30+ UNBELIEVABLE Social Media Facts

Source: Wearesocial
Updated 3/13/2017
Social media plays a huge role in the lives of most people with Internet access. You are able to share your thoughts on any subject and share pictures of your day to day activities with family and friends. People are constantly checking their phones for the latest news and are able to access it instantly. Here are a few crazy social media facts from the biggest players in the game - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Social Media User Counts

Let's start with the largest Social Media Network and one of the most valuable companies in the world - Facebook. As of the 4th quarter of 2016, Facebook claims to have 1.86 Billion active users on Facebook and 600 Million active users on Instagram.

This means that roughly 1 in 4 people in the entire world have been active on their Facebook account in December 2016!
As you can see from the graph above, Facebook growth in the United States and Canada has slowed, but users in the rest of the world has continued to steadily grown.

Next on our list is Twitter - everyone's favorite 140 character method to contact anyone, give your opinion, or stay up to the instant with friends and family.
Twitter has seen exponential growth since it was founded in 2006 to mid 2014. Since then, growth has slowed tremendously and has had a minimal increase in monthly active users.

Next on the list is Snapchat - the instant photo sharing service that deletes pictures after viewing. In 2016 there were an estimated 301 million monthly active users. Techcrunch reports that there were 158 million daily active users on Snapchat.


YouTube is the most popular video platform on the Internet. It claims to have over 1 billion users who upload and watch an incredible amount of videos everyday. You can check out those stats down below in our YouTube social media facts section.
The final social media network is Pinterest. Pinterest allows users to "pin" and share their favorite websites, images, recipes, DIY activities, and much more. As of October 2016, Pinterest claimed to have 150 million monthly active users.

Social Media Facts

Facebook Facts
- Facebook is the 4th most valuable company in the world. As of this post it had a value of $405 Billion.
- If Facebook was a country, it would be the largest in the world, by far. It has more members than China and the United States combined! (weforum.org)
- The average number of friends a person has is 338. (pewresearch.org)
- There are over 100 Million hours of video watched a day on Facebook (Techcrunch)
- Fridays are the the best day for getting the most comments, likes, and shares

As of December 31, 2016 (Facebook):
- 1.23 billion daily active users
- 1.15 billion mobile daily active users
- Facebook had 17,048
Instagram Facts

- Instagram was purchased in 2012 by Facebook for $1 Billion in cash and stock
- 55% of US 18 to 29 year olds are Instagram users
- 80% of Instagram's users live outside of the United States
- There are 4.2 Billion likes per day
- Over 95 million pictures and videos are shared everyday
- It brought in an estimated $1.53 billion in revenue in 2016
- The most followed Instagram account is actually not a celebrity, it is the Instagram company account, which can be found here.
- 50% of Instagram users follow at least one business.
- The most followed business on Instagram is National Geographic with 72.1 Million followers.
- The most used emoji is the heart emoji.
Source for Instagram Facts - Adweek
Twitter Facts
- The first ever tweet was by Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006
just setting up my twttr
— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006
- Twitter purchased Periscope in March 2015 for $86 million
- Twitter went public on November 7, 2013 and was worth $31 billion at the end of the day. It is currently worth $11 billion.
- 44% of Twitter Users have never sent out a tweet (PC Mag)
- The average Twitter user has 208 followers (Telegraph)
- Roughly 8.5% of all users are bots (Quartz)
- The most retweeted tweet is this one from Ellen DeGeneres:
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
Snapchat Facts

- Snapchat went public on March 3, 2017 and is currently worth $24.3 Billion
- It was originally called Picaboo
- The average user spends 25 minutes per day on Snapchat
- Videos are viewed over 10 billion times per day
- 71% of Snapchat users are under the age of 34.
- 70% of Snapchat users are female (WSJ)
- 45% of users are between the ages of 18 and 24
- More than 400 million Snapchat stories are created each day
- More than 20,000 photos are shared every second.
- Over 1 billion snaps are sent everyday
YouTube Facts
- The first video on YouTube was titled "Me at the zoo" and uploaded April 23, 2005.
- 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
- If you decided you watch those 300 hours worth of videos, 5.4 million hours of video would be uploaded in that amount of time.
- Watching the 5.4 million hours of videos would take you 616 years. Have fun!
- 51 videos have over 1 billion views. Only 3 of those aren't music videos.
- Roughly 20% of people watching a video will leave within the first 10 seconds.
- The annual cost of running YouTube is $6.35 billion.
- Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in November 2006.
- The most subscribed channel on YouTube is PewDiePie and has over 54 million subscribers.
Pinterest Facts

- 85% of Pinterest users are female
- Men are the fastest growing demographic, with a 120% increase in signups
- 80 million users live outside of the United States
- The median age of a user is 40.
- Pinterest was valued at $11 Billion in 2015 (Venture Beat)
- There are over 75 billion ideas on Pinterest (Pinterest)
- The average number of pins by an active female user is 158
- The average time spent on Pinterest is 14.2 minutes (Mashable)
- Images without a face get repinned 23% more often than images with faces
- Pins with prices get 36% more likes
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