We are now well into the second decade of social media use. Just consider: It has been 39 years since the official birth of the internet on January 1, 1983, and roughly 25 years since the debut of the first widely-recognized online social media platform, Six Degrees, in 1997. To this day, the internet continues to expand at an astounding rate. There is no indication that the demographics of social media will ever stabilise. As marketers, it is our responsibility to respond to these shifts by modifying our approach.

Quantifying the Social Media Population

To know which platforms and campaigns are worth your time, you need to have access to accurate demographic information. After all, most brands aim to appeal to a specific subset of the population. Similar to how different demographics respond better to various marketing messages on various social networks, so too does each social network have a specific demographic that it primarily serves. The information in this section was gathered from the Pew Research Center’s website (pewresearch.org).

How Social Media Has Expanded

It’s true that back in 2005, only 5% of all U.S. adults were active on any social media. However, the population will be active on social media.

However, not everyone uses social media despite its meteoric rise in popularity. While millennials make up the majority of users, there has been an uptick in interest from the over-60 crowd.

Platforms With the Most Usage

Just as there are disparities in social media use by age and gender, there are also differences in how people use different kinds of social media sites. The “older” platforms have more users and a longer history of success in the business and consumer markets.

Statistics on Who Uses the Biggest Social Networks

Let’s take a closer look at the figures. Facebook and YouTube are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media, and you need to learn a great deal more about a network before you can effectively market to its users. We’d all like to maximise our return on investment, and by considering social media demographics, we can do just that.

Statistics on the Audience and Activity of Facebook

Facebook is not only the most popular social media platform, but also one of the longest-running platforms (along with Twitter and LinkedIn). Not that you should just throw up ads and hope for the best, though. Rather, even though this is where your potential audience is most dispersed, you should still take demographics into account. Sprout Social provided the data for this analysis.

• A total of 2.91 billion people use the site on a monthly basis.
• Most people are between the ages of 25 and 34 (31.5%)
• Females make up 43% of the total, while males account for 57%. (no data on other genders)
• Average daily time: 33 minutes

Statistics on the Population and Use of Instagram

Meta, as you may recall, owns both Instagram and Facebook. However, that doesn’t mean that both of these social media platforms are the same. There is a wide variety of content and user bases on various social networks. Okay, let’s take a look at Instagram’s statistics.

Similar to Facebook, this one also enjoys widespread acclaim among today’s youth. Instagram, however, also attracts a sizable portion of Generation Z users. Additionally, Instagram users are less engaged than Facebook users.

In light of this, the fact that different Meta products appeal to different social media demographics is probably not shocking.

Usage Statistics and User Demographics for TikTok

In the realm of social media, TikTok is one of the newest platforms, popular among teenagers and young adults. Known as Douyin in China, it is one of the few technological innovations to have made it to the West. Even though it’s relatively new, TikTok has already generated some controversy due to the dumb challenges that teenagers issue to one another. However, due to its recent surge in popularity, this platform is now suitable for serious advertising campaigns.

First, a look at who uses TikTok:

• One billion unique users each and every month.
• (25%) of the population falls into the teen years.
• Statistics show that women make up 61% of the population while men account for 39%. (no data on other genders)
• Daily Time Spent: 89 Mins
• The numbers show two main conclusions. As a first point, TikTok has the youngest documented user base of any major platform, with a minimum age of ten. Second, check out how much time users spend within the app. TikTok users are more likely to stick around because they have to create content while using the app.

Suggestions for a Successful TikTok Social Media Campaign

Working with TikTok is difficult in part because so few social media tools are designed to facilitate its use. Listed below are some suggestions for approaching the situation strategically.

You must first identify your target market. Even though most TikTok users are teenagers and young adults, age is just one factor in analysing social media audiences. Get to know your TikTok audience so you can better target your posts (and ads) to them.

Two, employ hashtags. TikTok, like other social media platforms, uses hashtags to organise user-generated content. Hashtags can also be used in various competitions and challenges.

Send Messages to Powerful People. A similar prominence is held by influencers on the video-sharing app TikTok. And it’s hard to form tight-knit groups on such a vast system. However, with the aid of influential people, many more options become available.

Conclusion

In sum, social media demographics are a goldmine for advertisers. Using them, we can learn things like where and when our ideal customers are online and what kinds of content they find most engaging. As a result of having this data at hand, we will be able to more efficiently target them with campaigns that are tailored to their specific needs and interests.