09 Jan The State of Social Media in 2015

Instagram wins fastest growing, Facebook wins Most Engaged

New Data from the Pew Research Internet Project shows that Facebook is the most popular social media site and Instagram is the fastest growing and people are spending time on social media more than ever.

User base growth

In the United States, Instagram grew it’s user base by 9% in 2014, meaning Instagram now captures the attention of 26% of U.S. adults.

Compare that to some other heavy hitters in the space:

• Pinterest’s user base grew 7%
• Linkedin’s user base grew 6%
• Twitter’s user base grew 5%
• Facebook’s user base grew… well in the US it actually didn’t grow

Although Facebook’s userbase plateaued in 2014, many engagement metrics such as time on page have increased.  Infact, engagement on all major social media platforms has also been on the rise.

Engagement on Social Media

Facebook wins on overall engagement with 70% of users engaging with the site on a daily basis (7% growth from 2013).  That is engagement that competing social networks marvel at, with Instagram and Pinterest seeing 49% and 17% daily engagement respectively.

Of young adults (18-29 years old), 53% are on Instagram.  Just last month, Instagram released data that they surpassed Twitter in monthly active users, crossing the 300 million monthly active user milestone.

Below you can find the entire report by Pew Research.

Other social trends to keep an eye on are:

• Look for a friend request from your Granny: Half of all online adults 65 and older use Facebook
• One is not enough: Multi-Platform use grows from 42% (2013) to 52% (2014) with more and more adults showing activity on more than one social network
• The Linkedin Diploma: Linkedin breaches the 50% mark by reporting user accounts for over half of internet users with college education.

Dig into more social data here