A new report from Pew Research Center on social media use has some results that may not surprise you, but its less-expected findings could influence your company’s marketing strategy.
For the report, 5,733 adults in the United States were surveyed from May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023, about which social media platforms they ever use.
The highest number of respondents (83%) said YouTube. Facebook ranked second, named by 68%, while a perhaps surprising minority (48%) said Instagram. At the bottom of the list was BeReal, which was included in a Pew survey for the first time—a mere 3% of respondents said they had used it.
The app that saw the biggest growth in users was TikTok. Though only about a third (33%) of respondents said they use TikTok, that’s a significant increase from 2021, when 21% said so.
It’s worth noting that while YouTube and Facebook conquered the survey with the majority of users, it reported little or no growth in their user bases since the last survey.
Age breakdowns paint a clearer picture of social media’s generation gap (see graph above). Pew’s data show that adults under 30 are far more likely to use most social media than people 30 and older. YouTube was the most commonly used app by the 30–49 and 50–64 age groups, followed closely by Facebook for both demographics, but usage was higher for both apps in the 30–49 group than among older respondents.
User numbers for Facebook and YouTube are fairly similar (within 10 percentage points) across the under-30, 30–49, and 50–64 groups, but this is not true for Instagram and TikTok. For Instagram, 78% of people age 18–29 said they ever use it, versus 59% for ages 30–49 and 35% by 50–64. TikTok was used by 62% of the youngest group, but only 39% of those in their 30s and 40s and 24% of 50- to 64-year-olds. Under-30 was the age group more likely to be using any app except LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
Other interesting finds from the report highlight usage differences per platform based on demographics including race and ethnicity, gender, education, and income. According to the survey, Hispanics are more likely than other ethnicities to use Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp. Women are more likely than their men to use Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. And people with annual income of at least $100,000 reportedly use X (Twitter) at a higher rate than those with lower incomes.
To read the report in its entirety, visit pewresearch.org.
(Image via Pew Research)
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