The Most Essential (and Surprising) Social Media Statistics and Facts of 2019

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As social media marketers, we do our best to be data-informed with the decisions we make for our social media strategy at Buffer. Social media stats make a difference.

Plus, you never know when you’ll need a good trivia tidbit to impress at a party.

In this post, we hope you’ll find it all: both the necessary stats and facts to inform your social media decisions plus some social media numbers that will surprise and entertain.

Keep reading to see the numbers on social media demographics, usage, trends, and much more. We hope these statistics and facts will arm you with the knowledge you need to build an even stronger social media strategy.

Social media statistics and facts, overall

Our first grouping of social media statistics is very meta: it’s about the state of social media itself. We thought we’d begin by taking a bird’s eye view of the social media landscape before zooming into each social network in particular. To begin with, check out these numbers for social media usage worldwide:

Social media usage worldwide

• The internet has 4.4 billion users
• There are 3.499 billion active social media users

For context, as of May 2019, total worldwide population is 7.7 billion. So that means that 57 percent of the world’s population is on the internet. More people are online than those who aren’t online.

And as far as social media usage goes,

• 45 percent of the world is on social media
• If you have the internet, there’s an 80 percent chance you have a social media account, too.

Yes, and it gets even more mind-blowing.

• On average, people have 7.6 social media accounts apiece
• The average daily time spent on social is 142 minutes a day

The most popular social networks

It’s interesting to know how many people – total – are on social, but how about where these social media users spend their time. If you want to play along, go ahead and think about the order of the top 10 social networks with the most users. Keep in mind, these are total user counts, not necessarily active users, which not all social networks reveal.

All these user numbers are the most recent ones we could find online. Please do let us know in the comments if you’ve seen a more recent statistic.

1. Facebook — 2.4 billion users
2. YouTube — 1.9 billion users
3. WhatsApp — 1.6 billion users
4. Instagram (tie) — 1 billion users
5. WeChat (tie) — 1 billion users
6. TikTok — 800 million users
7. LinkedIn — 610 million users
8. Reddit — 542 million users
9. Twitter — 330 million users
10. Pinterest — 265 million users

Next, we’ll drill down into some specific demographics of these networks, starting with Facebook.

Facebook demographic statistics

The gender split of Facebook users slightly favors women. The exact breakdown is 54% women and 46% men. This ratio also appears when you look at Facebook usage amongst internet users: 62% of all men who are online have a Facebook account, while 72 percent of women who are online are also on Facebook.

Among U.S. residents, here’s the breakdown of Facebook usage by age:

• 51% of 13-17 year olds use Facebook
• 81% of 18-29 year olds use Facebook
• 78% of 30-49 year olds use Facebook
• 65% of 50-64 year olds use Facebook
• 41% of 65+ year olds use Facebook

And also among U.S. residents, here’s how Facebook usage varies according to where you live.

• 75% of adults living in urban areas use Facebook
• 67% of adults living in suburban areas use Facebook
• 58% of adults living in rural areas use Facebook

Instagram demographic statistics

Instagram tends to have some of the most highly-publicized of statistics as their announcements about usage tend to make headlines. You’ve probably heard some of the recent ones:

• Instagram has 500 million daily active users
• There are 400 million daily active users on Instagram Stories alone

The biggest demographic group on Instagram is males between 18 and 24 years old. In fact, the 18-to-24 age group makes up 75% of all users on Instagram.

The Pew numbers bear this out as well. Pew draws its demographic lines between 18 and 29 years old. According to their U.S. figures,

• 64% of 18-29 year olds use Instagram
• 40% of 30-49 year olds use Instagram
• 21% of 50-64 year olds use Instagram
• 10% of 65+ year olds use Instagram

And here are the stats on location demographics.

In the U.S.,

• 42% of adults living in urban areas use Instagram
• 34% of adults living in suburban areas use Instagram
• 25% of adults living in rural areas use Instagram

While the U.S. is the country that uses Instagram the most, can you guess the rest of the top three?
Number two is Brazil and number three is India. Both have more than 60 million users.

Twitter demographic statistics

Again according to our friends at Pew, this is how Twitter ranks in terms of usage by age group:

• 32% of 13-17 year olds use Twitter
• 40% of 18-29 year olds use Twitter
• 27% of 30-49 year olds use Twitter
• 19% of 50-64 year olds use Twitter
• 8% of 65+ year olds use Twitter

It’s interesting to see how the ages skew younger on Twitter, and those percentages are notable in contrast to Facebook and Instagram, which have huge percentages.

LinkedIn demographic statistics

LinkedIn’s demographics have a couple interesting differences from the social networks we’ve covered already. First, here are the age demographics:

• 29% of 18-29 year olds use LinkedIn
• 33% of 30-49 year olds use LinkedIn
• 24% of 50-64 year olds use LinkedIn
• 9% of 65+ year olds use LinkedIn

Yes, and where things get interesting is when looking at the stats for education and income demographics.

In terms of education demographics:

• 50% of adults who graduated college use LinkedIn

And similarly, with income,

• 45% of adults who make over $75,000 use LinkedIn

And, just for fun,

• 41% of millionaires use LinkedIn

Obviously these numbers are at the top of the charts for social networks for these demographics, which makes sense with the career emphasis that is placed on LinkedIn.

Pinterest demographic statistics

As many of you know, Pinterest is associated with a majority-women audience. There’s lots of ways to look at the numbers behind this. These stats from Pew tell a pretty good story:

In the U.S.

• 41% of women who are online use Pinterest. Meanwhile
• 16% of online men use Pinterest

And in terms of age breakdown …

• 34% of 18-29 year olds use Pinterest
• 34% of 30-49 year olds use Pinterest
• 26% of 50-64 year olds use Pinterest
• 16% of 65+ year olds use Pinterest

A couple of bonus stats we love about Pinterest is how well the platform ties into shopping. Over 175 billion items have been pinned on Pinterest, and nearly two in three pinners — 61% — have made a purchase after seeing something they like on Pinterest.

Snapchat demographic statistics

And many of you know the demographics that are most commonly associated with Snapchat. As the numbers tell it, Snapchat’s audience is young.

• 69% of 13-17 year olds use Snapchat
• 68% of 18-29 year olds use Snapchat

The numbers fall off a cliff after that point. 26% of 30-49 year olds use Snapchat, 10% of 50-64 year olds use Snapchat, and 3% of 65+ year olds use Snapchat.

5 surprising social media statistics and facts

#1:

80% of brands are under the impression that they are doing social media customer service exceptionally well.

Only 8% of their customers agree.

#2:

90 percent of Instagram users are younger than 35.

(This is a good reminder that Snapchat and TikTok and other “young” social networks aren’t the only places that younger demographics spend their time.)

#3:

Today, more pictures are taken every two minutes than were taken during the entire 1800s.

#4:

On WordPress alone — which is the software we use to run our Buffer blogs — 70 million blog posts are published every month.

(Not exactly social-media-related, but wow, that’s a lot of content to be shared!)

#5:

U.S. adults spend an average of 1 hour and 16 minutes each day watching video on digital devices. And this includes a majority of the population: 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% watch every. day.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

• Bonnie on Twitter
• Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

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About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.