Social Media Marketing Statistics for 2026: Platform User Counts, Who Uses What, and How Businesses Spend Their Time There

The platforms' own counts and the independent surveys, side by side

Each figure was opened on its publisher's page in October 2026. Company numbers come from earnings releases, earnings calls and newsrooms, which means each company chose its own definition of a user. Survey numbers say who asked whom. This page belongs to our marketing statistics library; the practical side of picking platforms and keeping a posting calendar is in our social media marketing guide.

Pew's adults: the independent baseline, in brief

Pew Research Center is the one source here with nothing to sell on social media, which is why its numbers anchor every budget conversation. Its 2025 survey of 5,022 US adults, fielded February to June 2025, found 84% ever use YouTube, 71% Facebook, 50% Instagram and 37% TikTok, followed by WhatsApp at 32% and Reddit at 26%. Our social media marketing guide uses those figures, and Pew's age splits, to match platforms to types of business.

Ever use is a low bar, so Pew also asks about frequency. In a separate survey of 5,123 adults in February and March 2025, about half said they visit Facebook daily, and about half YouTube. TikTok's daily users were 24% of adults, and roughly half of 18 to 29 year olds. X's were 10%. Social is also a news source: in Pew's August 2025 survey, 53% of US adults said they get news from social media at least sometimes, and 38% said they regularly get news on Facebook, 35% on YouTube and 20% each on Instagram and TikTok.

Instagram statistics, Facebook and Threads: what Meta told investors in July 2026

Meta's second quarter 2026 release put Family daily active people at 3.60 billion on average for June 2026, up 3% from a year earlier. Revenue was $60.80 billion. Ad impressions across its apps rose 14% and the average price per ad rose 12%, which is the ad buyer's version of the same story: more inventory, and each piece costing more.

Meta's chief executive added the milestones on the July 29 call. Instagram reached 2 billion daily actives. Threads crossed 500 million monthly actives. Facebook, he said, has had more than 2 billion daily actives for some time. The company also said Instagram time spent grew by double digits year over year, and Facebook video time rose 9% globally and more than 10% in the US and Canada.

• Small businesses and AI ad tools: Meta said over 9 million small businesses use at least one of its AI ad creative tools.
• Business messaging: more than 1 million businesses use Meta Business Agents each week to talk to customers or complete sales on WhatsApp and Messenger, according to the call.
• What is missing: Meta does not report Instagram or Facebook users by country in its release, so for US share, Pew is the better source.

For a local business, the useful reading is narrow. Facebook and Instagram are where the audience already is, and where paid reach keeps getting pricier. The cost side lives on our PPC statistics page, and boosted posts are covered in how to advertise your business.

YouTube's revenue is filed; TikTok's audience is announced

YouTube does not publish a user count in Alphabet's earnings. It publishes money, which is harder to inflate. Alphabet's Q2 2026 release, filed with the SEC on July 22, 2026, reported YouTube ad revenue of $11,055 million, against $9,796 million a year earlier, out of $81,629 million in total Google advertising. The same release cited more than 1.7 billion unique viewers of World Cup videos during the FIFA World Cup 2026.

YouTube's own press page, read in October 2026, adds undated claims: more than 20 million videos uploaded a day on average, Shorts averaging over 200 billion daily views, and first place in US streaming watch time for nearly three years, attributed to Nielsen as of January 2026. Our video marketing statistics page goes further into video, and the YouTube SEO guide covers getting found there.

TikTok's US numbers changed hands with the company. On January 23, 2026, the new TikTok USDS Joint Venture announced it was enabling more than 200 million Americans and 7.5 million businesses to keep using the app. The announcement gives no definition for either figure, and Pew's 37% of US adults is the independent check. The two are not in conflict so much as measuring different things: one asks adults, the other counts whoever TikTok counts.

LinkedIn statistics, plus Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and Nextdoor by their own counts

LinkedIn's newsroom lists more than 1.3 billion members, 290 million or more of them in North America, and about 8,200 job applications submitted every minute. It also lists $19.8 billion in annual revenue and 12% revenue growth in the quarter Microsoft calls Q4 of fiscal 2026. Members are registered accounts, not daily users.

B2B marketers weighing LinkedIn should read its member count as reach, not attention, and test it against the buyers they actually sell to; our B2B marketing guide and the B2B marketing statistics page cover that side.

What businesses report doing on social, in surveys from companies that sell marketing

Business use surveys come almost entirely from companies that sell marketing software or services. That does not make them wrong. It makes their samples their own customers and prospects, and their conclusions predictable.

LocaliQ, a marketing services company, surveyed over 300 small business owners for its 2026 report. Among those using social media, more than 90% use Facebook, 74% Instagram, 48% LinkedIn, 22% TikTok (down from 34%), 16% Pinterest and 3% Snapchat. Two thirds use unpaid social and 56% run social ads, and 47% plan to spend more on social advertising in 2026. Our small business statistics page covers the rest of that survey.

HubSpot's 2026 social media report, from more than 1,100 social media professionals, says 59% of teams name brand awareness their top goal and 94% of social marketers use AI in some way. One caution: a later passage on the same page puts brand awareness as a primary goal at 29%. Sprout Social's Q2 2026 Pulse Survey, run by Glimpse among 2,250 social media users in the US, UK and Australia in May 2026, found 30% search social for product reviews and 38% search it most for restaurants and things to do. Our article on social media SEO for local businesses covers what that searching means for being found.

The company that sells the scheduling tool has found that businesses need to schedule more.

How to read these numbers when the platform is grading itself

1. 1

   Find the definition

   Meta counts daily active people, Reddit daily active uniques, Nextdoor platform weekly active users, LinkedIn members. Reddit's release spells out its definition. Never add one company's number to another's.

2. 2

   Check the geography

   Most company figures are worldwide. Pew's are US adults. Snap's global growth and North American decline came out of the same release.

3. 3

   Separate filed from announced

   Revenue in an SEC filing has accountants behind it. A newsroom line such as 200 million Americans has a press office behind it.

4. 4

   Ask who paid for the survey

   LocaliQ, HubSpot and Sprout Social sell marketing services or software. Their panels are often small, sometimes international, and rarely random.

5. 5

   Watch for the internal contradiction

   When one report gives 59% and 29% for nearly the same question, quote neither without the wording.

6. 6

   Date everything

   These counts move every quarter. A 2023 user figure in a 2026 deck is a historical note, not a statistic.

Our marketing statistics hub has the general checklist for judging any figure; this one is specific to platforms reporting on themselves.

From national counts to your own feed

Billions of users is a reason to be on a platform, not a forecast of what it will do for you. Your own numbers are closer to hand. Google Analytics separates Organic Social from Paid Social, each platform's insights panel shows reach and clicks, and a simple question on every intake form, how did you hear about us, settles more arguments than any survey. If calls and form fills are not tracked yet, our conversion tracking setup work starts there.

When you want social planned beside search, reviews and email rather than in a silo, our online marketing strategy work answers where it fits. DataCram's local marketing plans start at $500 a month with a defined scope and no long contract. The free local visibility check shows where you appear in Google search and maps for your customers' terms, which is usually where a follower goes when they are finally ready to call.