Fresh social media statistics. What apps are used more frequently?
Social networks are an integral part of the modern world, where people express their emotions, make purchases, and look for inspiration. Moreover, if we want to know what is happening in the world, or in the lives of other people, for example, we use social media, as information there spreads very quickly. Users have an exceptional opportunity for communication when they can simply write in a chat and find out necessary data. So let’s find out what happened on social networks in the first months of 2022.
Social media users.
Social media users have been growing faster than internet users over the past decade, and now we have 4.62 billion social media users which are 3.1 times higher than the 1.48 billion figure that we had in 2012. This tells us that the number of social media users has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 12% over the past 10 years. Over the past 12 months, the number of social media users has continued to grow at a double-digit rate of 10.1 %. According to these numbers, we can mention that the growth rate between 2021 and 2022 has remained above pre-pandemic levels. For instance, the latest data show that 424 million users started using social media during the past year, which is equal to an average of more than 1 million new users per day, or to 13½ new users every single second.
All in all, we spend more and more time online every year and buy online more and more often. That is why about 7 hours a day are spent on the Internet by the average user, and the number is growing by 5-10 minutes per year, where 2.27 hours a day are spent on social networks, and the number is growing by 2 minutes per year. So, if we suppose that an average person sleeps 7 or 8 hours per day, the usual internet user now spends more than 40 percent of their waking life online.
Social media favorites.
The latest data shows that Instagram has outstripped Facebook and took 2nd place in the worldwide rankings. However, these apps will continue to compete, as 14.8% of global internet users identify Instagram as their favorite platform and for 14.5% of users Facebook is the best choice. Meanwhile, one more Meta platform – WhatsApp stays on the top of global rankings, as 15.7% of working-age internet users chose this messenger app as their favorite social platform. It may be surprising that WeChat gains enough votes to take 4th place at a global level, even if 99% of the platform’s votes are users from China. But China is a country where about 20% of the world’s total internet users live.
Facebook is losing its popularity in the world, and statistics shows that the engagement of Facebook pages by an average of 0.07%, which means that only 7 people out of 10,000 will make a repost. And if the page has more than 100k subscribers, the indicator drops to 0.05%. As you can see, Tik Tok gained just 4.3% of the total vote, which doesn’t match the enthusiasm TikTok generates in the media. But it should be mentioned that the number of users who choose TikTok as their favorite social media platform has grown by 71 percent in the past 90 days.
Advertising reach.
Advertising reach on Instagram has grown by 21% over the year and now stands at 1.5 billion users. At the same time, less than 800 million users see ads in Instagram’s Explore tab each month. This information may be useful for marketers launching new brands and products, as users who browse the Explore tab are more likely to look for new content, ideas, and inspiration. Reels haven’t gained as much population as Stories yet, but data shows that 675 million Instagram users still see ads in the platform’s Reels tab each month.
Tiktok’s advertising reach is growing even faster, now it is 885 million users over the age of 18. TikTok’s advertising reach increased by 60 million users or +7.3% in the past 90 days. This figure doesn’t include users below the age of 18, who have a big share of the platform’s total active user base due to TikTok’s data security requirements. The latest data shows that TikTok has been getting an average of more than 650,000 new users every day over the past 3 months, which equates to almost 8 new users every second.
LinkedIn has had another impressive year, as LinkedIn’s registered member base has increased by 11% over the 12 months or by +81 million members, taking the global total to more than 808 million by the start of 2022.
Social media plays even a bigger role than we think.
More than 1 in 4 internet users aged 16 to 64 – 27.6% discover new brands, products, and services through social media ads, which is only a little bit less than the figure for TV ads – 31.1%. Search engines are still the main source for the new brand discovery for internet users. More than 4 in 10 working-age internet users mention that they visit social networks particularly to research brands and products that they want to buy.
At the same time, word-of-mouth recommendations also take a high place for brand discovery, so marketers may want to re-examine how easy it is for audiences to share their brands and various online presences via messenger apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Social networks have come closer to TV, but search engines are still taking the first place as a source of information about new brands. At the same time, don’t underestimate the WOM, as according to the recommendations of friends 28.1% of people will learn about new brands.
Interesting facts.
The world’s internet users are paying for digital content and more than 7 in 10 working-age internet users – 71.5% are now paying for various digital content every month, so that figure is rising to almost 8 in 10 amongst younger Millennials. Due to this fact, the rapid rise of platforms such as Netflix and Spotify, TV and music streaming subscriptions has happened, and they are the most popular forms of paid digital content.
The older audience doesn’t recognize themselves in advertising all over the world. Only 10.8% of the audience aged 55-64 feel represented in advertising. This shows us that if we want to sell something to the audience of 55+, we need to understand better how they live.
Cats vs. dogs. Instagram has more than 330 million posts with the #dog tag, compared to 257 million posts with the #cat tag. But! Now Google gives out more than 2.83 billion pages for the word “cat” compared to 2.4 billion pages for the word “dog”. In short, dogs are more popular in social networks, and cats are more popular in search.
