A Long List of Social Media Statistics that You Need to Know in 2018

The following social media statistics will help inform your marketing strategy. Pulled from a variety of authoritative sources and reports, the will answer key questions, such as…

“How are people using social in 2018? How will they use it in 2019?”

“Which networks should my business invest in?”

“How much should we spend on social ads?”

“Where are our competitors and industry peers focusing their efforts?”

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Bonus: Get the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

General social media statistics

The following stats come from four sources, including data Pew Research Centre and a new survey conducted by Hootsuite of more than 9,000 brands across the globe.

There are now 3.196 billion people using social media, which is up 13% from last year.
The total number of mobile phone users is 5.14 billion, up 4% from last year. This means more people have access to social media on the go.
11 new people start using social media every second, which is about 1 million people every day.
The fastest growing markets for social media use are Central and Southern Asia, where use is up 90% and 33%, respectively.
The average American spends just over two hours per day on social media.
More than 3 billion people around the world use social media at least once a month.
88% of 18- to 29-year-olds say that they use social media.
51% of 18- to 24-year-olds say it would be hard to give up social media, compared with 40% of 25- to 29-year-olds and 43% of 30- to 49-year-olds.
A typical American uses three of the eight major social media platforms.
By 2019, social media marketing spending in the United States alone will increase to $17.34 billion.
90% of brands use social media to increase brand awareness
Nearly two-thirds of brands don’t measure social media ROI

53% of brands say measuring ROI is a challenge on social

On average, organizations maintain between four and 10 social profiles
53% of businesses have implemented social advertising into their strategies

Social media advertising statistics

Social media advertising grows more popular as organic reach declines. These are the latest stats you need to know related to paid social.

Social media advertising budgets have doubled worldwide from 2014 to 2016.
93% of businesses are expected to increase their social ad spend in 2018.
Social media ad spend in 2017 exceeded $35 billion worldwide, accounting for 16% of all digital ads.
Only 50% of B2B marketers consider social media to be a low-cost ad option.
45% of Americans use an ad blocker to prevent the display of advertising content. Other countries’ range between 18% (Japan) and 54% (China).
22.1% of Facebook Pages are using paid media.
5 million businesses use paid advertising on Facebook.
70% of ads in front of videos are watched through to the end.
The average price of Facebook ads is rising around 35%, with ad impressions increasing only 10%.
Conversely, the prices of Twitter ads are falling.
More than two-thirds of Twitter users find video ads non-intrusive.
The cheapest days to place ads (at least on Facebook) are Sunday and Monday. The most expensive day for social media ads is Friday.
Only 56% of Facebook ads have a call-to-action (CTA).
More than 86% of Twitter’s ad revenue comes from mobile.
Facebook’s advertising revenue was nearly $40 billion in 2017.
Instagram brought in more than $2.81 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2017.
There are more than 2 million monthly advertisers on Instagram.
The average click-through rate for Facebook ads varies depending on your industry, but averages about 0.9%. The average conversion rate across all industries is 9.21%.
Over the past 2 years, the number of small-to-medium-size businesses using YouTube ads has doubled.

Instagram statistics

The following figures prove just how powerful a platform Instagram is for brands and businesses.

The total number of global Instagram users increased by a third over the past year.
There are more than 800 million monthly active users of Instagram.
Instagram age demographics skew younger, with roughly 30% falling between the ages 18 and 24, and another 30% falling between 25 and 34.
The most popular Instagram hashtags are, in order, #love, #instagood, #fashion, #photooftheday, and #beautiful.
The most popular Instagram emojis are laugh-crying emoji, heart emoji, and hearts-for-eyes emoji.
Roughly 60% of Instagram users access the platform daily.
Only 20% of Instagram users are in the United States.
38% of women and 26% of men use Instagram in the U.S.
Instagram is the second-most important platform for teenagers (behind Snapchat).
Instagram users are also highly likely to use Facebook (95%) and Pinterest (54%).
Users under the age of 25 spend 32 minutes a day on the platform, while those over 25 spend 24 minutes a day on it.
Instagram users dole out more than 4.2 billion likes every day.
80% of Instagram users follow at least one business on Instagram.
More than 300 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day.
Around 50% of businesses make regular use of Instagram Stories.
The number of daily videos produced daily on Instagram has quadrupling over the past five years.
The top Instagram brands post, on average, 4.9 times per week.
About 60% of top brands use the same filter for every post, creating a consistent brand “feel” on the platform.
60% of Instagram users claim they’ve discovered at least one new product on the platform.
Instagram has a follower interaction rate of 2.2%, higher than any other social network.
Instagram posts with hashtags tend to get 12.6% more engagement than those without.

Facebook statistics

Here are the Facebook statistics you need to know about its operations, its users, and its near future.

The total number of Facebook users has grown 15% year-over-year, with more than 2.17 billion users at the beginning of 2018.
On Facebook, the number of users aged 65 and up has increased by 20% over the course of the past year.
Though the number of teenagers using Facebook is growing, it’s growing at a slower rate than other demographics, at just 5%.
Organic reach and engagement has dropped 10% over the past year.
Facebook-owned apps WhatsApp and Messenger both grew more than twice as fast as their parent company, with users up 30% year-over-year.
Facebook is the second-most popular site in the world, behind only Google, and boasts an average time per visit of 13:41.
“Facebook” is also the most popular search query in the world.
88% of Facebook users are on a mobile device.
56% of Facebook users are male, 44% are female.
The majority age ranges for Facebook users are 18 to 24 and 25 to 34, each representing 29% of total users.
The average monthly change in Facebook page likes is 0.2%.
The average reach of a post is just 10.7% of your total page likes.
The average Facebook engagement rate for all types of page posts is just 4.20%.
The average Facebook engagement rate for video posts is 5.23%, for photos it’s 4.4%, and for page links it’s 3.9%.
76.2% of Facebook users are using an Android device, while 15.5% are using an iOS device.
Roughly 74% of Facebook users access the platform daily.
Adults in the U.S. spend, on average, just over 25 minutes on Facebook every day.
77% of adults with a college education use Facebook, compared to 56% of individuals with a high school diploma or less.
34% of American teenagers think Facebook is “for old people.”
About 79% of teenage users are Facebook friends with their parents.
62% of all Facebook users have used the platform to discover a live event. Among millennials, that number jumps to 72%.
52% of people who discover a new product on Facebook say they are interested in buying it. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, that number increases to 78%.
Around 46% of Facebook users in six countries have found fashion inspiration on the platform within the past three months.
Nearly half of U.S. adults (45%) get their news from Facebook.
Facebook users alone watch more than 100 million hours of video each day.
Business decision makers are 40% more likely to have more than 200 friends on Facebook.
There are more than 70 million businesses with Facebook pages, with more than 20 million people using Messenger to communicate with their customers.
95.8% of social media marketers believe Facebook offers the highest ROI of any platform.

Twitter statistics

Twitter hasn’t grown much in the past few years, but still sports an impressively loyal user base. Here are all the Twitter statistics you should know.

Twitter has more than 330 million monthly active users.
Roughly 46% of Twitter users are on the platform daily.
More than 36% of Americans aged 18 to 29 use Twitter. That percentage drops with each subsequent age group.
Like many other platforms, individuals with a college degree are more likely to use Twitter. 28% of degree-holders use the platform, compared to 24% with some college education, and 14% with a high school education or less.
80% of Twitter users accessing the platform on a mobile device, and 93% of video views are on mobile.
Roughly 500 million tweets are sent per day, which illustrates Twitter as one of the most active social media platforms.
74% of Twitter users get at least some of their news from the platform, a number that has increased 15% over 2016.
93% of Twitter users who follow small-to-medium-size businesses (SMB) plan to make a purchase from a brand they follow.
85% of SMBs with Twitter accounts say Twitter is important for customer service.
More than a third of users who follow SMBs have retweeted one of these businesses at least once.
Tweets with video get six times as many retweets as tweets with photos, and are three times more likely to be retweeted than a post with a GIF.
41% of Twitter users purchased products after exposure to an ad on the platform within the past 30 days.

Snapchat statistics

These stats prove that Snapchat is the go-to platform for many younger social media users.

Roughly 63% of Snapchat users access the platform daily.
There are more than 187 million daily active users.
Snapchat is the most important platform for teenagers.
78% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 use Snapchat. Between the ages of 25 and 29 it’s 54%, and 25% for those between 30 and 49.
There are more than 3.5 billion photo messages sent over Snapchat every day, making it an incredibly active platform.
The average daily active Snapchatter opens the app more than 25 times a day.
Daily active Snapchatters spend an average of more than 30 minutes in the app each day.
More than 60% of active Snapchatters create new content on a daily basis.
Snapchat is estimated to have generated more than $1.47 billion in advertising revenue in 2018.
A custom geofilter could be seen by 40 to 60% of daily Snapchatters.

LinkedIn statistics

For brands wanting to reach a professional audience, there’s no better platform than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has more than 260 million monthly active users.
LinkedIn is especially popular among high-income users and college graduates. About 50% of degree holders use LinkedIn, compared with just 9% of those with a high school diploma or less.
There are more than 20 million companies on LinkedIn, with more than 14 million open jobs.
11 billion endorsements have been given since the platform’s launch.
43% of marketers say they’ve sourced at least one customer on LinkedIn.
79% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as an effective source for lead generation.
56% of LinkedIn users visit the platform on a mobile device.
LinkedIn SlideShare presentations reach more than 70 million unique visitors every month.
LinkedIn is a less active social media platform, with average weekly use between 0 and 2 hours among registered users.
More than 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn regularly.

YouTube statistics

When was the last time you watched a YouTube video? If you’re like most people, it was probably within the past day. And YouTube is still growing.

There are more than 1.5 billion monthly active YouTube users.
“YouTube” is the second-most popular search query in the world.
Roughly 45% of YouTube users access the platform daily.
11% of YouTube’s audience is 65 or older, making it one of the most popular social media platforms for seniors.
58% of American adults use YouTube regularly.
YouTube users watch more than a billion hours of video per day, cumulatively.
The best videos tend to rack up the most views, with the top 10 videos of 2017 earning 630 million views combined (more than 40 million hours of viewing time).
70% of YouTube users have used YouTube to help solve a problem, and 86% use it to learn new things.
18% of American adults get at least some of their news from YouTube.
More than half of YouTube views are from mobile devices, with the average mobile viewing session lasting more than an hour.
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51% of U.S. marketers run YouTube video ads, and 62% are planning to increase their spend on the platform in the next year.
95% of YouTube ads are audible, and 93% are viewable.
YouTube ads grab and hold more attention than TV ads, with 83% of ad time getting the viewer’s attention.
70% of marketers are confident they can use YouTube to lead to consumer purchases.

Pinterest statistics

Visually arresting and always inspiring, Pinterest commands a loyal audience. Here’s what marketers need to know about the platform.

Pinterest has more than 200 million monthly active users.
Pinterest remains more popular with women, as 41% of women use the platform, compared to just 16% of men.
50% of millennials use Pinterest every month.
34% of Pinterest users live in suburbs, with 30% urban and 25% rural.
There are more than 100 billion pins currently on Pinterest, with more than 2 million new pins per day.
85% of Pinterest searches happen on mobile devices.
86% of millennials use Pinterest to plan big and small “life moments.”
Active Pinterest users spend an average of 34 minutes on the platform per visit.
More than 1 million businesses are active on the platform, and their brand products represent more than two-thirds of all pins.
A whopping 93% of Pinterest users use the platform to plan purchases, and 63% of millennials use Pinterest to discover new brands or products to buy.
More than 47% of millennials have purchased something they’ve pinned.
55% of Pinterest users actively use the platform to shop.
18.5% of active Pinterest users make a Pinterest-inspired purchase once a month or more.
For shopping websites, Pinterest drives 33% more referral traffic than Facebook.
For every 100 Promoted Pin impressions, brands tend to see 30 extra views due to repinning.
Research suggests that every $1 spent on Pinterest yields a $4.30 total return, and $2 in profit, giving it a higher ROI than comparable channels.