60+ social media statistics marketers need to know in 2026 – Hootsuite Blog

60+ social media statistics for 2026, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, engagement benchmarks, and AI insights.
100% of marketers who read these social media statistics will have the data they need to plan and optimize their social strategies in 2026. (It’s fun math, we promise.)
Keep reading to see the latest social media stats for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Pinterest, plus newcomers RedNote and Bluesky.
Experts predict over six billion people will be using social media by 2028 (so get your baby a good screen name now).
Source: Statista
This is the first decrease in average time spent since 2018, though only by a few minutes. It’s still a dramatic 56.6% increase in time spent compared to 2012’s average 90 minutes.
Source: Data Reportal
Globally, people also watch 3.4 million YouTube videos, send 251 million emails, and conduct 5.9 million Google searches every minute.
Source: Statista
Out of all democratic countries surveyed, 77% of both Nigerians and Mexicans said social media has been good for their country. In contrast, only 34% of people in the U.S. said the same.
Source: Pew Research
The top three fastest-growing social platforms all had double-digit year-over-year growth in 2025. TikTok’s audience grew by an impressive 17%, LinkedIn by 14%, and Instagram by 13%.
Source: Statista
News on social media continues to grow, with 25% of U.S. adults saying they often use social for news, and 29% saying they sometimes do.
Source: Pew Research
Out of all apps used by U.S. mobile consumers — not only social media — YouTube had the highest reach with 76% of people using the mobile app. The next most popular social media apps were Facebook (68%) and TikTok (42%).
Source: Statista
YouTube scored highest for usage across all age groups in the U.S., with 93% of people ages 18-29, 94% of 30-49, 86% of 50-64, and 65% of adults 65 and over.
Facebook also has users across all age demographics, whereas other platforms tend to be more divided.
Source: Pew Research
Instagram has the highest differential between younger vs older users. Close behind is Snapchat, which 65% of U.S. adults under 30 use, but only 4% of people over 65.
Source: Pew Research
The most popular social platforms among U.S. teens are YouTube (92%), TikTok (68%), Instagram (63%), and Snapchat (55%).
Snapchat and Instagram showed large gains in usage among this age group from 2014 to 2024, while usage steeply declined for others. In 2014, 71% of teens used Facebook, but only 32% do today. 
Similarly, X (Twitter) usage dropped from 33% in 2014 to 16% in 2025.
Across the five most popular platforms for teens, one in five uses at least one of them “almost constantly.” YouTube is the most popular, with 43% of teens using it several times a day and 17% using it constantly.
Source: Pew Research
While 93% of German people have access to the internet, only 51% use social media. Other countries with the lowest relative number of social media users are The Netherlands (64%) and France (67%).
Source: Pew Research
As of 2025, Facebook has 3.07 billion monthly active users.
Source: Statista
As of 2025, Meta says they have 3.9 billion daily active users across their core apps (Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp).
The United States has the second most Facebook followers at 197.6 million Facebook users.
Source: Statista
Just over half (51%) of Facebook users are Millennials, measured as people between the ages of 25 and 45.
Source: Statista
A total of 23% of Facebook users are between ages 18 and 24. While not the majority of Facebook’s audience, this is a highly valuable segment for brands.
A milestone only one other social media platform has achieved: Facebook.
Source: Statista
16% are between 35-44, making 78.3% of all Instagram users under 45 years old.
Source: Statista
YouTube is the most popular channel for Gen Z’ers to engage with brands — 66% do so! — but Instagram comes in a close second with 63%.
Source: MarketingCharts via AtTest
Younger people use social media more often than Google Search or Maps to explore locally: 67% use Instagram and 62% use TikTok. For ages 25-34, Instagram also takes top spot after Google with 54% using it to look up local businesses.
Across all demographics, social is a key discovery channel for local businesses.
YouTube.com is also the second most popular website with an average 72.8 billion monthly visits.
Source: Statista
As of 2025, 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube.
Source: Pew Research
This figure has risen from 23% in 2020 to 35% in 2025. 
Back in 2020, Facebook held the edge with 36% of U.S. adults saying they regularly got news there, and only 23% got news from YouTube.
Source: Pew Research
Instagram comes in second at 22%, followed by YouTube at 12%.
Source: Statista
TikTok reached one billion users in 2021, just five years after launch.
Source: Statista
In 2021, 21% of U.S. adults used TikTok. That increased to 37% in 2025, making TikTok the fastest-growing platform from 2021-2025.
Source: Pew Research
In 2020, only 3% of U.S. adults consumed news content on TikTok, jumping to 14% in 2023, now 20% in 2025.
News consumption on Instagram and YouTube has also significantly increased.
Source: Pew Research
This indicates half of TikTok users are there to consume content, whereas the other half create and consume.
Source: Pew Research
When measuring public content, the most active 25% of TikTok users post almost all of it. Pew Research also found that those who post videos tend to follow more people, have more followers themselves, and are more likely to have a completed profile bio.
Source: Pew Research
X (Twitter) is still a top social platform with 557 million monthly active users.
Source: Statista
X (Twitter) users from the U.S. far outnumber the country with the next highest user base: Japan, with 71.19 million users.
Source: Statista
Rebranding can be tough. Only one in five users referred to the platform as X.
Source: Statista
The average X (Twitter) post earned 2,121 impressions in 2025, up from 1,206 impressions in 2023.
Source: Statista
The average X post received 1.64 replies in 2023 compared to 3.4 replies in 2024.
Source: Statista
This social media stat points to LinkedIn users spending more time on the platform in 2025.Make the most of this engagement boost with our guide to using LinkedIn for business.
Predictably, average engagements on LinkedIn are correlated with follower count.
For accounts classified as “medium,” each post receives an average of 612.9 engagements. For “small” accounts, it’s 261 engagements per post.
The study defined accounts as follows:
Source: Statista
The company reports that users accept their new AI-assisted recruitment messages from companies 44% more often than regular direct messages — so you can find top talent even faster.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, B2B marketers love LinkedIn, with 85% naming it their highest performing channel. Facebook took second place with 28% and YouTube was third with 22%.
Pinterest is the fourth most popular social platform in the U.S. for people ages 18-65 — even outranking TikTok.
Source: Pew Research
According to Pinterest, its global audience is 70% women and 30% men.
Of Pinterest’s 553 million monthly active users, 89.9 million of them are located in the United States. Pinterest is also popular in Brazil (38.93 million users), Mexico (24.68 million users), and Germany (19.33 million users).
Source: Statista
Gen Z makes up 42% of Pinterest users, and they’re using the platform more than ever: searches by Gen Z users are up 30% year over year. 
Plus, Gen Z users are 30% more likely to shop online compared to other demographics.
While always popular, these content categories continue to grow.
Source: Marketing Charts
In large part due to the United States’ temporary TikTok ban in January 2025, some U.S. users flocked to RedNote (also known as Xiaohongshu), a Chinese-developed social platform with known privacy risks.
Source: Statista
As RedNote’s popularity continues to grow in China and abroad, ecommerce features and brand partnerships evolve alongside it. RedNote creators can partner with brands for livestream and other sales opportunities.
Ecommerce consultant Jacob Cooke says they are “…anticipating triple-digit gains in Xiaohongshu’s GMV (gross merchandise volume, a measure of sales) [in 2025].”Top-spending RedNote advertisers include Lancome, Hermes, Bvlgari, and others.
An estimated 40% of RedNote’s active users are under 24 years old. A further 14% are between ages 35 and 44.
Launched in 2023, Bluesky peaked at 1.23 million app downloads in February 2024, followed by an all-time high 1.8 million downloads in November 2024.
Bluesky’s user count exceeded 40 million in October 2025.
Bluesky users are more likely than those of other platforms to say AI will positively impact them.
Source: Civic Science
Most of Bluesky’s web traffic visitors are between 25-34 years old, but otherwise fairly evenly distributed.
Source: Statista
Our Social Trends research uncovered that 41% of brands are experimenting with proactive outbound comments to boost visibility (a.k.a. commenting on posts by others). We found when the original poster replies, brands get an average 1.6X more engagements on those comments.
For best results, keep comments between 50-99 characters. Less or more than that earns less engagement.
Source: Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 Report
Based on data from countless social posts across 12 industries, we’ve identified the average engagement rates in 2025 across LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Instagram, X (Twitter), and Facebook.
Dive deeper with our article on average engagement rates by industry and platform in 2025 with all the charts and benchmarks you need.
How much engagement you get comes down to way more than posting frequency, but our research shows a correlation between fewer posts per week and higher average engagement… in most cases.
Learn how often you should post to maximize engagement, sorted by platform and industry.
For the best bang for your ad spend, short-form video ranks highest for recall and effectiveness.
Source: eMarketer
eMarketer predicts spending across influencer, social, and digital advertising will all slightly decline in 2025, but that influencer marketing spending will eclipse social and digital spending for the first time.
Source: eMarketer
…and eMarketer predicts TikTok’s effectiveness will only increase in 2026, continuing to outperform other social platforms.
Source: eMarketer
60.9% of social shoppers have made a purchase via the Facebook platform, followed by 35% on TikTok.
Social marketers were already using AI in 2023 to generate ideas, images, write copy, and more, and that’s almost doubled for some.
Curious? Check our social media AI tools guide for the latest ways to save time on every task on your to do list.
Source: Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 Report
When it comes to saving time with AI, say yes or risk distress: Our research found for optional engagement, brands should post between 48 to 72 times per week. Eeks.
Source: Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 Report
While regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and government have specific guidelines for using AI tools, our research shows when it comes to marketing, regulated industries are reaping the benefits more than their non-regulated counterparts.
Still holding back on AI? Learn how to grow with AI while staying compliant.
Source: Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 Report
Social media statistics don’t automatically mean you should shift your entire strategy, but take what you’ve learned here and apply what makes sense for your organization’s goals.
You don’t need to be on every platform to reach your social media marketing goals. But for each one you are on, understand why and how people use it. Align your content with what people expect to see there.
For example, maybe videos perform best for you on Instagram and long text posts perform best on LinkedIn. Plan accordingly. (Psst: Here’s a free social media calendar template to help with that!)
Try to strike a healthy balance between strategic content aligned with your business goals and experimenting with new topics and formats to see what performs best.
Know what’s working, then do more of that.
Save a billion hours of tracking analytics manually on each platform with everything you need in Hootsuite Analytics.
Use Hootsuite Analytics to…
Deeply understand your audience, what’s working, and what’s not.
Enterprise marketers should pay close attention to how many people use each platform, how long they spend there, and which social networks offer the highest ROI. In 2026, key stats include growth by platform, social commerce adoption, and influencer marketing spend.
The most helpful stats for planning show how people actually use social media. Metrics like total users, daily time spent, fastest-growing platforms, and engagement rates help teams decide where to focus their efforts and how behavior is changing year over year.
Social media usage looks different depending on the platform and where people live. For example, YouTube and Facebook are popular with adults in the U.S., while WhatsApp is more common in parts of Europe and Latin America. TikTok is growing quickly in many regions, especially among younger users. These differences matter for global brands that use regional strategies in their digital marketing.
Budget decisions are shaped by stats tied to performance and return. Brands look at which platforms deliver the best ROI, where engagement is growing, and how influencer marketing compares to paid social media ads. 
Taking an in-depth look at conversion rates and ad performance also helps teams decide where to spend more and where to scale back.
Brands use social media stats to compare platforms, test new channels, and lower risk. Instead of guessing, teams use data like platform growth, engagement trends, and buying behavior to decide where to invest in content, ads, and creators over time.
Save time and grow your social presence with Hootsuite. Plan and schedule content, engage your audience, and measure your true social media performance — all in one dashboard. Try Hootsuite free today.
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As an ex-agency strategist turned freelance WFH fashion icon, Michelle is passionate about putting the sass in SaaS content. She’s known for quickly understanding and distilling complicated technical topics into conversational copy that gets results. She has written for Fortune 500 companies and startups, and her clients have earned features in Forbes, Strategy Magazine and Entrepreneur.
Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.
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