Clearly, with such a high percentage of the country signed up, there is a good spread across all demographics. Different platforms do, however, attract a different type of person and it’s important, as a brand, to understand where your community gathers.
We will start at the beginning by taking a quick look at the overall picture of social media usage in the UK, prior to diving deeper into individual platforms and key trends:
80% of users are actively engaged with or contributed to social media in the past month
The average user spends 2hr36m on social media each day
The average user has 6.3 social media accounts
13% of those on social media use it for work purposes
Using Talkwalker’s Quick Search, we are able to take a deeper look into the social media stats in the UK related to demographics.
As is to be expected, the vast majority of UK social media users are between the ages of 18-34 - with this age bracket accounting for 76.5% of total users. However, it is interesting to observe a significant change in the distribution after COVID-19: + 5 percentage points compared to 2019.
The gender mix shows a majority of users identifying as she/her in the past year with a proportion of 51%.
Of course, it is to be expected that English would dominate UK social media, but it’s interesting to see the other languages included in the Top 10 - surprisingly, Turkish and Japanese are in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.
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Taking the UK’s three most popular social media platforms, we will now take a look at some of the most popular posts of 2022.
According to YouGov, Facebook comes out on top as the most popular social media platform in the UK; Instagram, comes in a close second, followed by Twitter. But when it comes to popularity, the three giants all fall short, leaving the top spot to Apple owned iMessage.
This is the list when you consider all users, but of course it does vary based on demographics - with the likes of LinkedIn and Pinterest also making the top 3 within certain groups (women, baby boomers).
67.2% of UK internet users are on Facebook
There are 46.5m active monthly users
Average engagement rate for a post is 1.01%, with 0.81% for photos, and 0.61% for videos
Sports dominate on the world’s largest social media platform, with three footballers taking up the top three spots. In fact, there are a total of six football players in the top 10.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo
2. Lionel Messi
3. Mohamed Salah
4. Lee Minho
5. Karim Benzema
6. Black Pink
7. Gareth Bale
8. M-TP
9. Vinicius Jr
10. Britney Spears
Top Facebook influencers in the UK (2022)
Source: Talkwalker Quick Search
There are 36.4m Instagram users in the UK (+11.7m vs 2019)
This puts the country in 9th position globally (Statista)
55.4% of UK Instagram users are female (Statista)
The sporting theme continues with the strong presence of football: Cristiana Ronaldo topping the list and Lionel Messi appearing 3 times in the top 10 posts.
The below rankings is based on quality audience and authentic engagement from users within the UK.
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36% of people aged 13+ can be reached with adverts on Twitter (The Social Sheperd)
It’s the 8th most popular mobile app in terms of active users (Forbes)
The UK comes 6th globally for the number of Twitter users (Statista)
The list of the most engaged Tweets provides a clear illustration of how different the platform is from Facebook.
Although there are footballers and celebrities within the top influencers on the platform, the most engaged posts tend to result from a more organic virality - as opposed to being reliant on the number of followers a specific account has.
1. @hwardcowan
That's definitely something a haunted chair would say.. pic.twitter.com/YPeblZtYu7
— Heather Cowan she/her (@hwardcowan) June 1, 2022
2. @Harry_Styles
Harry’s House. May 20th. pic.twitter.com/gvNJsccEz5
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) March 23, 2022
3. @BrunswickPkTRA
As the weather heats up we're grateful for our trees! pic.twitter.com/6YnrIiTn9J
— Brunswick Park Residents' Association (@BrunswickPkTRA) June 16, 2022
4. @nikki_mcmullen
I decided to try my hand at embroidery, practicing on my least favourite pair of jeans in case it went terribly. But now that I’ve finished, I think I might have a new favourite pair pic.twitter.com/dRJQOEV0AL
— Nikki McMullen (@nikki_mcmullen) April 2, 2022
5. @IFPI_org
This is the moment @BTS_twt’s RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook received their trophy for this year’s #IFPIGlobalArtistChart, officially the winners of 2021’s IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year Award! ✨ pic.twitter.com/s8EiFvcy8P
— IFPI (@IFPI_org) February 24, 2022
TikTok also presents different results from Facebook. The list of the most influential creators are not household brands or celebrities. Very much like Twitter, success on the social media platform is always due to organic virality with social media users going from nothing to international fame in a heartbeat.
As is apparent from the above results, the type of people, brands, and posts that gain traction vary from platform to platform. It is, therefore, imperative to ensure that you are strategising per platform and communicating to each segment of your audience where they are and in a tone that they are receptive to. Book a free demo with our team to turn on your consumer intelligence and get up-to-the-minute insights on your audience!