As of 2021, Facebook, recently rebranded as Meta, was the social media platform used most often by ** percent of social networking users in the United States. In 2015, Facebook was the most used platform by ** percent of social media users, demonstrating a decrease of almost ** percent. During the same time frame, Instagram has continued to grow in popularity, with ** percent of users saying it was their most often used platform in 2021, an increase of ** percent since 2015. Snapchat was the most used platform by ** percent of respondents in 2018 and has since continued to decline. In 2020, TikTok was the most accessed platform for ***** percent of users and by 2021 it had more than doubled to ***** percent.

As of February 2021, YouTube had a global penetration rate of 62 percent, followed closely by Meta's Facebook, with 61 percent. Overall, instant messaging service WhatsApp had a global penetration rate of 52 percent. Additionally, 12 percent of people used TikTok, and one in ten people around the world use messaging service Telegram.

TikTok saw an exceptional increase of monthly active users worldwide from 2019 to 2021, at 38 percent. The short-form video sharing app was used by 689 million individuals monthly as of 2021, compared to 500 million in 2019. Other leading social networks that increased with over 30 percent were Pinterest and Reddit.

The coronavirus pandemic is one of the factors that have resulted in an increased interest in social networking, with billions of people in lockdown, working and studying from home, and in need of socializing.

A 2021 online survey conducted in the United States found that ** percent of respondents trusted Facebook the least when it came to their personal privacy and data on social media, with ** percent reporting Facebook as the least trusted service. Overall, one third of respondents said they trusted TikTok the least, and ** percent said Twitter was their least trusted social media platform.

An analysis of over ***** influencer campaigns showed that Instagram was the most popular platform for such purposes. It was incorporated into ** percent of analyzed campaigns. Facebook ranked second, used by ** percent of campaigns.

Social media users were the highest across India as of February 2021 for messaging app Whatsapp, at *** million. YouTube followed during the same time, with Facebook ranking third. The government in the country introduced new rules under its IT-law earlier that year with the aim of social media platforms self-regulating by focusing on stronger guidelines.

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 million Facebook users respectively.

              Facebook – the most used social media

              Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3,5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising.

              Facebook usage by device
              As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

During a 2021 survey, over ** percent of responding social media users aged 16 to 34 from the United States had purchased products or services on Instagram. Facebook was the platform named most often, used for purchases by nearly ** percent of respondents. The phenomenon of making purchases via social channels is called social commerce. Estimates suggest there were over ** million U.S. social commerce buyers in 2021.

In 2021, more than ** percent of surveyed consumers in the United States used Facebook when looking for promo codes, discounts, or coupons, making it the preferred social media platform for bargain hunters. Roughly ** percent of U.S. consumers also used Instagram, while only about five percent of participants mentioned LinkedIn.

According to a 2021 online survey conducted in the United States, 37 percent of social media users have had their online profiles hacked. Overall, 77 percent of these hacking incidences occurred on Facebook, and 35 percent occurred on Instagram. Additionally, around a quarter of respondents reported that their Twitter accounts were hacked, whilst 23 percent said that their TikTok accounts had been hacked.

In 2021, over ********* (35 percent) of consumers used social media to research merchandise in the United States. When comparing age groups, Millennials (58 percent) used social media for this purpose the most. Post Millennials ranked second, with roughly ** percent actively using social media platforms as important information sources for buying decisions.

In 2022, the level of trust in social media platforms in the United States declined across all the observed platforms. Instagram saw the most significant decline in the index score, -5.9. LinkedIn and Reddit followed, with the trust index score showing a -5.8 and -5.7 decline. YouTube saw the lowest drop in trust level among the mentioned platforms, -2.8.

As of September 2023, Facebook had the largest market share among social media platforms in Africa. The traffic generation capabilities of Facebook in Africa reached **** percent. YouTube was the closest, with a share of *** percent. Overall, Facebook has dominated traffic referrals to other websites on the African continent over the observed period.

According to an online survey conducted in November 2021 in the United States, just under three-quarters of social media users said they had seen information on social media platforms that had been flagged or labeled as false. Furthermore, the remaining ** percent said they had not witnessed social media content being identified as disinformation. When possible, some social media companies add fact-check labels to posts that relate to the false content in an attempt to counteract untrue claims.

According to a survey on social marketing in China conducted in April 2021, the conversion rate on social media platforms averaged at ** percent. The most prominent player was Douyin, with a conversion rate of ** percent during the measured period.

According to a survey conducted in 2021, Instagram was the top social medial platform used by high school students researching college, with ** percent of students graduating from high school between 2021 and 2023 using Instagram for college planning. Instagram was also the top social media platform used by high school students in their daily lives.

During a 2021 survey carried out among consumers from the United States, ** percent of respondents stated that they wanted brands to use more of TikTok for marketing purposes. The most commonly named platform was Facebook, with ** percent. Brands invested nearly ** billion U.S. dollars in social media advertising in the U.S. in 2021.

Facebook was a favorite social media platform for over ** percent of Poles in the third quarter of 2024, a decrease compared to the previous year.

According to a September 2021 survey conducted in the Philippines, an overwhelming majority of ** percent of the country's adult population had social media accounts on Facebook. YouTube followed as the second most universal social network platform in the country with ** percent of surveyed Filipino internet users having an account with the said platform.

According to a telephone interview conducted in the United States in February 2021, 49 percent of respondents who used Facebook visited the social media platform several times per day, whilst 22 percent of users visited the site about once a day. Of those who used Snapchat, 45 percent of them used the mobile app several times a day. Regarding Twitter, 30 percent of respondents visited the online social networking service several times a day, whilst 53 percent reported to access it less frequently, meaning they used it a few times a week or every few weeks.