Facebook sitting firmly on the SoMe throne – but for how long?

In our previous blog post, we wrote about how Google and Facebook control the app sphere. But not only are the two tech giants dominating the world of apps. Across both the US, UK and Nordics, Facebook and YouTube (owned by Google) are the top social media.

In all countries, Facebook’s reach in the online population is around 80%. However, it’s not only Facebook’s reach in the online population that emphasizes their dominance. When looking at how often the users visit Facebook, it becomes clear how integrated Facebook is in our daily lives. In the US, UK, Denmark, Sweden and Finland around 60% of the entire online population visit Facebook on a daily basis. And in Norway, there is an even greater loyalty to Facebook with almost three quarters of the online population visiting the social media every day.

Big differences across the countries

When looking beyond the dominance of Facebook, we see differences between the top social media in the different countries. In both the US and UK, the use of Twitter is much more widespread compared to the Nordics. And when comparing the different Nordic countries to each other, we see that each country has a social media in the top 3 that differs from the others.

Facebook challenged among the young people

While no other social media really come close to Facebook in terms of reach in the total online population, the story is different when looking isolated at the young people.

In the UK, Denmark and Sweden, Facebook is still the social media used by most among the 15-25 year olds (only marginally in the UK though), but in the US, Norway and Finland other social media have knocked Facebook off the social media throne. In the US, YouTube sits on the throne instead of Facebook, while this is the case for Snapchat in Norway and WhatsApp in Finland.

Even when taking account of how often the 15-25 year olds use these social media, Facebook is still surpassed. In the US, 64% of the young Americans use YouTube on a daily basis, while 56% are daily users of Facebook. In Norway, 90% of the young Norwegians use Snapchat on a daily basis, while 89% are daily users of Facebook. And in Finland, 81% of the young Finns use WhatsApp on a daily basis, while ‘only’ 65% are daily users of Facebook.

With these numbers clearly showing that Facebook is challenged by other social media among the young people, which recent research by eMarketer has also shown, the question is how long Facebook can maintain its position on the social media throne.

Get further insights

Download the study below, to learn learn more about the social media (and apps) usage in the US, UK and Nordics. Enjoy!