The social media landscape in 2025

Social media (SM) has exploded around the world in the past 25 years, with the big platforms launching after 2000, eg: Reddit and YouTube in 2005; Twitter and Facebook in 2006; WhatsApp in 2009; Pinterest and Instagram in 2010; Snapchat in 2011; TikTok in 2016. The list of offerings continues to grow as the world’s population grows and the number of people going online escalates. However, jockeying for pole position and the competition for users’ time mean that platforms evolve, rise and fall and the SMM landscape continues to change. This article considers just a few of the key changes over the past few years, which may help editors to start thinking about social media marketing (SMM) as a marketing option.

The SMM landscape in 2025

There are now 5,24 billion SMM users in the world, with 206 million added in the last year. This is about 63,9% of the total population (28% in 2015), but 86,6% of people 18 and over, and 94,2% of internet users. However, growth is slowing, ie +19% in 2016 and +3,2% in 2025, because of the now high levels of adoption in many countries. Nevertheless, enormous numbers will continue to be added over the next decade.

Billions of social media users 2000-2025 (Source: author’s own construct using data extracted from DataReportal)

There are significant differences between countries in terms of SM users vs the total population, eg 78,7% in Northern Europe and 10,1% in Central Africa. Southern Africa is at the lower end (40,5%). Morocco has the highest percentage in Africa (55,5%), although this is still below the global average (63,9%). Next is Egypt (43,1%), then South Africa (41,5%), followed by Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. Eight of the lowest ten countries in the world are in Africa, including Eritrea, Niger, Central African Republic, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan. South Africa added 700 000 SM users in the year to January 2025 (+2,7%). (Please note, however, that the percentages are different for SM users as a percentage of the population 18 and older, eg South Africa is 59,5% and the worldwide average is 86,6%.)

User percentages in African, Asian and European countries and the world (Source: author’s own construct using data extracted from DataReportal)

The most popular platforms are Facebook, with 3,06 billion users, then YouTube (2,53 billion), Instagram and WhatsApp (2 billion each), and TikTok (1,59 billion). Pinterest has 537 million users. All have shown strong growth over the past ten years. In the year to January 2025 alone: Facebook added 93 million users (+4,3%); Instagram added 91 million users (5,5%); and YouTube added 40 million users (+1,6%). LinkedIn recorded the most growth (+17,1%), adding 176 million users. Pinterest added 32 million users (+10,6%).

Users on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest in 2015, 2020 and 2015 (Source: author’s own construct using data extracted from DataReportal)

The biggest share of web traffic to websites via clicks or taps (2025) is from Facebook (63,9%), followed by Instagram (13%), Pinterest (9,4%), X (6,96%) and YouTube (4,93%). The changing SM landscape is reflected in the decline in Facebook’s share from 85,98% in 2016 to 76,47% in 2021. However, country statistics show that in South Africa and Egypt, Facebook’s share is above the worldwide average (63,9% in 2025), ie 67,2% and 64,2%, respectively. The Facebook share in Nigeria, Morocco and Ghana is lower (54,2%, 48,34% and 34,82%).

Average time spent on SM is still growing steadily and is now 2.21 hours per day, compared to 2 h 8 min in 2015. The average amount of time spent on Facebook by users (Android phone) is 174 h17 min per month, with Egypt much higher, at 274 h 59min. South Africa is lower, at 154 h 49 min. Egypt also tops the list of the number of app sessions per user per month (536,2). The worldwide average is much lower at 280,2 and South Africa is just below that at 260,9. The average amount of time on Instagram by all users (Android phone) is 16 h 32 min per month. Turkey is much higher (32 h 36 min) and South Africa much lower (8 h 11 min).

Time spent per month on X, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Tiktok (Source: author’s own construct using data extracted from DataReportal)

SMM in South Africa

South Africa had 26,7 million SM users (41,5% of the population) as at January 2025, with the following breakdown:

So, what does this mean?

SM is part of people’s daily lives in the technology age and offers many SMM options. New apps and platforms will continue to launch, but the big ones have the market share. The biggest is Facebook, but YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp are chasing hard. TikTok is sprinting. The number of users in all regions in Africa will continue to grow rapidly. South Africans are not as fond of Instagram as many other countries, with Facebook, YouTube and TikTok occupying the top three spots (by user numbers) by a long way. But TikTok and Instagram are the growth stars.

People are spending significant amounts of time on SM, with countries in Africa showing higher figures than much of the rest of the world on certain platforms. The more time spent with media, the more opportunity there is to reach people.

Facebook is outperforming all other platforms in terms of driving traffic to websites via clicks or taps, but there has been a slow decline in its percentage share over the past 10 years. In South Africa, the Facebook share is higher than the worldwide average, but this may start to drop off as other platforms gain users and share of user time spent on SM.

References

DataReportal (2014) Digital 2014 October Global Statshot. Available at https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2014-global-digital-statshot-october-2014. Accessed 15 February 2025.

DataReportal (2020) Digital 2020 October Global Statshot. Available at https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-october-global-statshot. Accessed 17 March 2025.

DataReportal (2025) Digital 2025 Global Overview Report. Available at https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-global-overview-report. Accessed 17 March 2025.

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