Global Social Media Media Stats

 Kepios's analysis shows that there are more than 4.62 billion users on social media around the world in January 2022. This is 58.4 percent world population.

The numbers of social media users have seen strong growth over the past year too, with 424 million people joining the social media around this time last year.

 

The most recent statistics show that well over 9 in 10 Internet users use social media at least once a month (learn more about people's general web-related habits in our Global Digital Overview page).

This translates to an annual growth of 10.1 percent that is greater than 13 brand new subscribers per second.

Be aware that the numbers for users of social media may not represent individuals who are unique because of issues such as duplicate accounts, the social media user numbers may outstrip those we publish for internet users - or even total population.

On the other hand though, it's also worth noting that comparing users of social media with figures for total population might not reflect the full range of the use of social media since the majority of social media companies restrict use of their Inflact platforms only to those aged 13 and above.

For context, the latest figures suggest that the number of people using social media in the globe is currently approximately 75 percent of eligible global population.

The data from GWI reveal that the typical social media user actively uses or visits an average of 7.5 different social platforms per month. In addition, they spend an average of close to two and a half hours per day using social media.

Assuming that people sleep for between 7 and 8 hours a day, the latest numbers suggest that people are spending approximately 15 percent of their waking lives on social media.

Together, the world spends more than 10 billion hours on social media every single day, which is the equivalent of nearly 1.2 million years of the human race's existence.

Facebook remains the most used social media platform, but there are six social media platforms that claim an additional one-billion monthly active users per. The majority of those platforms are controlled by Meta.

Additionally, 17 social media platforms have more than 300 million users active as of January 2022:

Facebook has 2.910 billion active monthly users (see more Facebook stats here)

The possible reach of advertising on YouTube is 2.562 billion(a)

WhatsApp has at the very least 2 billion monthly active users

The potential advertising reach of Instagram can be estimated at 1.478 billion(a) (see more Instagram statistics here)

WeChat (inc. Weixin Wei Xin ) has 1.263 billion monthly active users

TikTok is home to 1 billion monthly active users (see more TikTok statistics here)

The advertising potential of Facebook Messenger is 988 million(a) (see more Facebook Messenger stats here)

Douyin (Dou Yun ) includes 600 millions active users on a daily basis (note that monthly active users could be more)

QQ (Teng Xun QQ) has 574 million monthly active users.

Sina Weibo (Xin Lang Wei Bo ) has 573 million monthly active users

Kuaishou (Kuai Shou ) has 573 million active users per month

The advertising potential of Snapchat has been estimated at 557 million(a) (see more Snapchat information here)

Telegram has 550 million monthly active users

Pinterest boasts 444 million active users who are on the site every month (see more Pinterest statistics here)

Twitter's potential advertising reach is around 436 million(a) (see more Twitter information here)

Reddit is home to 430 million active monthly users(b)

Quora has more than 300 million active users(b)

Be aware that LinkedIn does not publish daily active user statistics therefore we aren't able to include it in the list. But, it is possible to get comprehensive data on LinkedIn usage around the world here.

 

 

 

Audience overlaps

These individual platform user numbers provide a compelling account of the growing popularity of social media around the globe, but in their own way - they aren't telling the complete story.

In addition, the global populace is using a variety of different social platforms each month, meaning that there will be significant overlaps between the user base and advertising audiences on all of these platforms.

The graph below shows the amount of overlaps using data that is fresh from GWI offering valuable information for anyone who is looking to create an online mix or digital marketing strategy.

 

 

 

The most important takeaway from this amazing information is that marketers do not necessarily need to be on every platforms at once to reach the majority of their audiences.

If reach is your goal then you should concentrate on just one or two of the more popular platforms, confident that you've got the chance to connect with 99 percent of social media users.

Reach isn't the only thing you need to think about when designing your marketing plan, obviously however, this information can help us think differently about how we construct a social media platform mix.

For example, different individuals may use different platforms for different needs, and it's well worth marketers exploring these preferences to find out which platforms are best suited for the individual campaign and goals.

The following chart provides excellent insight into the motives that people use social media today, but remember that these reasons will differ depending on the location, age, and even by the platform used, so be sure to dig into our market data for your local area too.

 

 

Media preferences for Social

It's also important to note that high user numbers don't necessarily mean that they are more popular.

The the data from GWI will help us make sense of the platforms that people have the greatest affinity for this chart which shows the general social media platform preferences on a global scale.

 

As you would expect this is not the case, preferences differ in terms of age and gender.

As you can see in the graph below, the GWI research shows that younger people tend to be more likely to declare that Instagram is their "favourite" online social network (at least in the majority of Western markets) However, older generations are more likely to use Facebook and WhatsApp.

But, there are significant variations in these preferences on an individual level. these local differences are especially relevant for marketers hoping to reach the right target audience at the right time at just the right time.

 

Social media usage by country

As you'll have seen at this point the preferences of social media platforms differ from one nation to another, so it's important to dig into the data to understand the trends at a local level.

If you'd like to know more about the use of social media across different countries, such as local social media platform rankings and user profiles based on gender and age, take a an in-depth look at our collection of local reports.

We have separate pages that provide the most recent statistics for a number of the leading social platforms around the globe and you can look them up via the links below:

Facebook: click here

Instagram: click here

TikTok Click here

Facebook Messenger: click here to sign up for Facebook Messenger.

LinkedIn: click here

Snapchat: click here

Twitter: click here

Pinterest: click here

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Notes:

(a) If platforms do not have daily active users figures or have not published recent updates for month-long active users, we've used the latest advertising reach figures available in the respective platforms' self-service advertising tools, order to give an comparable basis for comparison.

(b) This platform haven't released updated figures of users over the past 12 months, so the figures for users listed here may not be as accurate as the user figures we've included for other platforms on this list.

LinkedIn no longer publishes monthly active user statistics, and its monthly advertising audience reach figures are based on the number of registered members, rather than monthly active members (MAUs). Therefore, it's difficult to know how many active users LinkedIn has each month. However, our analysis suggests that the platform likely has the least amount of MAUs to be eligible for the ranking above.

* It is important to note that we provide both monthly active users figures as well as potential reach for advertising figures for different online social platforms, in the reports we provide. Be sure to go through each slide to understand which metrics we've chosen for each platform.