as of Q3 2020.

Which platforms do Swedes use?   As of 2020, LinkedIn was used by 29 percent of the Swedish respondents to a survey on social media usage. WhatsApp and Snapchat were slightly more commonly used, whereas both YouTube and Instagram had over 60 percent of respondents using them. However, the leader in recent years has been Facebook. 80 percent of the respondents reported to have used this network and it ranked, therefore as the most broadly used platform among Swedes.

Worldwide figures   Facebook is among the most increasingly popular social media not only in Sweden, but also worldwide. The number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide constantly increased. People seemed to be involved in the platform, and with Facebook Stories being introduced in 2017, the most popular Facebook story genre in 2019 appeared to be politics. Other topics with high interaction rate globally were general interest, death and science.

What are the top reasons for Dutch consumers to use social media? In 2019, most individuals said they participated in a social network to exchange text messages. Using professional networks such as LinkedIn was less common: 40.9 percent of 45-to 55-year-olds said they participated in such a platform. In 2021, approximately five million people in the Netherlands used LinkedIn.

What are the Netherlands’ most popular social media platforms?

In 2020, 47 percent of Millennials (defined as the age group from 22 to 36 years) in the Netherlands said they used LinkedIn. WhatsApp, however, was the most popular platform, as 89 percent actively used this platform. The IM app topped a popularity list that also consisted of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

What about Instagram?

Most users of the photo-sharing app were between 25 and 34 years old. Overall, Dutch women tended to use Instagram more than men. The most popular Instagram influencers who come from the Netherlands tend to have a background in either music or beauty.

The number of LinkedIn users in South Africa was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 2.7 million users (+28.75 percent). After the eighth consecutive increasing year, the LinkedIn user base is estimated to reach 12.04 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).Find more key insights for the number of LinkedIn users in countries like Lesotho and Botswana.

Facebook encabeza de nuevo en 2025 el ranking de las redes sociales con más usuarios activos mensuales, con más de ***** millones, según datos facilitados por DataReportal. Y es que, desde que comenzara su andadura en la primera década del siglo XXI, la resonancia de esta red social ha sido imparable. Tanto es así, que su número de usuarios mensuales activos se ha duplicado durante el último lustro. Imparable crecimiento de los usuarios de redes sociales Las redes sociales líderes en el mundo suelen estar disponibles en varios idiomas y permiten a sus usuarios interconectarse ágilmente, independientemente de las fronteras geográficas, políticas o económicas. Este esfuerzo de customización y adaptación al cliente tiene como objetivo principal retener a los ya prácticamente ***** millones de internautas que utilizan asiduamente redes sociales. Una cifra que además se espera que siga aumentando paulatinamente en base al incremento paralelo de los usuarios de dispositivos móviles. Razones de uso de las redes sociales Las motivaciones de uso de redes sociales son de lo más variadas. Desde estar informado casi a tiempo real gracias a los tweets, hasta colgar las fotos de sus últimas vacaciones en Instagram, pasando por buscar trabajo o jugar en plataformas online: hoy en día la variedad de redes sociales es tan amplia que se ajusta a los gustos y necesidades de casi cualquier usuario.