Most Popular Social Media Platforms in 2023 (Detailed Facts and statistics)

Around 8 billion people live on Earth, and 4.76 billion are using social media as of 2023. These numbers also show that more than two-thirds of people who use the internet and one-third of people worldwide use social media.

The way the world works has changed because of social media. People are adopting these technologies quickly and widely, changing how we work together to meet needs, find partners, and get new information.

Facts about Social Media: 

• There are around 5.07 billion internet users worldwide or approximately 63.5% of the global population.
• An individual user’s average activity across all social media sites is 6.6
• About nine out of ten people who have regular access to the web make regular use of social networking sites.
• The vast majority (99%) of the 4.76 billion social media users visit their preferred sites and apps via mobile device, while only 1.32 percent use a desktop computer.
• The typical social media user logs in to 7.2 distinct networks, and everyone.
• The average person who uses social media spends about two and a half hours daily.
• More than 10 billion hours per day are spent on social media around the world.
• Eastern Asia has the highest percentage of social media users (26%) in 2023.
• TikTok is the fastest-growing social network, with a shocking 105% increase in US users over the past two years.

History of Social Media:

The first primary social networking site, Bolt, appeared in 1996. (now closed). Six Degrees, a social networking site where users can find and add new friends, was launched shortly after in 1997. The following introduction of competitors like AOL Instant Messenger, Live Journal, and Friendster set the stage for Facebook’s rapid rise to prominence in 2004.

• Bolt was the first social networking and video website, active from 1996 to 2007.
• In 1997, a site called Six Degrees was made where people could post their profiles and make “friends” with others.
• AOL debuted its Instant Messaging platform in 1997 after acquiring it from an Israeli business that had launched it in 1996 under the name ICQ.
• 1999 was when LiveJournal, the first popular blogging platform, came out.
• Habbo, a game-based social networking service, was launched in 2000.
• Friendster was created in 2002, allowing users to create profiles, connect, and exchange material.
•  In 2003, LinkedIn became the first business-oriented social networking site.
• Facebook, the most popular website of all time, was launched in 2004.

What are the Most Popular Social Networks in 2023?

1. Facebook

Facebook is the largest social networking site, with more than 2 billion people using it every month. This means that approximately 36.9% of the global population uses Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University undergraduate, founded Facebook in 2004. Zuckerberg and his College roommates initially wanted to establish a photo-sharing site for Harvard students only. Subsequently, they also offered membership to students from other Ivy League institutions. In 2006, Facebook became accessible to everyone and swiftly gained popularity in virtually every region of the globe. Now, around one-third of the world’s population has a Facebook account.

Facts about Facebook.

• As of October 2022, 2.9 billion people used Facebook every month.
• About 36.8% of all people on Earth use Facebook right now.
• As of July 2022, 1.968 billion people use Facebook every day.
• As of Q2 2022, the average amount of money Facebook makes per user (ARPU) is $9.82.
• 64% of US adults use Facebook as of September 2022.
• Facebook got rid of almost 1.6 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2022.
• In the third quarter of 2022, Facebook made $27.71 billion in sales.
• India has the most Facebook users of any country, with 349.7 million users.
• 72.3 percent of the US population, or 240 million people, use social media every day.

Facebook Users by Country:

Below is the Full list of top Facebook users by Country.

2. YouTube   

YouTube began out as a place where people could share videos. But over the years, the platform has changed into a social media site and community with about 2.6 billion active users. Three people who used to work at PayPal started YouTube in 2005. The website became very popular quickly, and in 2006, Google bought it for about $1.7 billion. YouTube is still owned by Alphabet, which is Google’s holding company. It remains the world’s largest website for sharing videos over the internet.

Facts about Youtube:

• YouTube is the second most popular search engine around the world.
• Today, 31% of all individuals around the world use YouTube.
• In the third quarter of 2022, YouTube made 7.07 billion dollars from ads worldwide.
• As of 2022, YouTube has more than 51 million channels still being used.
• In 2022, more than 30 billion YouTube Shorts were watched every day.
• There are 467 million active YouTube users in India.
• The US has 245 million people who use YouTube.

Youtube Users by Country:

Below is the Full list of top Youtube users by Country in 2023.

3. WhatsApp

WhatsApp continues to be the most popular social messaging application, with over 2 billion active users each month. More than 180 countries use it. With its expanding user base, the platform has added numerous new features to facilitate user interactions.

Initially, WhatsApp was used to send text messages to friends and family. However, over time, people begin engaging with businesses via WhatsApp.

Facts About WhatsApp:

• Every month, more than 2 billion people use WhatsApp.
• WhatsApp is the world’s eighth most downloaded app from the Google Play Store.
• India has the most people who use WhatsApp monthly (over 340 million).
• Every day, WhatsApp deals with more than 1 billion messages.
• WhatsApp can now be used in more than 180 countries and 60 languages.

4. Instagram

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, both students at Stanford University, came up with and launched Instagram in 2010. The app started as a way to share photos, but it quickly became very popular. Even though Instagram had only been around for a year, it already had 10 million users. Then, in 2012, Facebook paid $1 billion to buy Instagram. Since then, the popularity of the platform has grown even faster. About 1.5 billion people around the world have signed up for Instagram and are using it right now. It’s no longer just a place to share photos or videos; a whole way of life has grown up around this social media site.

Facts About Instagram:

• Nowadays, 18.1% of the world’s population uses Instagram.
• With over 263.8 million active users, India has the most Instagram users in any country.
• Most of Instagram’s active users are between 18 and 24.
• Instagram users only use the app for about 11.2 hours per month.
• More than half of the people who use Instagram are younger than 35.
• Every Instagram post has an average engagement rate of 0.56%.

Instagram Users by Country:

Below is the Full list of top Instagram users by Country in 2023.

5. WeChat

WeChat was introduced in 2011 by Tencent, one of China’s largest technology corporations. WeChat, like WhatsApp and Messenger, began as a chat app but has since expanded into an all-encompassing platform. In addition to texting and phoning, users can also shop online, pay bills, purchase groceries, transfer money, make bookings, and book taxis.

6. TikTok

TikTok, which was only introduced in 2016, has expanded faster than any other social media site and already has over a billion users. ByteDance, a Beijing-based Chinese business, created TikTok. 

TikTok is a video-sharing platform that allows users to effortlessly create and share short movies of themselves lip-syncing, delivering messages, or sharing other hilarious or entertaining content. Initially, TikTok was designed exclusively for Chinese consumers. However, after combining with the comparable platform Musical.ly, the portal became accessible to users from around the globe.

Facts About Tiktok:

• Nowadays, 12.8% of the global population views advertisements on TikTok.
• As of July 2022, marketers on TikTok can target 1.02 billion consumers aged 18 and older.
• TikTok achieved 1 billion active users per month. In Q3 of 2022.
• In Q2 2022, 29% of TikTok’s active global Google Play installations opened the app daily.
• The lifetime income for TikTok has already surpassed $5.5 billion.
• TikTok was the most downloaded and highest-earning non-game app in the first half of 2022.
• In the second quarter of 2022, 18 million Americans downloaded TikTok from the Apple App Store.

TikTok Users by Country:

Below is the Full list of top Tiktok users by Country in 2023.

7. Facebook Messenger

Messenger was formerly a Facebook feature, but since 2011 it has been a standalone app with improved functionality. It is utilized for sending messages, exchanging photographs, videos, stickers, audio, and files, responding to the messages of other users, and interacting with bots. Also, the service allows phone and video calls, numerous accounts, discussions with optional end-to-end encryption, and gaming.

8. Douyin

ByteDance launched Douyin in Beijing, China, in September 2016. It rapidly gained popularity in virtually all parts of the world, with over 600 million users in 2022. TikTok and Douyin are similar, but their features are not identical. For example, Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people’s faces for more videos of them and other features such as buying, booking hotels, and doing geo-tagged reviews.

9. Telegram

Telegram is a messaging app that lets people talk to each other through a network of data centers spread worldwide. Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov started the company.

Telegram lets you simultaneously read messages on your phones, tablets, and computers. Everything on Telegram, like chats, groups, and media, is encrypted from start to finish. Telegram also has group chats and messages that delete themselves.

Telegram is a popular app that is becoming a strong competitor to WhatsApp.

10. Snapchat

Snapchat is a mix between a regular social media site and an instant messaging app. It came out in 2011 and is known for being the first app to have the “Story” feature, which lets people post short clips from their lives or other things. Since then, other social media sites, like Instagram, have copied and added it to their own sites. Even though the number of users has grown less in recent years, Snapchat is still one of the most popular social media sites.

Facts about Snapchat:

• The most recent data shows that 7.7% of the global population is active on Snapchat anytime.
• Only 18.6% of Snapchat’s global active user base consists of women, whereas 20.5% are young men (18-24).

11. Kuaishou

Kuaishou is sometimes referred to as the “original TikTok” because it originated the idea of the short video clip. Kuaishou has had limited success outside of China for quite some time, but that has begun to change. Kuaishou has joined the ranks of the most popular social networking sites on the planet. However, it has yet to be as widely used as TikTok.

12. Sina Weibo

Weibo (or Sina Weibo), a Chinese equivalent to Twitter and Instagram, was released in 2009. Users of Weibo can share media such as photos and videos, read up on popular topics, use hashtags, and even engage in real-time communication. Sina Weibo attracts a younger audience and provides more news and popular articles than WeChat.

13. QQ

QQ is a Chinese instant messenger application that was formerly exclusive to China but has recently expanded to over 80 countries. Before the release of WeChat, QQ was the most popular Chinese messaging application. The social media app also includes an inbuilt language translator to facilitate communication with foreign-speaking individuals.

14. Twitter

Twitter, which debuted in 2006, is widely regarded as the first micro-blogging platform on the World Wide Web. Besides text, members of the social media site can also upload photographs and videos to share with others. It’s no secret that politicians, international leaders, and A-list celebrities love using Twitter. This causes infrequent users to browse the platform’s content frequently.

Facts About Twitter:

• Around 6.1% of the global population currently uses Twitter.
• Today, 7.8% of the worldwide population aged 13 and overuses Twitter.
• In May 2022, Twitter.com was accessed 7.1 billion times every month.
• Twitter is the most popular news-related social media platform.
• By 2025, the number of Twitter users is projected to reach 497.48 million.

15. Pinterest

Pinterest is a popular social media that is entirely focused on visual appeal. The site debuted in 2009 and stands out among the most well-liked social media networks. However, instead of concentrating almost solely on the social media components of image and video sharing, it needs to include some characteristics that distinguish the majority of other social media platforms.

Facts about Pinterest:

• Nowadays, 5.4% of the world’s population uses Pinterest.
• 7% of all people over the age of 13 use Pinterest nowadays.
• In the past year, Pinterest’s advertising audience reach has expanded by 12.7%.
• Around 70% of Pinterest users are women.
• Users between 25 and 34 comprise the highest portion of Pinterest’s viewership.

The following is a list of the Most Popular social media in 2023