41+ Top Social Media Statistics For 2026: Usage, Demographics, Trends

The social media landscape is ever-changing. New platforms come and go, social marketing strategies evolve, and every generation of consumers brings new ways of interacting with social platforms.

In this post, we’ll be revealing the most important social media statistics you need to know.

These stats show you the state of the social landscape this year and reveal interesting insights about how both brands and users are behaving across different platforms.

Social media usage statistics

Let’s start by taking a look at some up-to-date social media usage statistics and trends.

Over 4 billion people use social media

To put that figure into perspective, the entire global population is around 7.67 billion – that means over half of the entire world’s population is on social media.

If that wasn’t shocking enough, consider the fact that only 4.66 billion people are internet users, meaning almost 90% of all internet users are on social media. That’s a pretty incredible level of market penetration, huh? (Source: We Are Social October Statshot)

98% of internet users aged 16 to 64 used social media in the last month

If we look specifically at the 16-64 age range, a whopping 98% of people access social media, and 90% of them actively engage or contribute to social platforms. (Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)

The average person has 8 social accounts

8.3 to be exact. Note, though, that this doesn’t necessarily mean active social accounts. Many of the social accounts people have are dormant.

Interestingly, this would mean that many people would instantly outgrow the basic pricing plans of most social media management software tools.

(Source: Hootsuite)

The average user spends nearly 2.5 hours on social media

That’s been growing steadily year on year for the past decade. In 2012, the average time spent on social media was just 1.5 hours. (Source: Statista)

66% of employees use social media to talk to their colleagues

Somewhat surprisingly, social media is still popular even in a work setting. The majority of employees (66%) will communicate with their colleagues via social media, but email still dominates as the primary form of workplace communication (92%). (Source: We Are Social)

Social media marketing statistics

Next, let’s look at some of the most important social media marketing statistics that brands and marketers should be aware of this year.

Social media ad spend surged by nearly 30% in 2020

If you thought the pandemic of 2020 would mean businesses spent less on social advertising as budgets tighten, think again. Social media ad spend actually grew enormously in 2020 as businesses shifted their marketing budgets to digital channels. For example, the third-quarter of 2020 saw ad spends grow 27.6% compared to the year before. (Source: Socialbakers)

50% of 16-24-year-olds research products on social media

This data from the GlobalWebIndex social media trends 2020 reports shows how younger consumers are increasingly using social platforms to inform their purchase decisions.

Social marketers rate identifying and reaching their target audience as their #1 challenge

Measuring ROI has long been one of the biggest challenges facing social marketers, but this year, it came second to identifying and reaching their target audience. If this is one of the biggest hurdles facing your SMM efforts, you’re not the only one. (Source: Sprout Social)

69% of marketers use social media to build brand awareness

Comparatively, 52% use social marketing to drive traffic, and 40% to drive sales via social selling. This reflects the fact that social marketing seems to be better suited to brand awareness goals rather than direct-response goals. (Source: Sprout Social)

57% of consumers follow brands to hear about new products/services

This is good news for brands hoping to use social media to help generate a buzz over a new product launch – your followers are waiting for exactly that! (Source: Sprout Social)

49% of users who follow brands unfollow due to poor customer service

The takeaway: if you’re losing followers more quickly than you’d like to, you might want to reevaluate your customer service efforts. (Source: Sprout Social)

The average ROI of influencer marketing per dollar spent is $5.78

If you plan on working with social media influencers as part of your campaign, this is a useful benchmark to compare your results against. (Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)

Facebook statistics

Alright, moving onto what continues to be the leading social platform: Facebook. Here are a few enlightening Facebook statistics worth taking note of.

Facebook has around 2.7 billion active users

Without access to official figures, that’s the best guess we have as of October 2020. It also means Facebook is still the number one most popular social media platform by active users. (Source: We Are Social)

Facebook has an ad reach of 2.14 billion users

Ad reach refers to the total number of people that Facebook can reach with advertisements. 2.14 billion is an impressive figure. (Source: Hootsuite)

The average Facebook engagement rate across industries is 0.09%

The success of a social campaign is often measured by the engagement rate of your posts. If you’re wondering whether your performing above or below average, this is a useful figure to measure yourself up against. (Source: RivalIQ)

Facebook videos have an average engagement rate of 6.15%

This makes videos one of the best types of content to publish on Facebook. And it should come as no surprise as videos keep users on their platform for longer. (Source: Statista)

Related Reading: 23 Top Facebook Video Statistics You Need To Know.

52% of US adults use Facebook as a news source

Consumers seem to use Facebook in a markedly different way than other social platforms. 52% of adults in the US get their news on Facebook, compared to just 14% on Instagram, and 1% on TikTok. The upshot for brands is that Facebook is probably the best place to release your press releases and brand updates.

Almost 80% of Facebook users will ONLY access the app via mobile

Desktop usage of Facebook is lagging far beyond mobile. Only 1.7% of users will only access via their laptop or desktop, compared to 98.3% on any kind of mobile device. (Source: Statista)

Square videos outperform landscape videos on Facebook by 35%

According to a study by Buffer, square videos generate more views and engagements than landscape and letterbox videos on Facebook, likely due to the platform’s large number of mobile users.

Facebook traffic is greatest at midday, mid-week

According to Sprout Social, the best time to post your content to Facebook is between 11 AM and 2 PM on Wednesdays and Thursdays. These are the times at which you can expect the highest engagement figures.

Learn more about Facebook by checking out our posts on Facebook Statistics & Trends and The Best Time To Post On Facebook.

Twitter statistics

Below are a handful of insightful Twitter statistics that tell you more about how internet users are interacting with this popular social networking service.

Twitter has an estimated 340 million users

We don’t have any official user data to work with as Twitter chooses not to publish that, but the experts’ best guesses based on their advertising reach is around 340 million. (Source: Hootsuite)

Over 500 million tweets are sent per day

Or around 6,000 per second. That’s a lot. (Source: Dsayce)

The average Twitter engagement rate across industries was 0.045% in 2020

That’s been pretty consistent for the last 3 years and is roughly half the average engagement rate of Facebook. In general, marketers should expect lower engagement rates on Twitter compared to other social platforms. (Source: RivalIQ)

Falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true statements

2020 was a year in which the issue of ‘misinformation’ really came into the spotlight – and Twitter was at the center of the controversy. This statistic from an MIT study illustrates just how easy it is for fake news to spread online.

But just because falsehoods tend to generate a lot of social shares on Twitter, it doesn’t mean you should be spreading them. Deliberately spreading fake news as part of your social strategy is a surefire way to damage your brand reputation.

87% of Twitter users also use Facebook

And 93% of Twitter users use YouTube. Cross-platform usage is peaking in 2021 as users spread their time across different social networks. (Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)

Check out our Twitter statistics article for more.

Instagram statistics

Check out these Instagram statistics to find out what’s new with the world’s most popular photo and video sharing social network.

There are over 1 billion active users on Instagram

That makes it the second most popular social network worldwide if you don’t include YouTube and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat. (Source: Statista)

The average Instagram user spends 30 minutes on the platform per day

According to eMarketer, Instagram users were expected to spend around 30 minutes per day on the platform in 2020. That’s 4 minutes more than the year prior. The revised estimation was based on the impact of the pandemic, which encouraged people to spend more time browsing social media as they were forced to stay indoors.

The average Instagram engagement rate across industries is 1.22% in 2020

Surprising