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.

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.

As of January 2023, Instagram and Facebook were considered the most effective social media platforms for building active communities - each platform was chosen by ** percent of social media marketers surveyed worldwide. YouTube followed, with ** percent of respondents considering it effective to build an online community.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used social media platforms in Mexico, reaching **** percent and **** percent of the country's online audiences. Instagram and TikTok followed, being used by **** percent and **** percent of Mexican internet users each. Messenger was accessed by around ****, while X, Telegram, and Pinterest accounted for smaller shares.

More than three-quarters of the Russian online population aged 16 years and older used the Telegram messenger, thus making it the most-used social media platform among those listed in the ranking. WhatsApp ranked second, with a penetration rate of nearly 74 percent, followed by VK and TikTok. Social media usage in Russia In 2024, the daily time spent on social media in Russia was recorded at roughly two hours and 20 minutes per user on average. After Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) were blocked in Russia at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, a significant increase in activity was recorded on VK and Telegram. For example, the daily audience on VK increased by almost nine percent, while the number of friends requests and feed views grew by 250 percent and 25 percent, respectively. YouTube From the global perspective, YouTube ranked second after Facebook, which remained the leading social media platform with about three billion active users. The U.S.-based channel MrBeast had the highest number of subscribers on YouTube with around 343 million as of January 2025. India-based T-Series followed with 284 million subscribers as of that month.

According to a survey on digital usage in China, around 91.8 percent of respondents had used WeChat as of the third quarter of 2023. The short video app Douyin, the social commerce site Xiaohongshu, and the Twitter-like site Weibo, were among the most popular social media platforms in China. How successful is WeChat in China? The country’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, boasts over one billion monthly active users. For many Chinese consumers, WeChat is part of daily life, helping them to organize tasks such as paying bills, ordering food delivery, and calling a taxi. On average, WeChat users spent about an hour and 20 minutes per day on the app. Large user base with high engagement The social media scene in China is huge and mobile-centric. In 2023, the social media penetration rate amounted to 74 percent in China, slightly higher than in countries like the United States and Japan. While the user number has shown signs of reaching a saturation point, Chinese consumers have been spending more time online, with a considerable daily usage of social media.

According to a survey conducted in March 2023 in Finland, Facebook was the most popular social media platform, with ** percent of the online population accessing the service. Instagram was also widely used, with a reach of ** percent. Jodel, an app that connects people with their local communities, was used by around one in ten internet users in Finland.

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.

During a July 2022 survey among B2B marketers who used social media platforms for paid content promotion worldwide, ** percent of respondents stated that they made use of LinkedIn over the previous 12 months. Facebook was ranked second with ** percent of respondents, which was a drop of ** percentage points, compared to 2021, when ** percent stated using it.

Facebook remained the largest market share among social media platforms across India, at roughly ** percent as of August 2025. The Meta-owned social network site has consistently led the country's social media market since 2019. However, Instagram, the second leading social media platform has been increasingly gaining market share and closing the gap with its sister company. Commercial social media usage in India Apart from creating user-generated content, Indians have leveraged social media to grow their businesses. As consumption via online channels increased, social media began playing an important role in stimulating the Indian economy. Among the most popularly used social media platforms in India, Facebook was increasingly used for digital marketing. On the other hand, Instagram emerged as the country’s leading platform for influencer collaboration. Meta Platforms Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has quickly gone on to become the social media giant it is today. Having acquired leading social media platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, the company rebranded itself as Meta Platforms Inc. in 2021. The following year, Meta generated a revenue of nearly *** billion U.S. dollars. The company has further set its sights on bringing the metaverse to life to enhance the online experience of over ***** billion Facebook users across the world.

Just like for desktop users, Facebook was the leading social media platform for mobile users in Poland, with a 68.25 percent share in April 2025. Instagram and X (Twitter) followed, with a 14.83 percent and a 7.05 percent share, respectively.

As surveyed in November 2020, Facebook was the leading social media platform used by businesses in Vietnam. Almost all firms participating in the survey reported having an official Facebook account. Zalo was the only Vietnamese brand among the top social media platforms for companies, ranking fourth with ** percent of respondents.

In 2024, Facebook was the leading social media platform in most of the Southeast Asian countries in terms of traffic generation to other websites, with the highest share in Timor-Leste at around ** percent. YouTube, X (Twitter), Instagram, and Pinterest were other platforms that had significant social media traffic shares in Southeast Asian markets that year. Social media advertising and web traffic referrals Traffic referrals from social media are crucial in social media advertising. Links shared on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter help direct potential customers to a brand’s website or landing page. This increases exposure, website visits, and conversions, such as sales or leads, which are key benefits of social media marketing according to marketers. Traffic referrals also serve as an important tool for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Furthermore, by analyzing which platforms and content generate the most traffic, businesses can refine their strategies to focus on the highest-performing channels. Social media advertising – a multibillion-dollar business Revenue from social media advertising has continued to rise rapidly. This growth was driven by the ability to track user behavior, refine ad targeting, and deliver highly personalized content. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok generate billions of dollars of ad revenue annually. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, Meta Platforms’s annual advertising revenue exceeded *** billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Countries such as China, Japan, and Australia are among the largest social media advertising markets in the Asia-Pacific region, with China’s projected social media ad spend reaching nearly ** billion U.S. dollars in 2025.

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.

A 2024 survey showed that YouTube was the most popular social media platform for product discovery and research in the United States. More than half of the survey respondents reported discovering new products on YouTube, while around ** percent did so via Facebook. Furthermore, roughly ** percent of the respondents used Instagram for this purpose.

How many people use social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over **** ******* people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over *** billion in 2029. 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 lesser 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. Mobile-first market 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.

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.

During a 2025 global survey, approximately ** percent of responding business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers said Facebook was the most important social media platform. Among business-to-business (B2B) professionals, LinkedIn ranked first, selected by ** percent. According to the same study, YouTube and LinkedIn were the social media in which most global marketers planned to increase their investments throughout that year.

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.