The social media landscape continues to evolve at a breathtaking pace, reshaping how we connect, share, and consume content. Let’s explore the key findings from the Social Media Report 2025, breaking down each major aspect of this transformative digital ecosystem.
Grab your Social Media Report 2025 at the bottom of this article to get the full overview of all major networks!
Social Media Report: A Deep Dive into the Latest Trends and Statistics on Global Social Media Usage in 2025
The numbers are staggering: 5.5 billion people now use the internet, and 5.24 billion are active social media users, representing approximately 64% of the world’s population. This massive user base continues to grow, with 282 million new users joining social platforms in the past year—that’s 8.9 new users every second!
What’s particularly interesting is how deeply social media has become integrated into our daily lives. Users spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes per day across social platforms, engaging with an average of 8 different social networks. This multi-platform approach reflects how users are increasingly sophisticated in their social media usage, choosing different platforms for specific purposes and types of content.
But how are these users distributed across the different social networks? And how do monthly active users in social media inform your marketing strategy? Let’s shed some light on it!
Demographics: Who’s Using Social Media?
The generational breakdown of social media users reveals interesting patterns:
- Gen Z (11-24): Making up 28% of users, this digital-native generation shows the highest engagement rates with video-focused platforms
- Millennials (25-40): The largest group at 37%, they tend to use a mix of professional and personal social networks
- Gen X (41-56): Representing 25% of users, showing strong presence on Facebook and LinkedIn
- Baby Boomers (57-75): At 10%, they’re increasingly active, particularly on Facebook and YouTube
Gender distribution worldwide is almost balanced with 53.6% male and 46.4% female users, but these numbers can vary significantly by platform, with some showing notable imbalances, for example:
- Pinterest: 70% female users
- Reddit: 65% male users
- LinkedIn: Shows a more balanced distribution with 57% male, 43% female
Motivations for Using Social Media
Social Media platforms have transformed how people communicate, connect, and consume information According to the Datareportal Report 2025 and Statusbrew, there are various reasons, why peopleuse social media platforms:
- Connecting with Friends and Family: 72% of Facebook users primarily use the platform to connect with friends and family.
- Professional Networking: Over 45% of social media users aged 35 to 44 use social media for professional activities.
- Accessing News: Over 30% of adults access news from Facebook.
- Product Research: Over 40% of internet users utilize social media for researching products.
- Following and Researching Brands: 54.3% of users follow and research brands on Facebook, and 59% have actively reached out to brands through the platform.
- Entertainment: People spend an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes per day on social media, which accounts for approximately 14% of their waking lives.
Social media is increasingly evolving into a search engine for information and products. Platforms like YouTube are primarily used for finding information and tutorials, while Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are becoming go-to sources for brand and product research.
Monthly Active Users 2025: Who is Leading the Race?
If you look at the current monthly active users in social media, nearly all major social media networks have seen a rise in monthly active users in 2025, with Facebook even crossing the 3 billion mark (and securing its position as the world’s favorite social media network).
Platform Evolution
- Facebook remains the global leader with 3.15 billion monthly active users
- YouTube holds strong at 2.5 billion users, dominating video content
- Instagram reaches 2 billion users, emphasizing visual storytelling
- TikTok continues its meteoric rise with 1.58 billion users
What Are Monthly Active Users?
Monthly active users (MAU) are those who engage with a social network within a period of 30 days. It is a key performance indicator (KPI) for software, websites, or apps that measures engagement. These numbers provide insights into user interaction as well as indicators of growth and retention.
The specific actions that are tracked may vary but they usually mean ones such as logging in, viewing content, interacting with posts, completing transactions, or following links. Such interactions are important metrics that track user engagement and interest in the service, showing effectiveness, audience behavior, and popularity.
The number of monthly active users is also a better-guiding aspect than the number of daily active users as it provides a more consistent insight into user activity over a longer period of time. This helps determine long-term strategies, user retention, and growth.
Ultimately, they help businesses and/or developers with improvements, optimization, and marketing strategies.
Why Understanding MAU Matters for Businesses
But why should businesses and marketers care about MAU?
You may think that MAU don’t really matter much for your social media strategy. After all, everyone knows Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are huge.
As already mentioned, to determine monthly active users, social media networks track the users’ engagement with the platform, usually explicit interaction with its content rather than a simple log in. By understanding MAU data, you can identify the largest audience reach, user retention, and growth. This helps you determine and finetune your social media activities.
It’s also helpful in tracking emerging platforms to decide whether or not they have potential for your business.
However, MAU is one of many metrics you should track to determine whether or not the network is the right fit for you. Keep an eye on age and gender demographics as well. Consider user behavior and their top reasons for using a social network. These metrics will help you to optimize your targeting and maximize your reach, growth, and engagement.
Platform-Specific Deep Dive
Facebook: Still the Global Giant
Despite predictions of its decline, Facebook maintains its position as the world’s largest social network with 3.15 billion monthly active users.
Key insights:
- 60% of time spent on Facebook is dedicated to video content
- Users spend 30-40 minutes daily on the platform
- The platform sees highest engagement in the 25-34 age bracket
- Growth rate has stabilized at 1.4% annually
YouTube: The Video Kingdom
With 2.7 billion monthly active users, YouTube continues to dominate video content:
- Users watch 1 billion hours of content daily
- 95% of internet users also use YouTube
- The platform receives 113 billion monthly visits
- YouTube Shorts has amassed 2 billion logged-in viewers monthly
Instagram: Visual Storytelling Leader
At 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram has cemented its position as a crucial platform for visual content:
- 98% of usage occurs on mobile devices
- Users spend 30-40 minutes daily on the platform
- Stories with link stickers drive significant traffic
- Reels now account for 50% of time spent on the platform
TikTok: The Rapid Riser
With 1.58 billion monthly active users, TikTok continues its impressive growth:
- Users spend 60-90 minutes daily on the platform
- 90% of users seek entertaining content
- 75% use it for brand discovery
- The platform saw 93.4% user growth between 2020-2024
Emerging Platforms to Watch
As users explore alternatives to traditional platforms like X (Twitter), emerging networks offer new approaches to social networking, emphasizing user empowerment and community building.
Threads
Meta’s text-based platform has reached 320 million monthly active users, showing promising engagement metrics:
- Higher engagement rates than Twitter for likes and comments
- Strong integration with Instagram’s ecosystem
- 500-character limit enabling more detailed discussions
- Rapid growth since its 2023 launch
Discord
With 230 million monthly active users, Discord has evolved beyond its gaming roots:
- Users spend 4.6 hours monthly on the platform
- 4 billion messages exchanged daily
- Strong community-building features
- Extensive integration capabilities
Bluesky & Mastodon
These decentralized platforms are gaining traction:
- Bluesky: 27 million users, with strong appeal to younger demographics
- Mastodon: 15 million users, focusing on user autonomy and privacy
- Both platforms emphasize user control and data ownership
Key Trends Shaping Social Media
- Video Dominance
- Short-form video (15 seconds to 3 minutes) leads engagement
- Video features are primary growth drivers across platforms
- Mobile-first video consumption continues to rise
- Niche Communities
- Specialized networks are gaining popularity
- Users seek more meaningful connections
- Platform-specific communities are thriving
- AI Integration
- Automated content generation is becoming mainstream
- AI-powered recommendation systems enhance user experience
- Content moderation increasingly relies on AI
Looking Ahead
As we move through 2025, several trends are worth watching:
- The continued rise of short-form video content
- Growing emphasis on privacy and data control
- Increasing integration of AI and automation
- Evolution of social commerce
- Focus on authentic, community-driven engagement
The social media landscape of 2025 reflects a mature ecosystem that continues to innovate while maintaining its central role in modern digital life. Success on social media now requires a sophisticated, multi-platform approach that acknowledges both the universal trends and the unique characteristics of each platform.
Understanding these patterns and trends is crucial for anyone looking to maintain or grow their presence on social media, whether for personal branding, business marketing, or community building. The key is to stay adaptable and responsive to the ever-evolving social media landscape while maintaining authentic and meaningful engagement with your audience.
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Get the Social Media Report with Monthly Active Users for free!
Are you curious to gain insights into this year’s MAU? Grab your Social Media Report 2024: Monthly Active Users down below and step up your social media game now!
Melanie Tamblé is co-founder and co-CEO of Adenion GmbH. She is an experienced expert in content marketing and social media.
Adenion GmbH specializes in online services and tools for bloggers, businesses and agencies of any size to support their online marketing and content seeding tasks on the web.
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