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What Are Social Media Demographics
All social media services share certain similarities. They connect people from across the world, they allow their users to share various types of media, and they can be hugely profitable marketing platforms for small and large businesses alike.
But when it comes to who uses these platforms and what they use them for, no two platforms are alike.
Oftentimes, businesses make the mistake of assuming that social media is one enormous and largely unified entity. In reality, social media demographics differ enormously from one platform to the next.
This is why it is never (or rarely) advisable for a business to place equally heavy emphasis on every major social network. Depending on who it is you are reaching out to and why, your target audience will inherently be more active and engaged on some platforms than others.
The Changing Face of Social Media
Everybody knows that Facebook is still the most popular social network in the world by a considerable margin. But what’s interesting is how from an annual growth perspective, Facebook doesn’t even rank within the top five social networks.
Instead, Facebook comes in at number eight. In 2021, Facebook recorded annual growth of 3.3%, followed by just 0.8% in 2022. Twitter didn’t fare much better with 4% and 0.2% growth for these two years, just as Instagram achieved 6.2% and 3.7% respectively.
Compare this to TikTok and you suddenly realise how much things have changed over the past couple of years. In 2020, TikTok recorded an astonishing annual growth rate of 87.1%, followed by an impressive 18.3% growth rate last year. Reddit also did a good job appealing to new users, achieving 25.9% growth in 2020 and 14.4% in 2021.
Of course, this doesn’t take anything away from the exceptional popularity and influence of Facebook. It’s still the most widely-used social network on earth, with approximately 2.9 billion active users as of mid-2023.
But it does at least indicate that Facebook’s popularity may have peaked and that some of the newer kids on the block are hot on its heels.
Social Media Demographics – Who’s Using What?
Driving the best possible ROI on your social media marketing spend means knowing exactly where your target audience is most active and engaged. There could be a fairly even split across a handful of popular platforms, or they could be hooked primarily (even exclusively) on just one major social network.
In the facts and figures below (and spread across our next two posts), you’ll find all the information you need to start targeting the right people in the right places.
Instagram Demographics: Key Facts and Figures
- Instagram has approximately 2 billion active users worldwide
- The biggest active age group on Instagram is 25 to 34-year-olds (31.2%), followed by 18 to 24-year-olds at 31%
- There is a fairly even division between the two genders – 51.8% of users are male, and the remaining 48.2% are female
- Research suggests that the average amount of time Instagram users spend on the platform each day’s 29 minutes
Instagram’s recent performance has been staggering, with the platform having doubled the size of its audience in just three years. Once the stomping ground of the young and beautiful, Instagram now appears to be attracting a slightly more ‘mature’ clientele than TikTok, for example.
Two-thirds of all Instagram users come from Millennial and Gen Z groups, and men and women use Instagram in pretty even numbers.