The top three social media sites in 2019 – 2020, in terms of internet traffic, include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

People use social media in various ways and each social media site has a specialty in the way that it functions. Facebook for example is more intended for longer articles, blogs, and event planning sort of things. Instagram and Twitter are different from Facebook but similar to each other as they are intended for shorter posts, not long blogposts or articles. They do differ from one another though, as Instagram is typically geared more toward the intent of sharing photos and pictures, where Twitter is used primarily for text posts shorter than 250-300 characters.

Demographics consist of socioeconomic information expressed statistically, including employment, education, income, marriage rates, birth and death rates, race, sexuality and more. Understanding demographics is vital for social media sites so they can effectively advertise to users and use demographic information to tailor the site to the needs of its many diverse users.

There are a few demographics that stand out when talking about specific social media platforms. Facebook for example, started as a college-only site although its current highest usage is from individuals around the 30 – 49 years old age range and those who make $30,000 to $49,999 annually. Instagram however is home to younger users mostly consisting of ages 18 – 29 and particularly popular among Hispanics. Twitter is similarly popular among the 18 – 29 year old demographic while also being more popular among those making more than $75k in a year.

According to digitalmarketing.org, the average person globally spends 144 minutes a day on social media, which extrapolated to weeks and months is 1,008 hours and 4,320 hours respectively. (https://www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/how-much-time-does-the-average-person-spend-on-social-media)

Currently, it seems Instagram is rising in numbers faster than Facebook and Twitter, perhaps due to the platform being geared heavily toward engaging the youth in easy, effective sharing.

The majority of social media users are accessing their choice site through mobile devices, around 78% of people asked in a survey admit to using mobile exclusively.