Globally, there are now 4.62 billion social media users and growing, up more than 10 percent year-on-year: 424 million additional users brought the total number of social media users to more than 58% of the world's population.

At least that's the conclusion of the “Digital 2022 Global Overview Report” from Hootsuite, provider of social media management and the creative agency We Are Social. The new annual report summarizes the most important global insights on digital trends and social media.


Not only the number of users is increasing. With an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes per day, people are also spending more time on social media than in the past year. Facebook is the most used social media platform globally, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp.


In Meta's advertising data, the importance of social commerce is becoming ever clearer. The company's latest figures show that more than 560 million Facebook users see ads in Marketplace every month. On Instagram, 187 million users view ads in the Shop tab. WhatsApp tops the rankings of the most popular social media platforms in the world. 15.7% of working-age internet users choose the Messenger app as their favorite social platform. Instagram has overtaken Facebook and is now second in the global rankings. 14.8% of global internet users name Instagram as their favorite platform, closely followed by Facebook with 14.5%.

TikTok's advertising target group also continues to grow at a rapid pace. Digital 2022 states that the platform's reach has increased by 7.3% (60 million users) in just the last 90 days. This increased the global reach of TikTok in the target group aged 18 and over to around 885 million.

Further important findings from the Digital 2022 report from the areas of social media, cryptocurrencies, internet, and e-commerce:

• Instagram's advertising reach has increased by 21% (more than 257 million users) last year. Ads on Instagram reach almost 1.5 billion users each month, with more than 1 billion users being reached through Instagram Stories alone.
• The number of people owning cryptocurrencies has increased by more than a third (+37.8%) since January 2021. More than one in ten internet users of working-age now owns a cryptocurrency. Thailand is the leader here, where more than two out of ten users own at least one cryptocurrency.
• E-commerce adoption, observed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to increase and shows no signs of slowing down. Almost six in ten working-age internet users (58.4%) now shop online every week and this number will continue to rise in 2022.
• Not even one in six Internet users of working age (17.3%) can identify with the advertising they consume – regardless of the medium. Older users feel particularly distanced from advertising: only one in nine internet users aged 55 to 64 says they recognize themselves in advertising.
• The report also underscores the role of social media advertising in the marketing mix: more than one in four internet users aged 16 to 64 (27.6%) say they discover new brands, products, and services via social media advertising.

By MediaBUZZ