Panorama and Analysis of Social Networks 2022

By January 2022, social media users worldwide will reach 4.62 billion, equivalent to 58.4% of the world’s population.  Users of such platforms have grown by more than 10% in the last year, with 424 million new followers during 2021, which equates to an average of 1 million newcomers per day, or approximately 13.5 per second.

According to the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report, Facebook remains the world’s most used platform, with 2.91 billion users, followed by YouTube, with 2.562 billion, WhatsApp, with 2 billion, and Instagram, with 1.478 million. Thus, three of the five most used platforms worldwide are owned by Meta.

Curiously, WeChat is in fifth place in the ranking, with 1,263 million users, despite the fact that 99% of its votes come from China. However, China hosts 20% of the total number of internet users worldwide, so it makes sense that Chinese social networks have a big impact on the global rankings.

Another surprise is the case of TikTok, which ranks sixth with 1 billion users and gets only 4.3% of the total vote. Despite this, the euphoria generated by this social network in the media is undeniable and it has positioned itself as the most downloaded mobile application during 2021.

In the middle of the ranking, we find FB Messenger, Douyin, QQ and Sina Weibo.

Meanwhile, other networks that we thought were more popular, such as Snapchat, Telegram, Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit, are placed among the last positions, being the messaging service the only ones that exceed 500 million users.

Use of social networks

The average time people spend per day on social networks is 2:27 hours. These represent the majority of our time connected to the Internet, with 35% of the total, which represents an increase of 2 minutes per day or 1.4% over the previous year.

In this regard, one in four users (40%) between the ages of 16 and 64 use them for work-related activities, while the rest use them to search for relevant information about their favorite brands or simply for leisure and entertainment.

In this regard, we should not forget the importance of advertising for the maintenance of these platforms. According to data from Statista, in 2021 global advertising investment in social networks exceeded $150 billion, and ads accounted for approximately one third (33%) of total digital investment. Advertisers spent 14% more during that period than in the previous year.