Did you know that 100% of people who read this blog post are well-informed and cool? See, statistics can be fun.
And planning a social strategy in 2024 is all about data. This blog post has all the latest stats on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn. It also includes stats on Pinterest, Snapchat, and more! Plus, helpful reports on social marketing and advertising.
Social media marketing stats are just a number… but the numbers don’t lie.
Bonus: Find out what people really want from brands on social—including why they follow, engage, buy, and even unfollow them—in The Social Media Consumer Report.
Social media usage statistics
1. About half of internet users use social media to stay in touch with friends and family.
A 2023 global survey by Statista found that nearly half of internet users (49%) use social media to stay connected to the people they care about. Meanwhile, 39% said they use social media to fill their spare time, and 34% said they use it to find news.
Source: Statista
2. Over 3 billion monthly active users are on Facebook.
As of April 2024, Facebook is the biggest social media platform. Even with the rise of newer platforms (we’re looking at you, TikTok), Facebook is still the most popular social media app used globally.
Source: Statista
3. The mobile version of YouTube is about seven times as popular as the desktop version.
Interestingly, most people use YouTube on a phone, not on their desktop computer (we’re happy to watch videos on tiny screens).
4. More than 50% of people in 26 countries use social media.
Pew Research Center surveyed internet users around the world, and in nearly every country they studied (except for two), half or more of the respondents used social media.
In Latin America and Asia, those numbers were the highest—in Brazil, for example, 86% were on social media, and in Malaysia, 83%.
Source: Pew Research Center
Social media marketing statistics
5. 52% of marketers are worried about maintaining a presence on several social media platforms in 2024.
This was the top ROI (return on investment) concern for the marketers polled in Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Survey.
In other words, when it comes to getting their money’s worth, marketers are most concerned about the time and budget they need to invest to keep up with several social media platforms at once.
On the brighter side, managing a bunch of social platforms at once is what Hootsuite is made for: Hootsuite streamlines all of your social accounts into one user-friendly platform, making it easy to crosspost and manage all your DMs.
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6. 56% of consumers think brands need to be more relatable.
This stat comes from Hootsuite’s Social Trends 2024 Consumer Survey, which polled over 4,000 respondents. So marketers, take note: being relatable rules in 2024.
7. 43% of brands have worked with more than 50 social media influencers.
According to Statista data from February 2024, 43% of brands around the world (including public relations firms and marketing agencies) have worked with 50 social media influencers or more. In fact, 14% have worked with over 1,000 influencers.
Source: Statista
Psstt: If you don’t know where to start with an influencer marketing strategy, no sweat. We have a whole guide that can help.
8. Over a quarter of marketers invest 40% or more of their budget into influencer marketing.
In 2024, brands know that influencer marketing is worth opening their wallets: 26% of marketers report allocating over 40% of their budget to influencer marketing, and another 22% devote 10% to 20% of their budget to influencers.
Source: Statista
Social media advertising statistics
9. 85% of marketers say they will use AI to produce ad text from scratch this year.
That’s a 29% jump from last year, according to Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Survey, which interviewed 4,281 marketers from 118 countries. Proving that AI will have a huge impact on social media advertising in 2024.
10. The global market in influencer advertising is projected to reach $56 billion by 2029.
That’s according to Statista, which expects an annual growth rate of 9.91%. This means the market volume will reach $56.2 billion USD by the time North West gets her driver’s license (2029).
11. Social media ad spending is expected to grow by about 8% per year.
That means in 2029, the market will be worth approximately $134 billion USD.
12. 26% of internet users use social media to find products to buy.
It’s the seventh most popular reason people use social media, following “finding inspiration for things to do and buy.” This means that spending money is definitely on the minds of social media users worldwide.
Instagram statistics
13. 66% of social media marketers say they are planning to use Instagram more in the near future.
A 2023 Statista survey found that more than half of social marketers are looking to up their IG game in the coming years. 43% even plan to increase their TikTok usage, too.
14. 28.4% of U.S. Instagram users are aged 25-34.
While 26.6% of American IG users are aged 18 to 24, and 19.5% are 35-44. Less than 6% are older than 65, but that doesn’t mean grandma can’t go viral.
15. Carousel posts on Instagram are increasing in reach by 14% year over year.
We’ve been saying that carousel posts boost your social strategy, and the numbers prove it: a 2023 Statista survey found that image posts reach an average of about 2,000 users (an 8% increase from the previous year) and carousel posts reach an average of over 2,600 users (a 14% increase).
Source: Statista
16. Nano-influencers on Instagram may have smaller followings, but they also have the highest engagement rate.
Just because influencers haven’t reached celebrity status doesn’t mean they don’t have power. A 2023 survey determined that nano-influencers (influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers) have a higher engagement rate than their more-followed counterparts.
In fact, the average engagement rate for an Instagram nano-influencer is 2.19%, while the average engagement rate for all influencers is less than 1.85%.
17. Almost 700,000 Instagram Reels are DM’ed every minute.
That’s according to Statista’s data as of December 2023. On average, 694,000 Reels are sent via DM every minute. So, around 17 million Reels are sent in the time it takes to microwave popcorn.
Get in on that DM action by creating unique, original Reels with a killer social strategy—we’ll show you how.
18. For Gen Z’ers, Instagram stories and DMs are more popular than TikTok stories and DMs.
TikTok may have Instagram beat in the short form video department (more Gen Z’ers report watching short videos on TikTok than on Instagram) but IG wins when it comes to watching stories and sending DMs.
78% of American Gen Z’ers say they watch Instagram stories, while only 46% say they watch TikTok stories. In terms of direct messages, 72% send DMs on Instagram, and only 46% send DMs on TikTok.
Source: eMarketer
PSA: If you’re looking for even more IG stats, check out these 35 bonus Instagram statistics.
Facebook statistics
19. Facebook is still the most popular social media platform used by brands.
When asked which social media platforms they currently use, 91% of the marketers polled in Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Survey said they use Facebook. While 86% use Instagram, 80% use LinkedIn, and 66% use X (Twitter).
20. Image posts on Facebook get more than twice as much engagement as posts without images.
When you post on Facebook, make sure you include a photo: while the average Facebook page fan engagement is just 0.06%, posts with images average 0.1%. Surprisingly, link posts have the worst engagement at just 0.03%.
21. In the U.S., Facebook makes up almost half of all social media site visits.
America may be known for its controversial government platforms, but there’s only one social platform ruling the country: 45% of all social media site visits are to Facebook.
Considering all the different apps at our fingertips in this screen-filled world, that’s pretty impressive. Instagram is the second most popular social site in the U.S., with 14% of all social site visits.
22. Men aged 25 to 34 are Facebook’s largest audience.
Overall, there are more male than female Facebook users in almost every age group. 18.4% of Facebook users are men aged 25 to 34, and 13.5% of Facebook users are men aged 18 to 24 (compared to 12.7% for women aged 25 to 34 and just 9.5% for women aged 18 to 24).
Source: Statista
23. India has the most Facebook users: 378 million.
When it comes to audience size, India is the world leader in Facebook. Following behind is the U.S. with 194 million, Indonesia with 128 million, and Brazil with 113 million.
Source: Statista
24. 70% of Americans who use Facebook are college graduates.
Class is in session: according to a Pew Research Center survey of American Facebook users, 70% said their education level was college graduate or higher (and 68% reported their household income as $100,000 or more per year).
Source: Pew Research Center
Psstt: Getting schooled on Facebook stats? We’ve got 45 more on the syllabus.
YouTube statistics
25. 9 in 10 Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 use YouTube.
Anyone who’s anyone uses YouTube… literally. According to a 2023 survey by Pew Research Centre, 93% of Americans aged 18 to 29 and 92% of Americans aged 30 to 49 say they use the video-sharing platform.
Across the board, it’s one of the most popular apps for all ages (there are no official stats for kids, but we know Ms. Rachel is running an empire for the youth on the platform).
Source: Pew Research Center
26. 32% of Americans are using subscription video on demand (SVOD) less, in favour of free streaming services
With the plethora of subscription services out there (think Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, etc.), there are tons of places to throw your streaming money at… or there’s YouTube, which is free.
A 2023 U.S. survey determined that many Americans use subscription TV less because of the free options available. 23% are also using traditional broadcasting or paid TV services less.
Source: Statista
This suggests a shift from paid services to free streaming services like YouTube.
27. …but the number of YouTube’s paid subscribers is still growing.
Despite that last stat, YouTube’s number of paying YouTube Music and YoutTube Premium subscribers continues to rise. In November 2022, there were roughly 80 million paid subscribers on YouTube, and in February 2024, that number jumped to 100 million.
Tl;dl: No one wants to pay for Netflix when YouTube is free. But we will pay YouTube so we can watch ad-free. What can we say? We contain multitudes.
28. Gen Z spends about 30% of overall video watching time on YouTube.
Taking into account every type of video format (that includes time spent on social media apps like TikTok, binging TV etc.), American Gen Z’ers spend around 29.3% of all video engagement time on YouTube.
FYI: Next on the playlist? 27 more YouTube stats.
TikTok statistics
29. TikTok use jumped 16% for brands between 2022 and 2023.
Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Survey asked marketers which platforms they used in 2022, then asked the same question a year later. TikTok had the biggest positive increase, with a 16% change increase.
30. Indonesia has the largest TikTok audience: 127.5 million users.
In second place for TikTok popularity is America, with 121.5 million, then Brazil at 101.8 million.
31. It’s estimated that TikTok will reach 2.35 billion social media users by 2029.
The clock app just keeps growing. Despite being relatively new on the social media scene, TikTok boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to increase its users globally year over year.
According to a forecast by Statista, the number of worldwide TikTok users could reach 2.35 billion in the next half-decade.
32. TikToks that are 54 seconds or longer get more views than shorter videos.
Is this a sign that our embarrassingly low attention spans are finally increasing? Probably not—if anything, it may suggest that TikTok’s algorithm is ranking longer videos higher than shorter ones.
A 2023 survey shows that videos 54 seconds or longer get about 38,000 views on TikTok. Videos 16 to 53 seconds get an average of 30,000 views, and videos less than 10 seconds long get an average of 19,000 views.
Using a strong SEO strategy is key to getting more views on your TikToks—more on that in the video below.
33. Only roughly half of TikTok users actually post videos.
We can’t all be creators… in fact, only half of all TikTok users post videos at all.
Pew Research Centre reports that 52% of American adults using the platform have ever posted a video. That means about half of TikTok’s billion-plus users are only on the app as viewers.
Source: Pew Research Center
34. 40% of TikTok users think their For You page is “extremely” or “very” interesting.
The TikTok algorithm is complex (but you can hack it—more on that in this blog post), and for good reason. It can often perfectly predict what a user is interested in.
Case in point: 26% of American TikTok users report that their “For You” page is “very” interesting, and 14% report that it’s “extremely” interesting.
Source: Pew Research Center
If we could, we’d poll how many of you got distracted by TikTok partway through this blog post… if you’re feeling called out, you’re not alone.
35. The average TikTok user follows 154 accounts.
Another Pew Research Center poll of Americans found that the median number of accounts a TikTok user follows is 154, and the average number of followers a user has is 36.
Source: Pew Research Center
Pro tip: Here’s another “for you” page—a blog post with 37 more TikTok statistics.
X (Twitter) statistics
36. Most X (formerly known as Twitter) users are in the U.S.—America has 106.23 million users on the platform.
As of April 2024, the U.S. ranks highest for Twitter usage. In fact, America has more active Twitter users than the second and third-place countries combined (Japan with 69.28 million and India with 25.45 million).
Source: Statista
37. About 61% of all X (Twitter) users identify as men.
A January 2024 Statista survey found that most Twitter users are men, and about 31.9% of the platform’s users identify as women.
Source: Statista
It’s also worth noting that just after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, women were more likely than their male counterparts to say that they had taken a break from the platform. This comes from a Pew Research Centre study conducted 5 months after Elon bought the platform.
38. 75% of American tweets are either retweets or replies.
In other words, three-quarters of Twitter content coming from U.S. adults aren’t original tweets. The bulk of the platform is made from users engaging in other user’s posts. In actuality, only 15% of all posts are original tweets.
39. 360,000 tweets are posted every minute.
Yup, that’s 6,000 tweets per second and about 30,000 in the time it took you to read this sentence.
40. We use emojis on X (Twitter) seven times as much as we did a decade ago.
A picture’s worth a thousand words (and a tweet only has 280 characters). In 2013, 4.25% of tweets had at least one emoji, and by 2023, almost 27% of tweets used one. Plus, Americans said they primarily use the icons to up the fun factor in conversations. 💃
Psstt: X marks the spot and we know a spot where you can find 36 more stats all about Twitter.
LinkedIn statistics
41. When it comes to a positive ROI, 70% of brands are confident in LinkedIn.
Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Survey asked marketers which platforms they were most confident they’d get a positive return on investment. LinkedIn won, with 70% of respondents saying they were confident in LinkedIn.
Instagram and WhatsApp were close behind, with 68% and 66% feeling confident, respectively.
42. An average of 6,060 resumes are submitted every minute on LinkedIn.
That’s about 100 per second. Rise and grind, right?
To make sure you’re posting on LinkedIn when most of your audience is active, use Hootsuite’s Best Time to Post and LinkedIn scheduler—here’s how.
43. Around 175.5 million people use LinkedIn Premium.
A LinkedIn account is free, but the premium version will set you back about 30 bucks a month. Still, that’s an investment that social media users are willing to make: the number of Premium users rose by about 20 million people from 2022 to 2023.
44. Half of all LinkedIn users are aged 25 to 34.
50.6% of LinkedIn users are 25 to 34 years old. The age group with the second highest LinkedIn representation is 18 to 34 (24.5%), followed by 35 to 54 (21.2%). Less than 4% of LinkedIn users are over 55 (likely because the older you get, the more likely you are to be retired, care less about networking, and more about golf).
Source: Statista
45. More than half of all LinkedIn users have a high monthly household income.
LinkedIn users are getting that bread—53% report a high monthly household income while 29% identify as middle-income, and 16% are low-income.
Pinterest statistics
46. About 70% of Pinterest users are women.
Pinterest feeds the female gaze. Statista reports that a whopping 69.4% of all Pinterest users identify as female, 8% are not specified, and 22% are male.
Source: Statista
47. Pinterest had 23% year-on-year audience growth as of January 2024.
Pinterest might not be the favourite social media child (it’s not old and wise like Facebook or young and sassy like TikTok) but around the world, people continue to get on “board.”
At the beginning of 2024, Statista reported that Pinterest saw 23% audience growth year-on-year. It was second only to Instagram (which grew 25%).
Source: Statista
48. 9 in 10 American wedding planners say that Pinterest is the first source they go to to kick off planning.
If anyone can think of any reason why Pinterest should not be the first spot to go for wedding inspo, speak now or forever hold your peace.
Pin for later: 42 more Pinterest statistics worth saving.
49. Half of Discord users are between the ages of 25 and 34.
A 2024 Statista report determined that Discord users tend to be younger, with 73% under the age of 35, and only about half a percent over 65.
Source: Statista
50. The most popular music servers on Discord are TikTok-related.
The cross-platform love is real. The most popular servers on Discord are related to gaming (which likely explains why the demographic is younger). Still, the busiest music servers are related to “TikTok videos” and “TikTok Zone.”
51. Snapchat’s daily active users increased by 10% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023.
As of the beginning of 2024, the platform reported that 414 million people use Snapchat daily.
52. 65% of American Snapchat users are under the age of 30.
Like TikTok and Discord, the average Snapchat user is on the younger side.
Source: Pew Research Center
PSA: Need more Snap stats? We’ve got 24 hot and ready for you.
53. From fall 2022 to spring 2023, Mastodon users increased by 300%.
Could Mastodon be the next big thing? Statista reports that this social platform grew from 2.5 million users in November 2022 to 10 million users in March 2023.
Source: Statista
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