By Chantal India, on 3 May 2017
To be able to reach out to your potential clients, the first challenge is to find them. There are 2.8 billion people all over the world using social media, but the majority of them limit themselves to just one or two networks. Which is what makes it so vital to know what audiences are on which social networks, allowing you to focus your investment on those that will give you the best results. And thanks to this data, it couldn’t be easier!
Demographics of the 7 most popular social networks - How to find your audience?
1) Facebook, the most popular
In terms of social media audiences, Facebook is undoubtedly in the lead. The network has 1.9 billion unique monthly active users, and more than 75% of them spend at least 20 minutes on it every day.
Facebook is an important network for many brands, especially if you are looking to reach out to the Millennial generation and the Generation X-ers (between 18 and 49 years of age). The latter spend almost 7 hours per week on social networks.
2) YouTube, the new TV
YouTube’s audience numbers are near dizzying: 1 billion monthly users and 2 million video playbacks per minute. Like Facebook, this network is most popular among users between 18 and 49 years of age. As for gender, males are slightly in the lead (55%).
In summary, YouTube is the network you need to boost your brand with audiovisual content. If you want to be successful on YouTube, partnering with Influencers can be a very good strategy.
3) Instagram, the fastest growing network
Over the past years, Instagram has become a very popular place in terms of social media audiences. Today, the network has over 600 million unique users, the majority of which are female. 38% of female internauts and 26% of male internauts are on this network, and 90% of them are under the age of 35.
Instagram has incredible potential to reach out to a young, modern and visual audience. 53% of users follow brands, and the network offers very interesting advertising opportunities.
4) Twitter, young and male
For years we have gotten used to Twitter being in second place, beat only by Facebook. Nowadays, however, Twitter has become less prominent in terms of global audience: 317 million active monthly users, 53% of whom never post updates and spend an average of only 2.7 minutes per day in the app.
Although Twitter is not quite what it used to be, that is no reason to leave it aside: it you are targeting men between the ages of 18 and 29, there is a good chance you will find them here.
5) Pinterest, where content lives longest
Pinterest pretty much ties with Twitter in terms of number of users, but its demographic composition couldn’t be more different: here you will find mainly women, of all ages between 18 and 64.
This network has some features that make it very interesting for marketers: the longevity of its content (pins are shared and “recycled” again and again) and the ecommerce opportunities (Pinterest users are 10% more likely to complete purchases than users from other networks).
6) LinkedIn, for B2B specialists
With 106 million monthly users, LinkedIn is the biggest professional network out there, and as such, the most interesting for B2B companies and for those looking for new talent. Its users tend to belong to the middle-upper class: 45% of people who earn more than 75.000 dollars per year use LinkedIn. These users are also less likely to be present on other networks.
7) Reddit, opportunity or chaos?
Although not quite as popular in other places around the world Reddit is one of the most important social networks in the United States, with 85 million monthly users. 2 in every 3 users are male and 64% are under 30 years old.
Reddit may seem like a very interesting advertising opportunity for brands at first glance, but the truth is that nowadays the sales related content to be found there is strongly moderated. Reddit users are very protective of their community and want to keep it as brand-free as possible.
Source: Infographic from Tracx, a social media management platform.
