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.

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.

During a 2025 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately ** percent said Facebook was the most important social media platform. LinkedIn and Instagram followed, respectively mentioned by ** and ** percent of respondents. Why marketers use social media as a branding channel According to the same study, the leading benefits of social media marketing were increased exposure and traffic. In other words, mastering a brand's presence on such platforms can make a company's products and services known across multiple demographics as well as generate traffic for its online sales. Marketers' favorite social media platforms The survey also revealed that business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers' top social media can vary. While B2C professionals bet on Facebook and its still massive usage rate, B2B strategists focus on LinkedIn, where companies can see and be seen. However, the social media video platforms in which marketers wanted to invest more were YouTube and Instagram.

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

Despite a tumultuous 2018, Facebook is still the top social network in the United States, with 169.76 million mobile users accessing the Facebook app in September 2019. The company’s other properties Instagram and Facebook Messenger ranked second and third with 121 and 106 million users respectively. Cambridge Analytica scandal 2018 The biggest social media company in the world had a difficult 2018. The platform has long been accused of enabling the spread of fake news during the 2016 election and beyond. One of the first and biggest negative Facebook stories of 2018 was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which unfolded from March 2018. The Guardian, The Observer, and The New York Times simultaneously reported on political data firm Cambridge Analytica harvesting data of millions of Facebook users worldwide without their knowledge before the 2016 election, which led to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg having to testify before Congress in April 2018. Facebook usage behavior changes Due to the revelations about Facebook and the company’s treatment of private user data, many U.S. users are planning to use the social network much less and to be much more careful about what they post . During an April 2018 survey, only 20 percent of respondents stated that their Facebook usage has not changed, and they were planning on continuing to use the social platform as much as they always had in the past.

Description:

The "Daily Social Media Active Users" dataset provides a comprehensive and dynamic look into the digital presence and activity of global users across major social media platforms. The data was generated to simulate real-world usage patterns for 13 popular platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, Telegram, Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, Reddit, Threads, LinkedIn, and Quora. This dataset contains 10,000 rows and includes several key fields that offer insights into user demographics, engagement, and usage habits.

Dataset Breakdown:

• Platform: The name of the social media platform where the user activity is tracked. It includes globally recognized platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, that are known for their large, active user bases.

• Owner: The company or entity that owns and operates the platform. Examples include Meta for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Google for YouTube, and ByteDance for TikTok.

• Primary Usage: This category identifies the primary function of each platform. Social media platforms differ in their primary usage, whether it's for social networking, messaging, multimedia sharing, professional networking, or more.

• Country: The geographical region where the user is located. The dataset simulates global coverage, showcasing users from diverse locations and regions. It helps in understanding how user behavior varies across different countries.

• Daily Time Spent (min): This field tracks how much time a user spends on a given platform on a daily basis, expressed in minutes. Time spent data is critical for understanding user engagement levels and the popularity of specific platforms.

• Verified Account: Indicates whether the user has a verified account. This feature mimics real-world patterns where verified users (often public figures, businesses, or influencers) have enhanced status on social media platforms.

• Date Joined: The date when the user registered or started using the platform. This data simulates user account history and can provide insights into user retention trends or platform growth over time.

Context and Use Cases:

• This synthetic dataset is designed to offer a privacy-friendly alternative for analytics, research, and machine learning purposes. Given the complexities and privacy concerns around using real user data, especially in the context of social media, this dataset offers a clean and secure way to develop, test, and fine-tune applications, models, and algorithms without the risks of handling sensitive or personal information.

Researchers, data scientists, and developers can use this dataset to:

• Model User Behavior: By analyzing patterns in daily time spent, verified status, and country of origin, users can model and predict social media engagement behavior.

• Test Analytics Tools: Social media monitoring and analytics platforms can use this dataset to simulate user activity and optimize their tools for engagement tracking, reporting, and visualization.

• Train Machine Learning Algorithms: The dataset can be used to train models for various tasks like user segmentation, recommendation systems, or churn prediction based on engagement metrics.

• Create Dashboards: This dataset can serve as the foundation for creating user-friendly dashboards that visualize user trends, platform comparisons, and engagement patterns across the globe.

• Conduct Market Research: Business intelligence teams can use the data to understand how various demographics use social media, offering valuable insights into the most engaged regions, platform preferences, and usage behaviors.

• Sources of Inspiration: This dataset is inspired by public data from industry reports, such as those from Statista, DataReportal, and other market research platforms. These sources provide insights into the global user base and usage statistics of popular social media platforms. The synthetic nature of this dataset allows for the use of realistic engagement metrics without violating any privacy concerns, making it an ideal tool for educational, analytical, and research purposes.

The structure and design of the dataset are based on real-world usage patterns and aim to represent a variety of users from different backgrounds, countries, and activity levels. This diversity makes it an ideal candidate for testing data-driven solutions and exploring social media trends.

Future Considerations:

As the social media landscape continues to evolve, this dataset can be updated or extended to include new platforms, engagement metrics, or user behaviors. Future iterations may incorporate features like post frequency, follower counts, engagement rates (likes, comments, shares), or even sentiment analysis from user-generated content.

By leveraging this dataset, analysts and data scientists can create better, more effective strategies ...

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 2025 survey among marketers worldwide, around 83 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 78 and 69 percent of the respondents. The global social media marketing segment According to the same study, 60 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 2025. 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.

In March 2025, ******** accounted for ** percent of all social media site visits in the United States, confirming its position as the leading social media website by far. Other social media platforms, despite their popularity, had to make do with smaller shares of visits across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined. ********* ranked second with ***** percent of all U.S. social media site visits, while X (previously Twitter) accounted for ***** percent of the total visits in the country. Additionally, the U.S. is home to the third largest social media audience worldwide. Facebook: mobile vs desktop usage At the beginning of 2022, around ** percent of Facebook users across the globe were using the platform’s social networking services exclusively via mobile phone, while only *** percent reported using their desktop or laptop devices. In September 2022, three Facebook Inc. products occupied some of the leading positions as most downloaded social networking apps on the Apple App Store in the United States. WhatsApp’s messaging platform ranked second with more than *** million downloads, while Facebook and the instant-messaging service Messenger followed ranking third and fifth with *** million and **** million downloads respectively. Social media evolution Between 2012 and 2024, the daily time spent on social networks worldwide experienced an almost constant increase, with users reaching an average of *** minutes per day in 2023, with a decrease to *** daily minutes of engagement in 2024. However, users’ favorite platforms have changed since 2019, and the power balance appears to be shifting further from Facebook’s market dominance. Not only Facebook’s user growth rate is estimated to slow down in the next years, but users belonging to Generation Z appear to prefer video-first social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.

This dataset contains 600 synthetic entries simulating social media activity across three major platforms: Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. The data was generated to analyze trends, sentiments, and user engagement patterns based on hashtags and posts. It can be useful for researchers, data analysts, and machine learning enthusiasts interested in studying social media behavior.

Dataset Structure The dataset includes the following columns:

Date: The date of the post, ranging across a simulated timeline. Platform: The social media platform where the post was made (Twitter, Reddit, or Instagram). Hashtag: The main hashtag associated with the post, such as #AI, #MachineLearning, or #Python. Post Content: The text of the post, crafted to simulate common social media interactions. Sentiment: The sentiment of the post, classified as Positive, Neutral, or Negative. Likes: The number of likes the post received. Shares: The number of shares or retweets the post received. Potential Use Cases Sentiment analysis: Train machine learning models to detect sentiment in text. Hashtag popularity analysis: Determine which hashtags are most commonly used or generate the most engagement. Engagement trends: Explore correlations between post sentiment and engagement metrics (likes/shares). Platform comparison: Compare user behavior across different social media platforms. Acknowledgments This dataset is fully synthetic and was generated using Python. It does not contain any real user data and is intended for educational and research purposes.

Introduction

According to Digital Content Creation Statistics, Digital content creation encompasses the production of diverse media content for online consumption, spanning written articles, videos, podcasts, graphics, and interactive experiences.

With the proliferation of digital platforms and increased internet penetration, demand for engaging content is surging.

Video content remains dominant, with platforms like YouTube and TikTok driving engagement, while emerging formats like live streams and AR offer new engagement opportunities.

Content creators, platforms, agencies, and technology providers constitute the market landscape, navigating challenges such as content saturation and algorithmic changes while capitalizing on opportunities in monetization models and emerging technologies like Generative AI and VR.

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for businesses and creators aiming to thrive in the competitive digital content space.

In 2004, a Harvard student launched a platform that would go on to redefine how humans connect. Fast forward to 2025, social media isn't just a way to stay in touch, it’s where people shop, learn, protest, play, and even find love. From early-morning scrolls to late-night reels, platforms have...

Users spend an average of 19.6 hours per month on TikTok alone. This works out to be approximately 39 minutes per day.

Snapchat now boasts over 319 million daily active users. That means it’s one of the most engaging platforms. Snapchat currently has a total user base of 800 million.

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.

In a 2025 survey, nearly ***percent of global consumers rated Facebook as the social media platform delivering the best experience for social commerce. Instagram and TikTok ranked second, with ***percent.

As of March 2024, Meta's Facebook was the most popular social media platform in Denmark, with 81 percent of social network users in the country using the service. Instagram and YouTube ranked second, with almost six in ten users in Denmark accessing these online platforms. Snapchat was also relatively popular, with 39 percent of respondents stating that they used the app.

In August 2025, X, formerly known as Twitter, held a market share of around 34.83 percent in Hong Kong's social media scene in terms of pageviews across all devices, followed by Facebook and YouTube. The American social news and discussion website Reddit has gained traction since the anti-government protests in the city in 2020. Facebook is losing ground A few years before 2017, Facebook controlled over 80 percent of the social media arena in Hong Kong. The drastic change started in 2018, when the networking site lost nearly 11 percentage points and another 19 percentage points in the following year. For many Gen Z and Millennials in the financial hub, Instagram became the favorite social media platform and YouTube was used more often than Facebook. Facebook was still the second place to go after Instagram for product research, it has been losing its appeal among young users and advertisers. Platforms claiming the new spots When it came to advertising audience size, X took the lead. YouTube came in second, however, its ad reach in Hong Kong was among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. In comparison, the fourth placeholder Instagram has been picking up steam, reaching 4.14 percent of internet users in Hong Kong. However, the biggest industry threat was TikTok, the most downloaded social media app in Hong Kong as of the time of writing. TikTok’s rising popularity among teenage users may probably change the game of video consumption.

As of March 2024, *************** was the most popular social media platform in Norway, with ** percent of social network users in the country using the service. Overall, Instagram and Snapchat were used by ** percent and ** percent of the online population, respectively. YouTube was also popular, with ** percent of respondents stating that they used the service. Moreover, ***** percent of internet users in Norway were using mobile-first photo platform BeReal.

Facebook remains the most popular social media in Latin America in 2025, with an audience of 448 million users. However, other platforms currently have a higher growth rate than Meta's flagship platform. The Byte-dance owned platform TikTok has become the third-largest platform in the region, with around 261.9 million users, only behind Instagram, which amasses around 276.4 million users.