As of 2023, the top three social media sites were Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
These three are quite similar in content consumed but they are different in ways such as Facebook and Instagram are both more post and short video side of social media while YouTube has focused on more of longer videos since the beginning. However, YouTube has become more and more of a multi-format platform with long videos, shorts, and community posts. People go to YouTube for longer entertainment or Shorts for background noise, information, live shows, movies, and other forms of content for any reason; Facebook and Instagram are both platforms used by consumers for friends, family, celebrities, and even merchandise.
Demographics in its definition is relating to the structure of populations. Demographics in technology refer to the statistical data representing the characteristics of a population in digital marketing. This is a key tool used in any form of marketing to help companies and businesses reach out to the targeted audience for sales and for social platforms, an algorithm is used based on users’ content consumption. These both help platforms and companies keep users and consumers on the platform which continues to grow their user numbers.
A few demographics that stood out to me are men around the ages of 24-35 make up the biggest percentage of users, according to Statista, even though Facebook is stigmatized as an “old-people” site. For YouTube, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Gen Z and Millennials make up over half the global percentage of users. As for Instagram, it was the biggest surprise to see that over half of their global percentage of users are male and for the US, it is 55% female. I thought this was the biggest surprise because Instagram is seen as a platform women mostly go to for inspiration or to post for followers.
During my research, I have found that most users spend around 151 minutes a day. Facebook holds 31 of those minutes in the US (Exploding Topics), YouTube with about 47 (DemandSage), and Instagram with 34 of those minutes. (Backlinko)
Out of the three sites, YouTube is the site that is growing the fastest mainly due to its vast variety of content available to be consumed. YouTube has Shorts, community posts, movies, shows, cartoons/anime, and creator content in forms of Playthroughs, tutorials, education, commentary, and many more. The other platforms do not have the same variety as YouTube since almost all other content creation or platforms use shorter forms of content or specific formats.
Along with my research I have found that most users visit Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram on a smartphone (95%), desktop(90%), and consoles (80%).
References:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/#:~:text=Meta%20Platforms%20owns%20four%20of,monthly%20core%20Family%20product%20users.
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/social-media-usage
https://backlinko.com/instagram-users#:~:text=Mention%2C%20Social%20Blade-,Average%20Time%20Spent%20on%20Instagram%20per%20Day,per%20month)%20on%20the%20app.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/