Social Media Marketing Statistics 2026: Users, Time and Spend

There are 5.66 billion social media user identities worldwide, equal to 68.7% of the global population, and the average online adult spends 18 hours and 36 minutes a week in social and video feeds. Advertisers follow the attention: Statista, quoted in DataReportal's Digital 2026 report, projected $277 billion of social media ad spend for 2025, 32.1% of all digital ad spend.

The short version for a marketer setting a 2026 plan: reach is no longer the question, response is. In Sprout Social's August 2026 survey, 68% of consumers expect a brand to answer on social within 24 hours, and in its 2025 Index 73% say they will buy from a competitor when a brand does not respond.

Every number below links to the report it was read in, all on 21 October 2026: DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview (Kepios, GWI and Statista data, published October 2025), Pew Research Center's Americans' Social Media Use 2025 and its October 2026 TikTok news update, Sprout Social's 2025 Index release, its Q2 2025 Pulse release and its Q3 2026 Pulse survey, and the Toolradar social media management statistics page.

Toolradar data: of the 159 social media management tools on Toolradar, the software directory we run, 69 (43%) offer a free tier as of 21 October 2026, and the median entry paid plan is $20.26 a month across the 90 tools with a verified price.

Five findings

1. Social reaches more people than it ever has, and still grows. User identities rose by 259 million, or 4.8%, in the 12 months to October 2025, according to Kepios. The identity count equals 93.8% of all internet users, so growth now tracks internet adoption itself.
2. Feeds take about 2 hours 39 minutes a day. GWI's weekly average of 18 hours 36 minutes works out to that daily figure, our arithmetic. Women aged 16 to 24 spend 25 hours 45 minutes a week, more than 3 hours 40 minutes a day.
3. Social is a search engine for the young. In Sprout Social's Q2 2025 Pulse, 41% of Gen Z turn to social platforms first when looking for information, ahead of search engines at 32% and chat-based AI tools at 11%.
4. It is also a shop window. 76% of users say social content influenced a purchase in the previous six months, rising to 90% of Gen Z, and 81% in Sprout's 2025 Index say social drives impulse purchases.
5. Patience is short. 68% of consumers expect a reply within 24 hours, 24% within one to two hours and 14% in under an hour, in Sprout's Q3 2026 Pulse of 2,250 consumers.

How many people use social media in 2026?

Kepios counts 5.66 billion active social media user identities, against 6.04 billion internet users and a 73.2% internet penetration rate at the start of October 2025. DataReportal published them in October 2025 as its Digital 2026 report, early enough for annual planning.

A caveat matters before you quote the headline. Kepios builds the figure from the advertising reach of the single largest platform in each country, and notes that user identities may not represent unique individuals. It is the best available measure of reachable audiences, not a census of people.

Global metric (Digital 2026, data to October 2025)	Figure
Social media user identities	5.66 billion
Share of the world's population	68.7%
Growth over 12 months	+259 million (+4.8%)
Internet users	6.04 billion
Platforms used per online adult each month (GWI, Q2 2025)	6.75
Male share of social media users	54.4%

The 6.75-platform figure is the planning number. The average online adult uses close to seven platforms a month, so a brand on one network meets most of its audience somewhere they are not looking for it.

Which platforms do Americans use?

YouTube and Facebook still reach most US adults, and Instagram is the only other platform used by half the country. Pew's October 2026 update puts TikTok at 37% of US adults, behind YouTube at 84%, Facebook at 70% and Instagram at 51%, and ahead of WhatsApp at 33%, LinkedIn at 31%, Reddit at 25% and X at 18%.

US platform use (Pew)	Share of US adults
YouTube	84%
Facebook	70%
Instagram	51%
TikTok	37%
WhatsApp	33%
LinkedIn	31%
Reddit	25%
X	18%

Source: Pew Research Center, October 2026 update, read 21 October 2026.

Daily use is the sharper filter. In Pew's February to March 2025 survey of 5,123 adults, about half visit Facebook and YouTube at least once a day, 24% use TikTok daily and 10% use X daily. Roughly half of adults aged 18 to 29 open TikTok every day, against 5% of those 65 and older.

Age splits the map for a B2C marketer. Eight in ten adults aged 18 to 29 use Instagram, compared with 19% of adults 65 and older, while Facebook peaks with 30- to 49-year-olds at 80%. A campaign aimed at buyers over 50 still belongs on Facebook and YouTube first; one aimed at under-30s that skips Instagram and TikTok misses most of its audience.

LinkedIn's share is the one for B2B teams to watch. It is a smaller audience than the consumer networks, but it is the one where a job title is part of the profile. Teams publishing there alongside other networks can see how two of the main schedulers compare in Sprout Social vs Hootsuite.

How much time do people spend on social media?

GWI puts the global average at 18 hours and 36 minutes a week across social networks and video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. DataReportal calculates that this is roughly 16% of an online adult's waking hours, and more than one hour a day goes to classic social networks like Facebook and X alone.

Per-app time on Android, from Similarweb data in the same report, shows where the minutes sit. The typical TikTok user spends 1 hour 37 minutes a day in the app, Instagram users 1 hour 13 minutes and Facebook users 67 minutes. Summed over every active user, YouTube still accounted for almost twice as much total time as TikTok in August 2025.

Why people open the apps matters as much as how long they stay. GWI respondents cite an average of 4.69 reasons. Keeping in touch with friends and family leads at 50.2%, filling spare time follows at 39.7% and reading news stories at 35.4%, which rises to second place for every age group over 45.

News is the point where social overlaps with publishing. A fifth of US adults regularly get news on TikTok, according to Pew's August 2026 survey, up from 3% in 2020, and 39% of adults aged 18 to 29 do so. For a brand, that means TikTok content competes with news in the same feed, and earns attention on the same terms.

Does social media drive purchases?

Yes, and buyers say so directly. In Sprout Social's 2025 Index, which surveyed 4,044 consumers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia who follow at least five brands, 81% say social drives them to make impulse purchases. Facebook is the platform most used for direct purchases at 39%, but TikTok leads for Gen Z at 54% and millennials at 47%.

Discovery comes before the sale. DataReportal reports, from GWI data, that more than 30% of adult internet users discover new brands, products and services through ads on social platforms, the third source after search engines and TV ads. Among people aged 16 to 34, social ads are the top source of brand awareness.

Purchase signal	Figure	Source
Social content influenced a purchase in the last six months	76% of users, 90% of Gen Z	Sprout Q2 2025 Pulse, 2,280 users
Social drives impulse purchases	81%	Sprout 2025 Index
Would buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond on social	73%	Sprout 2025 Index
Prefer social first for product reviews and recommendations	37%	Sprout Q2 2025 Pulse
Social tied with physical stores as top gift inspiration	46% each	Sprout Q3 2026 Pulse
Discover brands through social ads	More than 30%	GWI in Digital 2026

What wins loyalty after the first sale is less obvious. In the Q3 2026 Pulse, 44% of consumers name product or service quality as their top loyalty driver, but originality of content comes second at 33%, ahead of price and customer service. Half of consumers want brands to stop sounding salesy and corporate.

How much do brands spend on social media advertising?

Statista's projection, published in Digital 2026, puts worldwide social media ad spend at $277 billion for 2025, up 13.6% on 2024 and more than $5 billion a week. Social takes 32.1% of digital ad spend, and search and social together account for roughly 54% of global advertising.

The total advertising market Statista projects for 2025 is $1.16 trillion, up 6.5%, so social ad spend is growing about twice as fast as advertising overall. Search, at a projected $352 billion, is still the larger channel, but social is closing the gap.

Divide the spend by the audience and the number is small: $277 billion spread across the global identity count is about $49 per identity per year, our arithmetic. Spend concentrates in rich markets, so the US figure per user is far higher; Statista puts total US ad spend at $1,327 per inhabitant in 2025, across all channels.

What do customers expect from brands on social?

A fast answer, usually in private. In Sprout's Q3 2026 Pulse, 55% of consumers would rather send a brand a direct message than complain in public, 31% would leave a comment and 13% would tag the brand. When a complaint is public, 33% want a reply moving the conversation to DMs and 28% expect it solved in the comments.

TikTok is now the first platform consumers turn to for customer service at 50%, ahead of Facebook at 46%, Instagram at 44%, X at 28% and WhatsApp at 26%. A care team that monitors only Facebook and X is watching the second and fourth channels on that list.

Trust is the other expectation. 84% of consumers say they are concerned about AI-generated deepfakes, and 38% say the concern makes them more skeptical of ads in general. In the 2025 Index, 93% say brands need to do more to combat misinformation.

What social media marketers report

The teams behind the accounts are stretched. In Sprout's 2025 Index, 94% of 900 social practitioners feel they have to be "chronically online" to do the job, and 93% believe AI can help with creative fatigue. Among 322 marketing leaders, 48% planned to increase AI investment and 97% say it is critical their teams know how to use AI.

Hiring did not stop for AI. 86% of those leaders expected to hire more team members, and 53% believe AI will help them grow their teams. For the tools side, our ranking of the best AI for social media covers the AI features each platform now ships, and the AI marketing statistics page counts the tools.

The social media software market

The category is crowded and young. Toolradar counts 159 social media management tools as of 21 October 2026, and 147 of them, 92%, were added to the directory during 2026; the count reflects when a tool entered Toolradar, not when it launched.

Two names anchor buyer research. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are each listed as an alternative to 70 other tools on Toolradar, and Hootsuite drew the most compare-page visits in the category over the last 30 days with 66. Buffer came second on that measure with 60.

43% of these tools have a free tier, which is why our free social media schedulers ranking exists as a separate page. Teams ready to pay can compare the leaders in the best social media management tools ranking, read the Hootsuite review and Buffer review, or check what the enterprise option costs in Sprout Social pricing.

How to use these numbers

Plan for response time before reach. A 24-hour reply window is what two thirds of consumers expect, so staff it on the platforms where your customers ask, starting with TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. Then pick channels by age: Facebook and YouTube for audiences over 50, Instagram and TikTok for under-30s, LinkedIn for B2B.

Measure what social does to purchases, not only engagement. With three quarters of users saying social content shaped a recent purchase, the useful metrics are assisted conversions and discount-code redemptions; Sprout's Q3 Pulse found promo codes from brands or influencers are the top trigger to buy, at 30%. For the owned channel that keeps the buyer after the first sale, the email marketing statistics page has the benchmarks.

Methodology

Every figure was read on its publisher's own page on 21 October 2026. Global users, time and platform data come from DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview (Kepios analysis, GWI Q2 2025 survey, Similarweb app data, Statista ad spend projections). US platform use comes from Pew Research Center: a survey of 5,022 adults conducted 5 February to 18 June 2025, a frequency survey of 5,123 adults in February and March 2025, and its October 2026 update based on 5,166 adults surveyed 24 to 30 August 2026. Consumer and marketer data come from Sprout Social's 2025 Index, conducted by Glimpse, its Q2 2025 Pulse (2,280 users, 23 April to 5 May 2025) and its Q3 2026 Pulse (2,250 consumers, 11 to 18 August 2026). Software counts come from Toolradar's live category data. Per-identity spend and daily time are our arithmetic and are labeled. Dupple runs no social media experiments of its own for this page. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, edited it. Next refresh when DataReportal publishes its Digital 2027 report.

FAQ

How many people use social media in 2026?

Kepios counts 5.66 billion social media user identities, 68.7% of the world's population, in DataReportal's Digital 2026 report with data to October 2025. The figure grew by 259 million in a year. User identities may not equal unique people, since some individuals hold more than one account.

How much time do people spend on social media each day?

GWI measures 18 hours and 36 minutes a week across social and video platforms, which is about 2 hours 39 minutes a day by our arithmetic. Women aged 16 to 24 spend 25 hours 45 minutes a week. TikTok users average 1 hour 37 minutes a day in the Android app, according to Similarweb.

Which social media platform is most used in the US?

YouTube, used by 84% of US adults in Pew's October 2026 update, followed by Facebook at 70% and Instagram at 51%. TikTok reaches 37%, LinkedIn 31% and X 18%. About half of US adults visit Facebook and YouTube daily, according to Pew's 2025 frequency survey.

How much is spent on social media advertising?

Statista projected $277 billion of worldwide social media ad spend for 2025, up 13.6% on 2024, in figures published in DataReportal's Digital 2026 report. That is 32.1% of digital ad spend and more than $5 billion a week.

Does social media influence buying decisions?

Yes. In Sprout Social's Q2 2025 Pulse of 2,280 users, 76% say social content influenced a purchase in the previous six months, including 90% of Gen Z. In its 2025 Index, 81% say social drives impulse purchases and 73% would buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond on social.

How fast should brands respond on social media?

Within 24 hours at most. Sprout Social's Q3 2026 Pulse of 2,250 consumers found 68% expect a reply within a day, 24% within one to two hours and 14% within an hour. 55% prefer to raise an issue by direct message rather than in public.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "Social Media Marketing Statistics 2026: Users, Time and Spend", November 2026. Sources: DataReportal (Kepios, GWI, Statista, Similarweb), Pew Research Center, Sprout Social, Toolradar.

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