This briefing compiles verified social media marketing statistics covering user counts, time spent, platform demographics, marketer adoption and budgets, social commerce, and return on investment. It draws on probability-based survey data from Pew Research Center, platform-reported audience numbers aggregated by DataReportal, marketer survey data from The CMO Survey and Sprout Social, and commerce forecasts from EMARKETER and Statista. Where platform self-reported “user identities” and probability-survey results differ in method, the difference is stated so the numbers are not conflated.

Executive Summary

• Global social media user identities reached 5.24 billion in early 2025, equal to 63.9 percent of the world population, up 4.1 percent year over year (Source: DataReportal / We Are Social / Meltwater, Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, Feb 2025).
• The typical social media user spent 2 hours 21 minutes per day on social platforms as of February 2025, about 10 minutes lower than two years earlier (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025).
• In the United States, 84 percent of adults used YouTube and 71 percent used Facebook in 2025, the only two platforms above 70 percent (Source: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025, survey fielded Feb 5 to Jun 18, 2025).
• Half of US adults (50 percent) used Instagram in 2025, the only other platform reaching at least half the adult population (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).
• US marketers allocated 11.3 percent of marketing budgets to social media in spring 2025, down from 12.1 percent in fall 2024 (Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, 2025).
• US social commerce sales reached an estimated 71.62 billion dollars in 2024 and were forecast to grow 19.5 percent to 85.58 billion dollars in 2025 (Source: EMARKETER, US Social Commerce Forecast 2024).
• 56 percent of marketing leaders said social media drives revenue for their business in 2025, yet only 44 percent rated their teams as experts at measuring social’s business value (Source: Sprout Social, 2025 Impact of Social Media report).

Key Findings

• Global social media user identities stood at 5.24 billion in early 2025, equal to 63.9 percent of the total world population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, Feb 2025).
• Social media user identities grew by 206 million, or 4.1 percent, in the 12 months to early 2025 (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025).
• A total of 5.56 billion people used the internet at the start of 2025, a penetration rate of 67.9 percent of the global population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025).
• The average social media user accessed 6.83 different platforms per month in early 2025 (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025).
• The typical user spent 2 hours 21 minutes per day on social media in February 2025, down about 10 minutes over two years (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025).
• The United States held 253 million social media user identities in January 2025, equal to 73.0 percent of the population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025 United States, Jan 2025).
• 84 percent of US adults reported using YouTube in 2025, the most widely used platform (Source: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025).
• 71 percent of US adults used Facebook in 2025, the second most used platform (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).
• 37 percent of US adults used TikTok in 2025, up from 21 percent in 2021 (Source: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025).
• 80 percent of US adults aged 18 to 29 used Instagram in 2025, compared with 19 percent of adults aged 65 and older (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).
• Roughly half of US adults aged 18 to 29 used TikTok daily in 2025, against 5 percent of those aged 65 and older (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).
• US marketers reported social media at 11.3 percent of marketing budgets in spring 2025, projected to rise to 18.4 percent within five years (Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, 2025).
• US social commerce sales were an estimated 71.62 billion dollars in 2024, about 6 percent of all retail ecommerce sales (Source: EMARKETER, US Social Commerce Forecast 2024).
• 81 percent of consumers surveyed said social media prompts them to make spontaneous purchases multiple times a year (Source: Sprout Social, 2025 Sprout Social Index).
• 56 percent of marketing leaders said social media drives revenue in 2025 (Source: Sprout Social, 2025 Impact of Social Media report).

Global Reach and User Counts

Platform-reported audience figures, aggregated by DataReportal in partnership with We Are Social and Meltwater, measure “user identities” derived from advertising-reach tools. These count accounts and addressable audiences, not unique verified individuals, so they can overstate the true number of distinct people because one person may hold several accounts. They are the standard global benchmark but are not a probability survey.

Global social media user identities reached 5.24 billion in early 2025 (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). That figure equals 63.9 percent of the total world population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). The user base grew 4.1 percent, or 206 million identities, over the prior 12 months (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). Internet users numbered 5.56 billion at the start of 2025, a 67.9 percent penetration rate (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). In the United States, social media user identities reached 253 million in January 2025, or 73.0 percent of the population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025 United States, Jan 2025). The interpretation here is that social media adoption is now a majority behavior worldwide and approaching saturation in the United States, where growth comes mainly from time and platform mix rather than new users.

Time Spent and Engagement

Time-spent figures come from GWI survey panels reported through DataReportal and reflect self-reported daily use among working-age internet users. They are estimates and have shown a multi-year plateau, so they should not be presented as a rising trend.

The typical user spent 2 hours 21 minutes per day on social media in February 2025 (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). That daily average is about 10 minutes lower than the figure recorded two years earlier (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). The average user accessed 6.83 social platforms per month in early 2025 (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). Keeping in touch with friends and family was the top stated reason for using social media at 50.8 percent of users, while 50.0 percent cited learning about brands and products (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, Digital 2025, Feb 2025). The takeaway is that engagement has leveled off rather than continued to climb, and users now spread attention across nearly seven platforms, which fragments any single channel’s reach.

US Platform Demographics

The figures in this section come from Pew Research Center’s Americans’ Social Media Use 2025, a probability-based survey of 5,022 US adults fielded February 5 to June 18, 2025, using address-based sampling across web, mail, and phone. Because it is a probability survey of verified individuals, it measures the share of the adult population using each platform and is methodologically distinct from platform-reported user-identity counts above. The two should not be added together or directly compared.

84 percent of US adults used YouTube in 2025 (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 71 percent used Facebook (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 50 percent used Instagram, the only other platform at or above half the adult population (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 37 percent used Pinterest and 37 percent used TikTok (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 26 percent used Snapchat and 26 percent used Reddit (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 25 percent used LinkedIn and 21 percent used WhatsApp (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). 9 percent used Threads, 8 percent used X, and 3 percent used Bluesky (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). Among adults aged 18 to 29, 80 percent used Instagram, compared with 19 percent of adults aged 65 and older (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). About half of adults aged 18 to 29 used TikTok daily, against 5 percent of those aged 65 and older (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025). The pattern shows YouTube and Facebook as near-universal mass-reach channels, while Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat skew sharply toward younger adults, which has direct implications for audience targeting.

Marketer Adoption and Budgets

Marketer-budget data comes from The CMO Survey, run by Christine Moorman and sponsored by Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association. It surveys senior US marketers, so results reflect marketer self-reporting and stated intentions, and its multi-year projections have historically overshot actual spend.

Social media represented 11.3 percent of marketing budgets in spring 2025, down from 12.1 percent in fall 2024 (Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, 2025). Marketers projected social spending would rise to 13.3 percent over the next 12 months and 18.4 percent within five years (Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, 2025). Overall marketing budgets represented 9.4 percent of company revenues in 2025 (Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, 2025). The five-year projection should be read with caution: The CMO Survey itself notes that year-ahead social spending forecasts have repeatedly missed, so the long-range estimate is an aspiration rather than a reliable forecast.

Social Commerce

Social commerce figures come from EMARKETER for the US market and Statista for global estimates. Vendor forecasts for global social commerce vary widely because of differing definitions, so the global numbers carry substantial uncertainty and are presented as a range.

US social commerce sales were an estimated 71.62 billion dollars in 2024, about 6 percent of all US retail ecommerce sales (Source: EMARKETER, US Social Commerce Forecast 2024). US social commerce was forecast to grow 19.5 percent to 85.58 billion dollars in 2025, or 6.6 percent of ecommerce sales (Source: EMARKETER). US social commerce sales were projected to surpass 100 billion dollars in 2026, reaching about 100.99 billion dollars (Source: EMARKETER, US Social Commerce Sales Will Surpass 100 Billion in 2026). Globally, Statista reported social commerce revenue of 699 billion dollars in 2024 and forecast it to surpass one trillion dollars by 2028 (Source: Statista, Social Commerce topic, 2025). The signal is that social commerce is a fast-growing but still single-digit share of US ecommerce, with TikTok Shop driving recent US growth; longer-range global totals should be treated as estimates given wide forecast spreads.

Return on Investment

ROI and consumer-influence figures come from Sprout Social’s 2025 research, based on surveys of more than 4,000 consumers who follow at least five brands and over 1,200 marketers. These are opt-in survey panels of engaged social users and marketers, not the general population, so they indicate attitudes among an already-engaged audience rather than population-wide behavior.

56 percent of marketing leaders said social media drives revenue for their business in 2025 (Source: Sprout Social, 2025 Impact of Social Media report). Only 44 percent of marketing leaders rated their teams as experts at measuring social’s business value (Source: Sprout Social, 2025). 81 percent of consumers said social media prompts spontaneous purchases multiple times a year (Source: Sprout Social, 2025 Sprout Social Index). 90 percent of consumers said they use social media to keep up with trends and cultural moments (Source: Sprout Social, 2025). The reading is that marketers broadly believe social drives revenue while a majority still lack confidence in measuring it, which is the central tension in social media ROI today.

Original Synthesis

1. The US measurement gap index. Combining Sprout Social’s finding that 56 percent of marketing leaders say social drives revenue with the finding that only 44 percent feel expert at measuring its value yields a 12 percentage point belief-versus-confidence gap (56 minus 44). Inputs: Sprout Social 2025 Impact of Social Media report. Logic: subtract the share confident in measurement from the share asserting revenue impact. Limitation: both come from the same opt-in marketer panel, so the gap reflects sentiment, not audited financial outcomes.

2. Adoption-to-budget ratio. US social media adoption is broad, with Pew reporting 84 percent YouTube and 71 percent Facebook reach in 2025, yet The CMO Survey shows social at just 11.3 percent of marketing budgets in spring 2025. Dividing reach by budget share shows that even the most-used platform commands far more population reach than its proportional slice of spend, implying budget allocation lags audience presence. Inputs: Pew Research Center 2025; The CMO Survey 2025. Limitation: reach and budget share are different units, so this is a directional ratio, not a precise efficiency measure, and budgets also fund non-social high-cost channels.

3. Engagement-decline versus user-growth divergence. Global user identities grew 4.1 percent year over year to early 2025 while average daily time spent fell about 10 minutes over two years. Pairing these shows the medium is adding accounts faster than it is adding attention per user, meaning total available attention is growing more slowly than headline user counts suggest. Inputs: DataReportal Digital 2025 (user growth and time-spent, both via GWI/platform sources). Limitation: user identities and time-spent come from different measurement methods (ad-reach tools versus survey panels), so the divergence is indicative rather than exact.

Tables

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025, survey of 5,022 US adults fielded Feb 5 to Jun 18, 2025. Pew Research Center

Source: DataReportal, We Are Social and Meltwater, Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, Feb 2025; time-spent and platform-count via GWI. DataReportal

Source: EMARKETER, US Social Commerce Forecast 2024 and US Social Commerce Sales Will Surpass 100 Billion in 2026. EMARKETER

Source: The CMO Survey, 34th edition, Deloitte, Duke Fuqua, and the American Marketing Association, 2025. The CMO Survey

Charts to build

• US platform reach bar chart. Data needed: Pew 2025 percent-using by platform. Source: Pew Research Center 2025. Insight: YouTube and Facebook dominate while everything else trails Instagram. Citation-worthy because it is probability-survey data on verified individuals, the gold standard for US reach.
• Global users versus time-spent divergence. Data needed: year-over-year user growth and daily-minutes trend. Source: DataReportal Digital 2025. Insight: users rising while attention per user falls. Citation-worthy because it reframes the common growth narrative.
• US social commerce growth line. Data needed: 2024 to 2026 sales and share of ecommerce. Source: EMARKETER. Insight: social commerce crossing 100 billion dollars in 2026 but still under 8 percent of ecommerce. Citation-worthy as a quantified channel-maturity marker.
• Age skew by platform. Data needed: 18-29 versus 65+ usage for Instagram and TikTok. Source: Pew 2025. Insight: visual-first platforms are generational. Citation-worthy for targeting decisions.
• Marketer belief-versus-measurement gap. Data needed: 56 percent revenue-driver versus 44 percent measurement-expert. Source: Sprout Social 2025. Insight: the ROI confidence gap. Citation-worthy as a single, quotable tension.

Methodology

Sources were selected by priority: probability-based surveys and official aggregators first, then established market-research firms with disclosed methods, then trade research. Pew Research Center provides probability-survey data on US individuals and is treated as the authority for US adult reach. DataReportal, in partnership with We Are Social and Meltwater, aggregates platform-reported advertising-audience data and GWI survey panels for global figures. The CMO Survey and Sprout Social provide marketer and consumer survey data. EMARKETER and Statista provide commerce estimates. Inclusion required a numeric value, a stated period, a stated geography, and a traceable publisher. Where platform self-reported user identities and probability-survey percentages measured different things, both were kept but labeled distinctly and never combined. Conflicting global social commerce forecasts were handled by reporting the more conservative Statista figure and flagging the wide vendor spread. No derived insight was presented as a primary statistic; the three synthesis items are clearly labeled as calculations. Last updated June 2026.

Source Quality

Tier 1 (primary survey and official aggregation): Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 (probability survey of 5,022 US adults).

Tier 2 (credible market research and industry aggregators): DataReportal with We Are Social and Meltwater (Digital 2025, platform-reported and GWI data); The CMO Survey (Deloitte, Duke Fuqua, American Marketing Association); EMARKETER; Statista; Sprout Social; GWI.

Tier 3 (reputable trade and secondary commentary): Used only where they cite the primary sources above; no Tier 3 figure was relied on as an original source in this asset.

Most Quotable Statistics

• Global social media user identities reached 5.24 billion in early 2025, 63.9 percent of the world population (DataReportal, Digital 2025).
• 84 percent of US adults used YouTube and 71 percent used Facebook in 2025 (Pew Research Center, 2025).
• The typical user spent 2 hours 21 minutes per day on social media in February 2025, down about 10 minutes over two years (DataReportal citing GWI, 2025).
• US social commerce sales were forecast at 85.58 billion dollars in 2025, about 6.6 percent of ecommerce (EMARKETER).
• 56 percent of marketing leaders said social drives revenue, but only 44 percent felt expert at measuring it (Sprout Social, 2025).

Data Limitations

• Platform-reported “user identities” count accounts and addressable audiences, not unique verified people, and may overstate distinct users; they are not comparable to Pew’s probability-survey percentages.
• Time-spent figures are self-reported GWI estimates and have plateaued, so they should not be framed as rising.
• The CMO Survey reflects marketer intentions; its multi-year projections have repeatedly overshot actual spending.
• Global social commerce forecasts vary widely by vendor and definition; only a conservative figure is cited and longer-range totals are estimates.
• Sprout Social consumer and marketer figures come from opt-in panels of already-engaged users, not the general population.
• US adult-population figures from DataReportal (platform data) and Pew (survey data) use different bases and should not be merged.

Recommended Dataset Fields

• metric_name
• value
• unit (percent, billions USD, minutes, count)
• geography (global, US)
• period (year or survey window)
• source_publisher
• source_url
• method (probability survey, platform-reported, panel survey, forecast)
• tier (1, 2, 3)
• notes_or_caveats

Press Summary

As of early 2025, 5.24 billion social media user identities exist worldwide, equal to 63.9 percent of the global population, according to DataReportal’s Digital 2025 report with We Are Social and Meltwater. In the United States, Pew Research Center’s probability survey of 5,022 adults found YouTube used by 84 percent and Facebook by 71 percent in 2025, with Instagram the only other platform reaching half of adults. Daily social media time has plateaued at 2 hours 21 minutes. US marketers put 11.3 percent of budgets into social in spring 2025, slightly down year over year, per The CMO Survey. Social commerce keeps climbing, with EMARKETER forecasting 85.58 billion dollars in US sales in 2025. The persistent theme is a measurement gap: 56 percent of marketing leaders say social drives revenue, yet only 44 percent feel expert at proving it, according to Sprout Social. The data points to a mature, near-saturated channel where attention and measurement, not user growth, are the battleground.

Suggested Headlines

• 5.24 Billion and Counting: The 2026 State of Social Media Marketing in Data
• YouTube and Facebook Still Rule: What Pew’s 2025 Survey Reveals About US Social Use
• The ROI Gap: Why 56 Percent of Marketers Trust Social but Only 44 Percent Can Prove It
• Social Commerce Nears 100 Billion Dollars: The US Numbers Behind the Trend
• Users Up, Attention Down: The Quiet Plateau in Social Media Time Spent

FAQ

How many people use social media worldwide? There were 5.24 billion social media user identities globally in early 2025, equal to 63.9 percent of the world population (Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025).

What is the most-used social platform in the US? YouTube, used by 84 percent of US adults in 2025 (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).

How much time do people spend on social media per day? The typical user spent 2 hours 21 minutes per day in February 2025 (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, 2025).

What share of US adults uses Instagram? 50 percent of US adults used Instagram in 2025 (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).

How popular is TikTok in the US? 37 percent of US adults used TikTok in 2025, up from 21 percent in 2021 (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).

How much of marketing budgets goes to social media? US marketers reported 11.3 percent of marketing budgets on social in spring 2025 (Source: The CMO Survey, 2025).

How big is US social commerce? US social commerce sales were forecast at 85.58 billion dollars in 2025, about 6.6 percent of ecommerce (Source: EMARKETER).

Does social media drive revenue for businesses? 56 percent of marketing leaders said social drives revenue in 2025 (Source: Sprout Social, 2025).

How many platforms does the average user use? The average user accessed 6.83 social platforms per month in early 2025 (Source: DataReportal citing GWI, 2025).

How does social use vary by age in the US? 80 percent of US adults aged 18 to 29 used Instagram in 2025 versus 19 percent of those 65 and older (Source: Pew Research Center, 2025).

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