What Is The Future Of Social Media? Future Social Media Trends 2023

Many people may wonder what is really the future of social media. Is social media here to stay, or is it just a phase we are going through?

Worldwide the usage of social media continues to rise. This upward trend shows that social media’s future is bright and social media is here to stay for a while. More people worldwide are starting to sign onto social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. Tiktok is also an essential app as more people spend more time on TikTok than any other platform.

Future Of Social Media Data and Trends 2023
Watch TikTok’s Continued Growth 2023
What This Data Teaches Us About Social Media
Related Questions
- What Are Some Essential Resources to Manage Your Social Media?
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The world has also seen an increase in social media usage during 2020 and beyond. This increase shows that throughout 2021 and beyond, social media usage will continue. On Average, most people in the world have 8.4 different social media accounts.

Below are some statistics by HootSuite that show the 2021 Social Media Trends. I am quoting the data from 2020 data from Hootsuite’s Annual Digital and Social Media Report 2021. You are welcome to download a free copy of their digital and social media report by clicking here.

4.2 billion people, or about 53.6% of the world’s population, are using some form of social media.
Social media usage has increased by 13.2%, accounting for 490 million more people getting on social media in 2020.
4.15 million, or about 98.8% of all social media users, will use their mobile phones to check their social media accounts.
People over age 65 are the fastest-growing audience on Facebook.
Female Facebook users between ages 55-64 post on average ten times per month.
In 2021 more people will turn to digital channels to discover brands and products. This means that brands and products need to look at social media to get their message across.
Close to 45% of all Internet users will go on social media to research products or services. Many Generation Z users are more likely to search about social media brands instead of search engines or media.
8.1% of all Internet users will visit or use their social media accounts at least once a month.
90.2% of internet users will actively engage or post something over the past month.
The average time spent on social media is 2 hours and 25 minutes per day.
Today a person has an average of 8.4 different social media accounts.
Over 40.4% of social media users will also use their social media for work purposes.
Breakdown by gender, age, and amount of average time spent on social media each day:
- 16 -24-year-olds:
  - Female – 3:14 hours
  - Males – 2:39 hours
- 25 – 34-year-olds
  - Female – 2:45 hours
  - Males – 2:29 hours
- 35 – 44 years old
  - Females – 2:20 hours
  - Males – 2:14 hours
- 45 -54 years olds
  - Females – 2:01 hours
  - Males – 1:47 hours
- 55 – 64 years old
  - Females – 1:35 hours
  - Males 1:21 hours
    - You will notice that, on average, females are on social media longer than males. With each age group, the amount of time per day on social media goes down.
The top 5 countries with the highest use of social media per population are:
- U.A.E – 99%
- South Korea – 89.3%
- Taiwan – 88.10%
- The Netherlands – 88%
- Malaysia – 86.0%
  - About 72.3% of the population in the United States uses social media.
The 5 top countries with the higher relative growth of social media. Relative increase is growth looking at the country’s population and size and the growth the social media has had in the country.
- Turkmenistan – +108.3% or +78,000 social media users
- South Sudan – +60.7%, or +170,000 social media users
- Tajikistan – +51.5% or +340,000 social media users
- Benin = +45.5% or + 500,000 social media users
- Uzbekistan – +43.8% or +1,400,000 social media users
  - The United States is not in the top relative growth category, probably because so much of the U.S. population is already on social media.
Countries with the highest absolute growth or increase in the total number of social media users compared to the population.
- China – +110,000,000 social media users, or +12.9%
- India – +78,000,000 social media users, or +21.2%
- Philippines – +16,000,000 social media users, or 21.9%
- Mexico – +11,000,000 social media users, or 12.4%
- Brazil – +10,000,000 social media users, or +7.1%
  - The United States is tied in 5th place with Brazil and Indonesia. Indonesia had +10,000,000 social media users or +6.3%), and the United States also had +10,000,000 social media users or 4.3%
Top 5 countries with the highest average number of social media accounts:
- India – 11.4 social media accounts
- U.A.E – 10.7 social media accounts
- Indonesia – 10.5 social media accounts
- Saudi Arabia – 10.4 social media accounts
- Mexico – 10.2 social media accounts
  - The United States is below the world average with 7.1 accounts.
The top 5 worldwide social media platforms are:
- Facebook – 2,740,000,000 users
- YouTube – 2,291,000,000 users
- What’s App – 2,000,000,000 users
- FB Messenger – 1,300,000,000 users
- Instagram – 1,221,000,000 users
  - It is interesting to note that Facebook owns 4 out of the 5 top social media platforms (Facebook, Whats App, FB Messenger, and Instagram). The only one that Facebook does not own is YouTube, which Google owns.
Top 5 Social Media Mobile Apps and cumulative average time globally spent on each platform per month:
- Facebook – 19.5 hours per month
- What’s App – 19.4 hours per month
- Instagram – 10.3 hours per month
- TikTok – 13.3 hours per month
- Facebook Messenger – 2.7 hours per month
  - Even though Tik Tok is not in the top 5 social media and video platforms, people who watch Tik Tok spend a lot of time on Tik Tok.
Top 5 video streaming apps and the cumulative time spent globally on them each per month:
- YouTube – 23.2 hours per month
- MX Player – 7.6 hours per month
- Netflix – 7.0 hours per month
- Hotstar – 4.5 hours per month
- Amazon Prime Video – 3.7 hours per month
  - As you can see from this data, people spend much time on YouTube each month, far more than any other video streaming service.
The 5 top reasons why people around the world are on social media:
- Stay up-to-date on news and current events.
- Find funny or entertaining content.
- Fill up your spare time
- Stay in touch with what my friends are doing.
- Share photos or videos with others.

Facebook continues to be one of the top social media platforms in terms of growth, usage, and advertising reach. Here is some data about Facebook:

Top languages used with Facebook:
- English – 1,100,000,000 users or 50.4%
- Spanish – 340,000,000 users or 15.6%
- Hindi – 180,000,000 users or 8.2%
- Arabic – 160,000,000 users or 7.3%
- Indonesian – 150,000,000 users or 6.9%
- Portuguese – 150,000,000 users or 6.9%
  - The most common language for Facebook is English. The other languages are not even close to the use of English.
Top 5 countries with the most average Facebook post likes each month:
- Romania – 18 likes per month
- Belgium – 15 likes per month
- Denmark – 14 likes per month
- Ireland – 14 likes per month
- Italy, New Zealand, and Italy – 14 like each country per month
  - The United States has an average of 11 Facebook likes per month.
Top 5 countries that comment on a Facebook post, the average comments per person each month:
- Philippines – 12 comments per month
- Egypt – 11 comments per month
- Mexico – 9 comments per month
- Nigeria – 9 comments per month
- Thailand – 9 comments per month
  - The United States is just behind him, with an average of eight monthly comments per Facebook user.
Here are the top 5 Facebook pages (this is in terms of the number of followers and page likes)>
- Facebook App – 211,830,000 followers, 211,830,000 page likes
- Samsung – 161,150,000 followers, 161,150,000 page likes
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 146,290 followers, 124,410,000 page likes
- CGTN – 113,270,000 followers, 113,200,000 page likes
- Shakira – 108,730,000 followers, 99,160,000 page likes

Instagram is an essential social media platform; Instagram is consistently in the top 5 social media platforms worldwide and has about 1.22 billion users. Here is some data about Instagram:

The five most popular Instagram accounts in terms of followers are:
- @instagam – 38,220,000 followers
- @cristiano – 252,240,000 follower
- @arianagrande – 214,920,000 followers
- @TheRock – 210,000,000 followers
- @KyleJenner – 208,250,000 follower
The 10 top hashtags used on Instagram are:
- #love
- #instagood
- #fashion
- #photooftheday
- #art
- #beautiful
- #photography
- #picofday
- #follow
- #happy

YouTube is a major social media force. Over 2 billion people log into YouTube each month with over 1 billion hours of video viewed each day. 70% of those views are done on mobile devices. Here is some data about YouTube:

The 10 top search inquiries for YouTube are:
- Song
- Songs
- DJ
- Music
- Tik Tok
- Karaoke
- New Song
- Minecraft
- Cartoon
- Free Fire
The 5 most viewed YouTube videos of all time are:
- Pinkfong Kids’ Songs & Stories – Baby Shark Dance – 7,619,000,0000 views
- Luis Fong Featuring Daddy Yankee – Depacito – 7,148,000,000 views
- Ed Sheeran – Shape of You – 5,139,000,000 views
- Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth – See You Again – 4,904,000,000 views
- LooLoo Kids – Johnny Johnny Yes Papa – 4,537,000,000 views
The Top 5 Most Popular YouTube accounts are:
- T-Series – 167,000,000 subscribers, 138,420,000,000 views
- Pewdiepie – 108,000,000 subscribers, 26,774,000,000 views
- Cocomelon – 102,000,000 subscribers, 89,174,000,000 views
- Set India – 92,600,000 subscribers, 75,203,000,000 views
- Kids Diana Show – 72,300,000 subscribers, 48,618,000,000 views

Facebook Messenger is a popular communication platform; it has 1.05 billion users worldwide. Here is some information about Facebook Messenger:

Top 5 countries that advertisers can reach on Facebook Messenger:
- India – 140,000,000 reach, an increase of 13%
- Brazil – 77,000,000 reach, an increase of 43.9%
- Mexico – 66,000,000 reach, an increase of 65.5%
- Vietnam – 53,000,000 reach, an increase of 68.1%
- Philippines – 45,000,000 reaches, an increase of 55.0%

Watch TikTok’s Continued Growth 2023

Tiktok continues to be an essential social media app. A release of new data shown in 2022 shows the following:

People Spend A lot Of Time On Tiktok

New data shows that people spend more time on TikTok than any other app. Here is some data:

Users spend up to 95 minutes daily on Tiktok This makes it the number one app for people spending time on the platform.
Users are spending about 23.6 hours per month on TikTok.
Over 78% of internet users are using Tiktok to look at funny or entertaining content on the Tiktok app; this makes it the number one app for entertainment.
Since 2020 the interest in Tiktok on google searches has increased by 1,125%.

Tiktok Is Talking About Podcasts

Tiktok is talking about getting on the podcast platform and becoming a podcast provider. This shows how video and other types of visual content remain important for social media and all types of marketing.

TikTok Is Looking To Get Into ECommerce

There are signs that Tiktok may look to take on eCommerce giants like Amazon and get into the eCommerce market in the United States. There are rumors they are looking to buy warehouse space and take a more significant role in eCommerce.

As you review all this worldwide social media data, you can see that social media is clearly here to stay – at least for a while. Social media has become an integral part of most people’s lives. This is because it is a way to keep track of families, friends, and other loved ones, while at the same time being entertaining and helping you learn new information.

When you look at all this social media data, the one thing that is clear is the future of social media continues to be bright. This is because people have this need to want to connect across countries and borders.

Here are things we can learn from this social media data:

Social media is here to stay. In fact, the use of social media continues to increase.
Facebooks remain the most popular social media app globally.
People will use social media to keep in touch with family and friends, be entertained, and learn something new.
Worldwide the usage of social media will continue to increase.
Platforms like YouTube continue to gain popularity, even taking over the place of some more established players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
English is the primary language of almost all social media. This means people who do not speak English as a native language are learning English to participate more globally with social media.
Social media is in many ways “boundaryless” There are no boundaries as to where your posts or social media can go – it will literally go around the world.
Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram continue to be major players for social media worldwide usage.

Adobe Spark, Hootsuite, and Tailwind are essential resources that can help you manage your social media postings. Adobe Spark helps build and design great-looking content. Hootsuite helps pre-schedule posts to be active on social media without having to be on it all the time. Tailwinds enable us to post our pins on Pinterest.

You can learn more by reading Essential Resources to Manage Your Social Media by clicking here.

Adobe Spark is a very user-friendly program that allows you to make amazing-looking graphics with just a few clicks of a button. It has many of the same great features and looks as other Adobe programs. Adobe Spark is straightforward to learn and has a free and paid version.

You can learn more by reading Why Use Adobe Spark for Your Social Media Graphics? by clicking here.