Nearly 70% of all U.S. adults use at least one social media site and each platform has a different purpose and offers advertisers different ways to engage with their audience.
Along with that, there are different user demographics for each platform. The same people aren’t on or as active across every social media network that’s available. Some age groups are more engaged in one platform while some levels of income are more active in another.
It’s important to know where to find each of these audiences to better optimize your ad campaigns. We’ve provided short blurbs for the social media usage statistics you should know below.
Related: How to pick an ad type for a paid social campaign
Facebook user demographics
Facebook is where users share with their friends what’s going on in their lives with status updates and photo albums. It also allows users to create and share videos and voice their opinions related to the media. Facebook offers various tools for advertisers making it easy to find your target audience and optimize your ads for them.
Instagram user demographics
Instagram is primarily used to share photos with friends and family. 53% of users also follow at least one brand on the platform to keep up with updates or trends. Instagram is part of Facebook’s ad network and offers a variety of ad units and audience tools to reach your target audience and cater to them as best as possible.
YouTube user demographics
YouTube has always been the leader for video advertising, seeing as their platform is entirely based around video. There are about 2 million video views on average per minute. That’s certainly a lot of video! What’s more, the platform has over 1 billion users and a variety of ad types to reach its audience.
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Twitter user demographics
Twitter is a much more fast-paced platform with users’ feeds constantly being reloaded with 140 character updates from the people they follow. Users spend about 2.7 minutes on the mobile app every day which means you have to grab their attention fast.
LinkedIn user demographics
LinkedIn isn’t just a platform for job listing or hunting. The platform generates 15 times more impressions on general content than job postings and is meant for professional use. This makes it seen by users as an escape from the personal content found frequently on Facebook.
Pinterest user demographics
Pinterest is one of the go-to platforms for users looking for inspiration and ready to get into action. People referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase on e-commerce than users of other networks.
Snapchat user demographics
Snapchat has seen changes in its demographics as the number of users over the age of 25 steadily increases. 60% of Snapchat’s daily users create images or videoswith the Snapchat camera in the 18 times users open the app each day.
Related: How to calculate ROI and ROAS on YouTube
Don’t focus only on social media demographics
While we’ve stated above the age groups and genders that are more active on each platform, it’s important to keep in mind that this doesn’t necessarily mean those are the only people seeing your ads. Advertisers should keep an eye on other metrics such as view rate, CTR and CPC to understand what audiences are engaging the most with ads in each platform.
In our recent data report on the YouTube generational divide, we discovered that the generation most often watching video ads through to completion is the generation that most advertisers are ignoring. This represents the potential that could be said for all platforms. There’s more to look into than just who is represented in this space.
Obviously, it’s a vital aspect to find your audience within each platform, but sometimes the place you’ll make more money is with the crowd that’s more likely to watch and pay attention to your ads, rather than the larger demographic of each social media platform.
The bottom line: pay attention to all of the data available to you, rather than just the data you want to work for your campaign.
Download our free data report now to get more insights on YouTube demographics and the topics that attract every major generation on the platform, including millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers.
