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.

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.

During a survey carried out in 2024, 62 percent of responding marketers who were looking to decrease spend on cookie-based activations said they were planning to shirt spending towards social media. Nearly half were planning to invest in first-party data.

During a 2019/2020 survey carried out among owners of small and medium-sized enterprises from the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents stated they used social media to market their business and ** said they did not. In 2021, there were approximately ***** thousand SMEs in the UK.

As of 2023, the yearly social media advertising spending in the United States for X (formerly Twitter) has plummeted from ** to **** percent. Facebook and Instagram's social media ad spend remained relatively stable from 2020 to 2023, with a slight drop of ***** percentage points, reaching ** percent in 2023. TikTok's social media ad spend value has grown up to ** percent in the country.

During a 2025 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately 81 percent selected increased exposure as a benefit of social media marketing. Increased traffic followed, mentioned by 71 percent of the respondents, while 62 percent cited generated leads. The multibillion-dollar social media ad industry Between 2019, the last year before the pandemic, and 2024, global social media advertising spending skyrocketed by 140 percent, surpassing an estimated 230 billion U.S. dollars in the latter year. That figure was forecast to increase by nearly 50 percent by the end of the decade, exceeding 345 billion dollars in 2029. As of 2024, the social media networks with the most monthly active users were Facebook, with over three billion, and YouTube, with more than 2.5 billion. Pros and cons of GenAI for social media marketing According to another 2025 survey, generative artificial intelligence's (GenAI) leading benefits for social media marketing according to professionals worldwide included increased efficiency and easier idea generation. The third place was a tie between increased content production and enhanced creativity. All those advantages were cited by between 33 and 38 percent of the interviewees. As for GenAI's top challenges for global social media marketing, maintaining authenticity and the value of human creativity ranked first, mentioned by 43 and 40 percent of the respondents, respectively. Another 35 percent deemed ensuring the content resonates as an obstacle.

During a 2019/2020 survey carried out among owners of small and medium-sized enterprises from the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents stated social media helped raise brand awareness of their business. The same survey found that ** percent of UK SMEs used social media for marketing purposes.

The number of social media users in the Netherlands was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total *** million users (+**** percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the social media user base is estimated to reach **** million users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of social media users of was continuously increasing over the past years.The shown figures regarding social media users have been derived from survey data that has been processed to estimate missing demographics.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).

During a September 2020 survey fielded in the United States, ** percent of respondents stated that their purchasing decisions were influences by social media ads; ** percent said they were not. Social network advertising spending in the U.S. was estimated at **** billion U.S: dollars in 2020.

According to a survey conducted by Ofcom in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, ** to 24-year-olds made up the largest group of respondents who had used social media sites or apps in the previous week. This was followed by ** to 34-year-olds, comprising the second largest group. Overall, social media use was the highest among young adults, decreasing steadily within the older age groups. Women and social media In the United Kingdom, more women than men had set up their own social network profile according to an ongoing survey conducted from 2010 to 2019. By 2019, ** percent of women and ** percent of men had created social media profiles, a rise from 2010 where only ** and ** percent respectively claimed to have done the same. Despite social media having a comparatively larger female user base as demonstrated by the previous figures, the share of advertising audience in early 2020 was nearly evenly distributed between males and females, particularly in the largest audience group of ** to 44-year-olds. The growth of influencer marketing Social media advertising spend has been on the rise in the UK, reaching over ***** billion British pounds by 2018. This was a near ** percent increase from the previous year. The sector also experienced a ** percent increase in spend per year between 2015 and 2017, further demonstrating the growth of this marketing niche. With the rise of YouTube and Instagram, influencer marketing has come to play a crucial role in social media advertising with 68 percent of PR professionals having allocated between ** thousand and over 100 thousand British pounds for the sector in 2018. In collaborating with influencers who have an established follower-base, marketers are able to quickly build trust, increase reach, and engage audiences effectively.

Over the last two observations, the average ad spending per internet user is forecast to significantly increase in all segments. Concerning the two selected segments, the segment Social Media Advertising Mobile has the largest average ad spending per internet user with ***** U.S. dollars. Contrastingly, Social Media Advertising Desktop is ranked last, with **** U.S. dollars. Their difference, compared to Social Media Advertising Mobile, lies at ***** U.S. dollars. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

As of July 2025, almost 33.3 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 25 and 34 years, and 29.7 percent of users were aged between 18 and 24 years. Overall, 17.4 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44-year-old age group. Instagram users With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo-sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have about 480 million and 181 million Instagram users each. Instagram features One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream, and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo-sharing app that initially became famous due to its “vanishing photos” feature. As of the third quarter of 2025, Snapchat had 477 million daily active users.

In 2024, nearly ** percent of marketers in the United States used Instagram for influencer marketing. During the same period, around ** percent also turned to YouTube. By 2025, more than half of U.S. marketers are expected to incorporate YouTube into their influencer marketing strategies. TikTok, which had been adopted by ** percent of marketers in 2021, saw its usage rise to approximately ** percent by 2024.

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

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.

The annual expenditure of businesses on campaign planning and consulting for social media marketing in Japan was projected to exceed ** billion Japanese yen in 2024. It was expected that the market would grow further in the coming years and reach a value of more than ** billion yen by 2029.

During a September 2024 survey among marketing leaders at for-profit companies in the United States, respondents reported allocating, on average, **** percent of their budgets to social media marketing, up from ** percent at the beginning of that year. They also projected that social media would account for over ** percent of their companies' marketing budget within five years.

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.

During a 2020 survey carried out among senior level communications and marketing professionals in the United States, ** percent respondents said Facebook was one of their top four of social media platforms in terms of their boarder content strategy. LinkedIn ranked second, named by ** percent of respondents.

As of the third quarter of 2024, around **** percent of consumers surveyed in Malaysia discovered new brands, products, and services through social media advertising. By comparison, the share of consumers who found new brands from social media ads was slightly higher in the third quarter of 2020, at **** percent.