Most social media stats change every month. Active monthly users tend to stay fairly stable, but can change depending on new people joining social media networks. These social media stats are for the month of January 2023. Let’s get to the stats now.
- More Than Half The World Is On Social Media 4.89 Billion People
They might not be on Facebook or Twitter, but they are on social media. I say this because some countries block western social media and media sites. People in China are on their own social media sites, like WeChat. Which western people can join. They have 1.3 Billion Monthly users.
- People spend daily an average of 2Hours 31 Minutes on Social Media
Social media is addictive. You either want to learn more or find something better. What takes even more time is creating posts for social media and checking analytics. But most people will chat, check what their friends and family are doing, and read their newsfeed. It’s fairly easy to spend this amount of time on one social site.
- 46.3% of Social Media Users are Female and 53.7% are Male
We’ll see later that there are more male users on Instagram than females even though the main categories on Instagram are make up, fashion, and travel. Although, Pinterest is said to be dominated by a female audience. There are men with large followings on Pinterest. This is one of the social media stats that will be of interest to many marketers.
- The Main Reason For Using Social Media Is Keeping In Touch With Friends And Family
47.1% of People Said This
Social Media have the tools to help people do this. Likes, shares, and comments. You could use a mobile messaging service but there’s not the tools for conferencing, and sharing.
- 36.2% of People Say They Use Social Media To Fill In Spare Time
Waiting time is obviously one of the main reasons for this. People don’t like waiting and want to be doing something productive. But the people who aren’t on social media might be doing what people did before we had social media. Talking to people or reading a book.
- 34.2% of People Use Social Media To Read News Stories
Twitter and Facebook are good places to get news from. Although it’s possible some news is ‘fake’ news. But as soon as stories break on Twitter people tweet about them. And this is world wide. You can get news often when there’s no western news service reporting it.
- 28.8% Say they check trends
Possibly more than this. Because if you are going to post on social media it is a good idea to take note of trending topics. Either to use the hashtags to get more exposure for your post, or to know what not to post.
- Finding Products To Purchase – 25.9% of People Say They Do This
This is the reason many drop shippers advertise on social media. For a few dollars they can find buyers and make good money doing it. Usually using video in Twitter or Facebook ads.
- 23.7% of People Said They Use Social Media To Watch Live Streams
This is true of sporting events and major news stories. The World Cup and the Super Bowl and wars, plus financial news. Not to forget the Pandemic which changed the world. Live streams can be seen on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
- People 16 – 34 years Old Said Instagram Was Their Favourite Platform
This is the demographic Instagram attracts. Older people don’t use this platform unless they are artists or in the fashion niche.
- A Majority of People Aged 35 – 64 Said WhatsApp was their Favourite Social Media Platform
WhatsApp is popular on Facebook which is also popular with this demographic. This messaging service has 2 Billion users. This is the quiet achiever. People talk about Facebook or YouTube having large member lists, but WhatsApp is rarely talked about.
Sources: Meltwater. Datareportal.com. Statista.com