I’m fond of using the analogy of icebergs when it comes to UK social media stats.

Stare at them and dare them to move and not much happens but look at a snap shot year-on-year and you’ll see changes.

So it goes with YouGov’s data which I’ve mixed here with some Ofcom data for a couple of platforms – Nextdoor and WhatsApp – which YouGov’s data doesn’t include.

The stats are here…

You can find a 1080 version of the slide here.

In plain terms, Facebook leads with 46.1 million users or in other words an astonishing 70 per cent of the population.

In second place is Instagram with 40 million users or 26 per cent of the population while in third is WhatsApp (45 per cent), YouTube is 25 million (39 per cent) and Twitter 20 million (17 per cent).

Reading further down the list is LinkedIn with 17 million users (11 per cent), Snapchat 10 million, (16), TikTok 9 million (14), Pinterest 9 million (14), Reddit 6 million (4 per cent) and Nextdoor 4 million users (3 per cent).

What the numbers mean

The big number from the YouGov survey is that 86 per cent of the UK population use social media.

Beyond that, we see a landscape dominated by Meta with Facebook 1st, Instagram 2nd and WhatsApp in 3rd.

The YouGov numbers are striking by showing Instagram in second place. Normally, Ofcom’s numbers give YouTube the largest social app with Facebook in second place. Here, Google’s video network is 4th.

Elsewhere, TikTok is making inroads but not as fast as some people may think. Snapchat is still strongly a thing. Often this takes people by surprise. Often those people are older than 24 and don’t use the platform. The fact they don’t may show why teenagers use it.

Reddit is an interesting one. US data say that globally there are 52 million users centred on the USA and most popular with late 20s.

It will be interesting to see Ofcom’s figures for this space later this year.

Original source – The Dan Slee Blog » LOCAL SOCIAL: Is it time for a Local localgovcamp?

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