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Facebook still dominates social media


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Facebook remains the dominant social media platform, according to the recently released “Digital 2020: Global Digital Overview Report.” With over 2.4 billion monthly active users, Facebook’s exponential growth has slowed in recent years largely due to saturation. Even with the slowdown, the world’s largest social platform is nowhere near losing its coveted No. 1 spot.

Produced by Kepios, Hootsuite and We Are Social, the 247-page Global Digital Overview report offers a global snapshot of how consumers use the internet, mobile devices, social media and e-commerce. Then there’s the 259-page Global Digital Yearbook that offers “essential digital data for every country in the world.”

For this blog post, we focus specifically on Facebook data. We harvested the Facebook-specific slides from the Global Digital Overview to create a scaled-down, 23-page document. We did not edit or manipulate the content contained on the slides.

Click the link below to review the Digital2020 Facebook stats document or click the button to download.

If you want to learn more about the comprehensive report, refer to our last blog post: Report reveals growing global digital engagement.

While there are nearly countless fascinating Facebook factoids contained in the report, we will highlight some of the more useful data to help you plan your social media marketing strategy.

Facebook audience overview

The image below details the potential number of consumers that marketers can reach using advertisements on Facebook. This includes quarter-on-quarter changes in Facebook’s advertising reach and percentage breakdown of advertising audience that is male versus female. Note that Facebook only offers advertising audience data for the genders “male” and “female.”

Facebook audience overview for marketing and advertising

Monthly active users

The image below shows the latest reported number of monthly active Facebook users at the start of each year, with the associated year-on-year change. Note the growth rate is slowing as Facebook’s global saturation rate increases.

Facebook's monthly active users over time

Advertising audience profile

The image below details the share of Facebook’s global advertising audience by age group and gender. These are extrapolations of data from Facebook’s self-service advertising tools (January 2020). With 19 percent, the tallest bar on the graph goes to males 25 to 34 years old. With 14 percent, the second-highest bar goes to males 18 to 24 years old. Not surprisingly, the shortest bars represent users over 65 years old.

Access by device

The slide below shows what devices users employ to access Facebook. Note a whopping 98 percent of users (nearly all) access the social media platform via some type of mobile phone. Not just a mobile device but specifically a mobile phone. And 79 percent of users only access Facebook via mobile phone compared to only 1.9 percent who exclusively access the social media platform on a laptop or desktop computer.

Access by mobile operating system

The image below highlights the percentage of Facebook’s mobile audience broken down by mobile operating system (OS).

  • Percentage of mobile users accessing via apps on Android devices: 80.8.
  • Percentage of mobile users accessing via apps on Apple (iOS) devices: 14.2.
  • Percentage of mobile users accessing via other operating systems or mobile web browsers: 5.

Note the figure for the final item above is based on all mobile devices used, including tablet devices running Android or Apple iOS operating systems. Data for mobile web browsers may also include users accessing via either Android or iOS devices.

Top pages

The slide below lists the top 20 Facebook pages globally. These pages had the greatest number of page likes in January 2020.

What do you think?

32 comments on “Facebook still dominates social media

Lavern Moore

This is some really great information about Facebook. I really thought that Facebook was falling off but with your report I am now learning that Facebook is still a force to be reckoned with and that could be useful in marketing for business

Facebook does dominate the landscape. But it really depends on the landscape you are marketing too as the facebook landscape is older and has different things it looks for as opposed to those focused on the young.

Kuntala Bhattacharya

I agree. In fact from facebook I am linking to many social media sites. But instagram also is good and it helped me to connect with my travel bloggers for guest post.

I stopped using facebook for anything other than work years ago. I’m shocked at the number of phone users! I don’t even have the facebook app on my phone lol

I’ve had some friends and people telling me that facebook is gone and it’s dead. But I guess they havent read the news or he internet yet.

I knew that my older relatives were really catching on to Facebook, but I didn’t realize it was still growing given the younger generation seems to prefer Instagram. Great data!

Ugh I’m so not happy with Facebook. Maybe if they had better customer service. Thanks so much for sharing this with all of us!

great stats! very curious. This analytics sure is helpful for people who work Facebook ads

These are interesting analytics! While I have personally gotten more response on Instagram, maybe I need to give Facebook another try.

I love Facebook for a lot of reasons. I know some people don’t understand the fascination but I think it’s just people who don’t know how to use it. Aside for my personal use, I use it for my business and my blog. It’s been very helpful in establishing good network–and I’m sure it’s here to stay.

I think that it would take something massive to get rid of Facebook or to top it. It was able to encompass everything that a person needs to stay connected and relevant in this digital age so it would be a true feat for it to lose it’s number one spot.

Facebook definitely dominates the social media, having acquired the other giant, you know whom I am talking about.

I think Facebook is here to stay! They are a second fast mover and they iterated on the first movers. They are doing well with ads too!

Agnes

Yes, the popularity of Facebook has been undeniable. People can engage more with FB although there are restrictions.

Yes, it’s still very popular. I think it’s the mix of visual and text that you can offer on FB that makes it so engaging. You can say more on each post and really let people know what you’re trying to say

Nice analytics. Titok can be next in line with Facebook but I believe it’s hard to dominate it.

The report we reference in this post says YouTube holds the No. 2 spot but they’re quite a bit behind Facebook.

Kristine Nicole Alessandra

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I wish there was less ads. It gets annoying sometimes. It does not surprise me as to the number of users this platform has, but for news, I turn to Twitter more.

This is interesting information. I was sure that facebook would be sinking long before now, but alas, it survives and flourishes.

Lavern Moore

I really thought the same thing too until I read this!

Even though Facebook dominated the social media market, I find that the smaller networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Pintrest are the best for interaction

yana

wow that information that I looked for a while , thanks for sharing. this really can help to improve sales.

Ruchi Verma

I still feel Facebook gives you more visibility today also.. Perfect writeup

I think this is all great. Facebook has one more task to complete…..”put the client first”. It’s a steep hill to climb over without hurting the actual bank-rollers of the product.

This blog post is really an interesting resource for understanding and knowing the audience returns of these channels.

I have given Facebook advertising a go, but I cant say that it really gave me anything… maybe I should not give up after just one try.

Facebook is a very dominating platform and is truly taking over social media. It is bigger than any other platform, receives more engagement, and has the most active users. I often wonder what is yet to come. They have created quite a few things within the brand and the brand is stamped on virtually every other business. When you look at the label on one of your favorite foods, the Facebook logo always finds its way onto it. This is a fantastic write-up and breakdown about one of the biggest social media platforms, if not the biggest one right now.

You make excellent points here, Sarah. The Facebook brand is all over the internet and featured in nearly every brick-and-mortar store. The logo is on business cards, corporate flyers and featured on thousands of both personal and corporate websites.

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