Global social media StatISTICs

Detailed analysis by the team at Kepios shows that there were 5.22 billion social media users around the world at the start of October 2024, equating to 63.8 percent of the total global population.

Social media user numbers have continued to grow over the past 12 months too, with 256 million new users joining social media since this time last year.

That equates to annualised growth of 5.2 percent, at an average rate of 8.1 new users every single second.

The latest figures indicate that 94.5 percent of the world’s internet users now use social media each month (learn more about people’s broader internet behaviours on our Global Digital Overview page).

However, note that figures for social media users may not represent unique individuals, and due to issues like duplicate accounts, social media user figures may exceed the figures that we publish for internet users – or even for the total population. This is why we refer to social media user “identities”.

On the other hand, it’s also worth noting that comparing social media users with figures for total population may under-represent the full extent of social media use, because most social media companies restrict use of their platforms to people aged 13 and above.

And for additional context, the latest data suggest that the number of “adult” social media users around the world (i.e. those aged 18 and above) now equates to 86.3 percent of all adults in that age group.

Meanwhile, data from GWI reveals that the typical social media user actively uses or visits an average of 6.8 different social platforms each month, and spends an average of 2 hours 19 minutes per day using social media. 

On the basis that most people sleep for between 7 and 8 hours per day, these latest figures suggest that people spend roughly 14 percent of their waking lives using social media.

Added together, the world spends more than 12 billion hours using social platforms each day, which is the equivalent of 1.38 million years of human existence.

The world’s most used social media platforms

App intelligence from data.ai suggests that YouTube has the greatest number of active users today, giving the platform an index of 100 [note that the top platform in this ranking will always have an index of 100].

WhatsApp and Facebook rank second and third (respectively), with this data suggesting that Meta’s top messaging platform has a greater number of active app users than its top social network.

However, data.ai’s figures indicate that YouTube’s audience is still meaningfully larger than the audiences of both these Meta platforms.

Instagram ranks fourth, with the platform’s active app users equating to just over 70 percent of YouTube’s active app user base.

But Instagram is the last platform with an active user base that is at least half the size of YouTube’s.

Facebook Messenger ranks fifth with an index of 48.8, while TikTok claims sixth place in the latest ranking, with an active app user base that is 44.7 percent the size of YouTube’s.

Telegram’s growing audience is now roughly one-third the size of YouTube’s, but all other platforms have fewer than a quarter the number of active app users that YouTube does.

Social platforms with the greatest advertising reach

Kepios analysis of data published in the advertising resources of the world’s top platforms reveals that YouTube has the largest social media advertising audience.

The company’s latest data indicates that YouTube ads reach 2.53 billion users per month, which is more than 10 percent greater than the 2.22 billion figure that Meta reports for Facebook.

Based on these figures published in the platforms’ own tools, TikTok ranks third at a worldwide level, with its 1.690 billion figure a sliver – just 0.09 percent – ahead of Instagram’s reported ad audience total of 1.688 billion.

LinkedIn reports global ad reach of 1.15 billion, but it’s important to highlight that this figure is based on the platform’s total registered members, and is not representative of monthly active users.

The world’s biggest social media platforms

Figures published by the platforms themselves suggest that Facebook has the greatest number of monthly active users, although it’s important to note that some of the figures in this ranking represent monthly active users, while other figures reflect potential advertising reach, which is typically lower than total monthly active users.

Caveats aside, this dataset indicates that there are now five social media platforms that each claim one billion or more monthly active users.

Furthermore, a total of 15 social media platforms now report at least half a billion active users.

LinkedIn doesn’t publish monthly active user data, so we can’t include it in this list. However, you can find in-depth data for LinkedIn use around the world here.

Note that you’ll find the sources for these numbers at the bottom of this page.

Social media audience overlaps

These individual platform user numbers tell a compelling story about the rise of social media around the world, but – on their own – they don’t tell the whole story.

Critically, the world’s connected population makes use of a variety of different social platforms each month, which means that there will be considerable overlaps between the user bases and advertising audiences of each of these platforms.

The chart below shows the extent of these overlaps, with fresh data from GWI providing valuable insights for anyone looking to build a social media ‘mix’ or digital marketing plan.

The key takeaway from this great data is that marketers don’t need to be on all platforms at the same time in order to reach the majority of their audiences.

Indeed, if reach is your primary objective, you can focus on just one or two of the larger platforms, safe in the knowledge that you’ll already have the potential to reach the majority of social media users.

Reasons for using social media

Reach isn’t the only thing you should consider when building a marketing plan of course, but this data also allows us to think differently about how we construct a social media platform mix.

For example, different people will use different platforms for different needs, and it’s well worth marketers exploring these needs to identify which platforms are best suited to individual campaign and activity objectives.

The chart below offers some great insight into the reasons why people use social media today, but remember that these motivations differ by country and by platform, so be sure to dig into our local market data too.

GWI’s data also allows us to explore these motivations by age group.

Note that it’s particularly difficult to identify a representative sample of internet users over the age of 65 once we look beyond the world’s richer countries, which is why the dataset only includes people up to the age of 64.

However, this data still provides rich insights into how people’s reasons for using social media differ by age.

Favourite social media platforms

It’s also worth noting that high user numbers don’t necessarily translate into preference.

Once again, data from GWI can help us make sense of which platforms people have the greatest affinity for, with the chart below showing overall social media platform preferences at a global level.

As you might expect though, these preferences vary considerably by age and by gender.

As you can see in the chart below, GWI’s research finds that younger people are more likely to say that Instagram is their “favourite” social media platform (at least in most Western markets), whereas older generations tend to prefer Facebook and WhatsApp.

However, there are important differences in these preferences at a country level, and those local nuances are particularly important for marketers who are hoping to reach the right audience in the right place at just the right time.

Activities by social media platform

Research also reveals that people visit different social media platforms to achieve different things.

GWI’s survey reveals that messaging friends and family is a particularly popular topic on Facebook, but that TikTok users aren’t really all that interested in this functionality.

Instead, TikTok users primarily visit the platform to look for funny and entertaining videos.

Meanwhile, users on Instagram and Snapchat are particularly interested in publishing their own content, but this activity is significantly less popular on TikTok, Reddit, and LinkedIn.

And marketers may like to know that Pinterest users are particularly interested in following or researching brand-related content on the world’s most popular online pinboard.

Social media behaviours by country

Social media preferences and behaviours also vary meaningfully from one country to another, so it’s important to dig deeper into the data to understand what’s happening at a local level.

If you’d like to know more about social media use in individual countries, including local social media platform rankings and audience profiles by age and gender, take a look at our complete collection of local reports.

We also have dedicated pages exploring the latest statistics for a number of the world’s top social platforms, which you can explore via the links below:

And if you’d like to stay up to date with all the latest developments in social media use around the world, sign up for our newsletter using the form below to receive notifications whenever we publish new reports.