Global social media research

summary 2019
Our compilation of the latest social media statistics of
consumer adoption and usage
Social networks are now so well established, that there is a core 'top 5' social networks
that don't change much from year-to-year. But, as we'll see in this post, the most
popular social media sites vary a lot by level of usage in different countries and
demographics. Understanding these differences in popularity of different social
networks is really important when targeting specific audiences. When comparing the
most popular social networks it's best to review them by active account usage, not just
the number of user accounts. We'll also see in this summary that some social networks
are growing more rapidly than others while some are now in decline.

2019 social media stats update

We'll keep this post updated during 2019 as the latest statistics are published drawing
on our recommended top 10 digital marketing statistics sources. We'll be pointing to
new data around social media channel penetration in the US from Pew Internet and
Global Web Index. Since it is still early in the year, many graphs will use the most
recent data from 2018 until new research from 2019 is released.

Download our free Social Media Marketing guide

Our free social media planning checklist will help get you up to speed with the issues
you should think about when creating a social media plan, to avoid mistakes and
manage your social media updates more effectively.

Access the 10 common social media marketing mistakes

Q1. What is the overall popularity of Social Media globally?

Each year, near the start of the year, We Are Social update their massive global
compendium of stats which gives some great insights into the world of social media.
It's a great download for presentations. It's particularly interesting how far some
countries are diverging in terms of social media use, and surprising that Western
Countries are actually lagging a fair way behind in adoption rates. When we last
checked in February 2019 the new report hadn't been updated.

Some of the key takeaways from their Global Digital Report 2018 include:

 The number of internet users worldwide in 2018 is 4.021 billion, up 7 percent year-

on-year

 The number of social media users worldwide in 2018 is 3.196 billion,

up 13 percent year-on-year

 The number of mobile phone users in 2018 is 5.135 billion, up 4 percent year-on-

year

Annual growth continues apace, especially in active mobile social users - 39%
penetration up 5% from 2017.

Share of web traffic by device highly favours mobile at 52% (+4% year-on-year
change), whilst Desktop remains in second place with only 43% of device share to all
web pages, down by 3% year-on-year.
Northen, Western and South Europe and North America have the largest internet
penetration with between 74%-94% internet users compared to total population.

The global increase in social media usage since January 2017 is 13%. Saudi Arabia
has the largest year-on-year increase in social media users since January 2017 (32%),
a 17% increase compared to the global average. Other countries with the largest social
media usage increase includes India, Indonesia and Ghana as technology is improving
and social media becomes easily accessible to more of the population. U.A.E, South
Korea and the UK have the slowest increase with <5%.

With Facebook having the most daily active users compared to other social networks
it's important to know how your content may potentially perform and what features to
use to optimize the reach of content. There is a 10.7% average post reach vs page like
and 26.8% average paid post reach vs total reach. Facebook is a great social platform
for organic and paid opportunities with a huge potential reach - just remember to
target content to business personas to gain quality leads.

The full report from we are social contains a massive amount of data across 200+
slides. It provides country-specific data for the vast majority of the world, so you
might want to check out the slides of the countries in your core markets to get a better
idea of the current state of social in the areas you operate.

Digital in 2018 Global Overview from We Are Social

Q2. Which are the most popular social networks?

The latest insight from the comScore panel in their 2018 Global Digital Future in
Focus compares the popularity of social networks by share of time gives this data
based on their home panel for the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK,
Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Malaysia. We have more detailed
information on the UK and the US later in this article.

Most popular social networks based on share of minutes

You can see this is a sea of Facebook blue, so this shows that despite the negative
media hype about Facebook it is going to remain a major audience channel for some
time.

In the UK you can see that Instagram accounts for around 10% of social media
minutes, so if you are not already exploiting the latest Instagram ad techniques, then
it's worth looking into these, see our digital media cheatsheet for more details.

This compilation of the most popular social networks worldwide by active users

(October 2018) prepared by Statista using data from the Global Web Index panel
gives a clear picture of the number of active users (in millions) with Facebook ruling
supreme. This won't be a shock to anyone! With over 2 billion active users it holds the
majority market share. Google's YouTube is second with Facebook-owned,
WhatsApp and Messenger not far behind. Facebook's Instagram platform has fewer
than half of the visits of Facebook...

Following from this, we have predominantly APAC favoured platforms, with QQ,
WeChat and Qzone all with over 600 million active users, highlighting the array of
social platform offerings in the APAC. We then see a cluster of predominantly
western social media networks in Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter.
United Kingdom Social network popularity
The latest OfCom Communications Market report gives this summary for the most
popular UK social networks as of March 2018.

A new 2019 Children and parents: media use and attitudes report also published by
OfCom (UK) is interesting if your business is involved in marketing to children or
youth markets or you want to understand future adult use of social media. It highlights
the continuing decline of Facebook use by younger demographics with 12-15 year
olds with a Facebook profile decreasing from 40% in in 2017 to 31% in 2018.
Instagram increased from 14% to 23% in the same period with Snapchat fixed at 31%.

Here's a snapshot of two of the four age groups featured.

Q3. Which are the fast-growing social networks?

Every marketer has limited time for social media marketing, so which fastest growing
social network should you focus your efforts on?

United States Social network popularity

This Pew Research Internet Survey data on gives more detailed insights on US social
media usage and growth rates.
It also reports social media teen use in US from a report Teens, Social Media and
Technology 2018.
In 2019 Pew has so far reported on perceptions of profiling on Facebook.

This comScore panel data from the Communications market report shows growth
ratest based on demographics in the UK for Facebook and Instagram:
The report also shares data on Snapchat growth:

 This
comparison of changes in monthly active users shows that although Facebook is
declining in some demographics such as 18-24 and 25-34, it and Instagram are still
growing rapidly overall. Snapchat has also had significant growth.
Q4. How do social users interact with brands on social?

Knowing how to behaviour / post on social media is also important as this is reflective
of your brand personality and consequently influencers social uses to buy or unfollow!
Social media is increasingly being used as a customer service platform where
customers and potential customers want answers quickly and in real-time. Only
27%of social media user respondents will be prompted to purchase products after
seeing behind the scenes content shared on brand social pages.

51% said that they would unfollow brands on social media if they posted irritating
posts and 27% said they would mark/report the brand and page as spam and block
them. This is why posting relevant, interesting content that resonates with your target
audience and social users is important in retaining your Reach and Engagement with
potential customers.
Q5. Which is the most engaging social network?

Another factor which determines the time we put into social media marketing is the
engagement of the audience. Here we again see the dominance of Facebook - it's also
got the greatest engagement in time according to this insight from the US consumer
panel from comScore.

comScore has also published a more recent update on engagement in the UK

comparing Facebook vs Twitter vs Instagram vs Pinterest vs Snapchat.
The above chart from Comscore shows engagement in terms of time spent on the
platform vs reach among the millennial demographic. It's interesting to see how
effectively Facebook dominates, but also interesting to see how well Snapchat and
Instagram are doing in terms monthly usage per visitor. For more Snapchat stats, see
our post on Snapchat Marketing Statistics.
Facebook's dominance is truly extraordinary. Not only does it take the top spot, it's
other platforms also take 2nd and 3rd respectively. Facebook Messenger has an
impressive 47 penetration, and Instagram (also owned by Facebook)  comes 2nd for
engagement.

In this recent chart from Pew Internet below, we can see in terms of active daily use
Facebook is also in the lead. 76% of users log in daily, whilst 51% do for Instagram
(owned by Facebook). Twitter manages just 42% of users login in daily, only just over
half the Facebook figure.
Q6. What are the different interaction rates in social media?

TrackMaven analysed 51 million posts from 40,000 different companies over 130
industries to establish which social networks achieve the greatest engagement per
follower. The results show that Instagram absolutely dominates when it comes to
interactions per 1,000 followers. In fact, it is so much higher than the other channels
we've had to include a second chart just to show the difference between Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter!
As you can see, Instagram dominates, but when it comes to the other networks
Facebook has a considerable lead on Twitter and LinkedIn. This is in large part
because people tend to post a lot more on Twitter because it doesn't have an algorithm
that only serves posts to a small section of an audience. This has turned Twitter into a
bit of fire hose of content where companies have to share more and more often to be
heard through the noise. This has resulted in lower engagement per post.

US Social media adoption

US consumer technology adoption specialists Pew Research Center released a new set
of data on US Social Media USon October 8th which shows the latest social media
trends and how far it has permeated society. Looking at data from the past 10 years, it
charts the meteoric rise of social media.

10 years ago on 7% of the US population used one or more social networking sites.
Now that figure has increased almost tenfold, to 65%. Of those who use the internet a
massive majority of 76% of American's use social media.

Social Media has grown massively, but it's growth is now starting to plateau.
Interestingly the over 65s segment are now driving growth, as other age groups have
plateaued completely and use is hardly growing it all. Among the 50-64 age cohort,
use hasn't increased since 2013. 

Social network popularity by country

This is a great visualisation of the popularity of social networks based on the
interviews in the GWI report. If you pick out your country it's probably way behind
the countries in which these four core social networks are most popular. Indonesia,
Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are in the top 10 for each with significantly
higher levels of use than the US, UK and European countries.
Use of social networks by different demographics
This chart is striking for the similarity of usage across different age groups. It shows
that the social networks are now at a stage of maturity where they give opportunities
to reach all age and gender groups. The exceptions to this are Instagram and Tumblr
which are clearly popular with younger age groups.
 

By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of Smart
Insights. Dave is editor of the 100+ templates, ebooks and courses in the digital
marketing resource library created by our team of 25+ Digital Marketing experts. Our
resources are used by our Premium members in more than 100 countries to Plan,
Manage and Optimize their digital marketing. Free members can access our sample
templates here. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
For my full profile and other social networks, see the Dave Chaffey profile page on
Smart Insights. Dave is a keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5
bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing
Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he
was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’
worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.
This blog post has been tagged with:

Digital Marketing Trends 2018

Start the discussion on our community and social networks

     
Turbocharge your results with our
Social media marketing Toolkit
This toolkit contains 12 resources

Digital strategy guide


 Digital strategy template toolkit
 Free online marketing planning template

Learn more about the Social media marketing toolkit 

 Still stuck? We also offer
 Training

 Consultancy

 Marketplace

Social Media Marketing Toolkit

 10 common social media marketing mistakes
 Social media marketing strategy guide
 Social media marketing playbook
  View the Toolkit 

Get FREE marketing planning templates

Start your Digital Marketing Plan today with our Free membership.

 FREE fast start guides to review your approach

 FREE digital marketing plan templates

 FREE alerts on the latest developments

GET FREE TEMPLATES

Need help with your Social media marketing?

Get more from your digital marketing with in-company or remote training and consultancy from Smart
Insights

 Training
 Consultancy
 Digital Marketing Library

PARTNER MARKETPLACE

Solutions to your marketing challenges

 Agency growth and management

 Business-to-Business (B2B)

 Charity and Not-for-profit organisations

 Content Marketing

 Digital Experience Management

 Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning

 Digital Transformation
  E-commerce and Retail Digital Marketing

 Email Marketing and Marketing Automation

 Google AdWords

 Google Analytics

 Managing Digital Branding

 Managing Digital Marketing Teams

 Managing International Marketing

 Marketing Campaign Planning

 Marketing Strategy and Planning

 Multichannel lifecycle marketing

 Paid media

 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

 Sector Technology Innovation

 Social Media Marketing

 Startups and small business

Most popular articles

 Social Media Marketing Trends 2018

 Online brand reputation or social media monitoring tool comparison review

 Navigating the complex web of social media listening and engagement tools

 Social Media Strategy and Planning Essentials - Strategy and Tactics

 How to find the best Hashtags to use in Twitter

 Instagram Statistics 2017

  Creating a strategy for using LinkedIn for B2B marketing

 A-Z of LinkedIn Marketing

 How and why to create a "Dark Post" in Facebook

 Social Sign-on : the implications for Ecommerce sites [Infographic]

VIEW ALL ARTICLES

Get FREE marketing planning templates

Start your Digital Marketing Plan today with our Free membership.

 FREE fast start guides to review your approach

 FREE digital marketing plan templates

 FREE alerts on the latest developments

GET FREE TEMPLATES