Social Media Data: Usage and Growth Statistics

As of April 2024, nearly 63% of the global population uses social media. With such a wide reach, social media remains an effective way to boost brand awareness, target potential customers, and engage with a captive audience. 

However, social media is constantly evolving. Use crucial social media data, such as usage and statistics, to guide your strategy so you can focus on the right platforms for your brand. 

How Social Data and Statistics Can Inform Your Media Strategy

Staying on top of marketing intelligence, including social data and trends, helps you decide where to focus your content strategy. Statistics on social media usage, including demographics and daily active users, can guide you to the platforms your target audience prefers. These stats help you refine your targeting strategy to focus on the social media platforms that are most popular with your potential customers. 

Social media data and other content marketing statistics can also give you a benchmark to evaluate your key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, if you see dwindling engagement rates on a once-reliable platform, you can check the overall stats of the app and see if it is waning in popularity. Your audience may be shrinking with the platform — but not because of your content. Tracking social media trends also helps you stay current on the new platforms catching steam with your audience.

The Social Media Landscape: 6 Usage and Growth Statistics

When performing social media analysis, track these statistics for actionable insights. 

1. Year-on-Year Growth of Social Networking

To understand how various platforms grow or shrink in their user bases, look at year-on-year growth. Social media platforms have attracted 266 million new active users in the past year. As of 2024, social networks with notable year-on-year growth were: 

• Instagram (155 million new active users from 2022-2023)
• Pinterest (12% global year-over-year growth)
• LinkedIn (100 million new users from 2022-2023)
• Snapchat (39 million new daily users in 2023)
• Facebook (6% year-over-year growth)

These statistics show that while Facebook has achieved modest growth over the past year, its sister site, Instagram, has increased in popularity even more. So, if you primarily use Facebook to engage your target audience, you might consider increasing your presence on Instagram and LinkedIn to reach new customers. 

2. Number of Social Media Users and Their Preferred Platforms

As a social media marketer, you understand that reach is crucial for getting your name out there. Knowing the number of active users per platform helps you strategize where to post and how often, depending on your goals. 

For example, if your goal is brand awareness, you may focus on Facebook for its large audience. Here are the top social networking sites as of 2024:

• Facebook 
• YouTube
• What's App
• Instagram
• TikTok

Quantifying social media users by platform can help you allocate budgets for sponsored posts or set spending limits on social campaigns based on your potential reach. 

3. Platforms that Bring in the Biggest ROI for Businesses

Although a social media platform may be popular, the quantity of active users doesn’t always equal quality. Some platforms are better at converting new business. When you know which ones bring the highest return on investment (ROI) in your industry, you can tailor your content strategy accordingly. 

As of 2024, Facebook is the most popular app for social media marketers, with 89% advertising on the platform, followed by Instagram at 80%. These two platforms offer the top ROI.

Other platforms that are worth the investment include: 

• YouTube
• TikTok
• Twitter/X
• LinkedIn

It stands to reason that the most used social media platforms will bring in a return on investment just because of user volume. However, platforms like Pinterest and Instagram offer multiple ways to maximize ROI. Along with sponsored posts, you can also make your organic posts shoppable, allowing people to buy a product directly from the platform's app.

4. Social Media Usage by Demographics

Knowing social media usage by age, engagement rates, and average time spent on the app helps you cater to your customers. If you’re targeting people ages 18-29, you would likely place ads on YouTube since 93% of people in this age group say they use it. 

You can also analyze social media usage by gender. In 2023, YouTube use was relatively equal between men and women, Pinterest was much more popular with women, and Reddit and X/Twitter skewed male. 

5. Top Social Platforms by Ad Reach

Because ad reach measures how many people will potentially see your ad campaign, the largest social media platforms will offer the broadest reach. The apps with the most social media users per platform include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. 

Since the largest platforms have a diverse user base, they are great for tailored marketing. However, your specific customers may not follow the norm. 

If you want to broaden your ad reach, do a social media analysis on your socials. Look at engagement rates, average time spent per page, and campaign performance to see where your audience spends time online. 

6. Fastest Growing Platforms You Should Consider

While Facebook's user base reigns supreme, it's growing slower than other social media channels, which are showing impressive growth. 

Some of these sites are still in their infancy. Advertising on an emerging platform can give you a leg up on your competition, allowing you to reach more users. Consider targeting your audience on these up-and-comers:

• Lemon8
• Bluesky
• Kick
• RTRO

Key Takeaways

Social media insights offer valuable information for developing data-driven marketing budgets and executing social marketing strategies. When you understand where people spend time online, you can target them with high-quality content. For example, if your target audience is women aged 18-35, consider sponsoring posts on Pinterest.

With insight into the social media market, you can revise your strategy and improve your return on investment. Take advantage of emerging platforms before competitors, or learn how to make engaging organic content on your audience's most-used social media platform. 

With the most useful KPIs at your fingertips, you can stretch your marketing budget and improve your chances of success.