What does social media use look like worldwide?

Being based in the US, it's easy to stay in the American social media bubble, but from time to time I like to see what is going on in the global social media space. For companies that have the potential to work internationally, or already are international, keeping up with worldwide social media trends is absolutely essential.

Internet use worldwide continues to grow, according to Hootsuite and We are Social's "Digital in 2017" report, half of the world's population now has access to the internet. However, the percentage of internet users is still highest in North America and Europe (though East Asia has the most internet users, numerically). Following on the heels of greater Internet use, social media is also growing across the globe, and is now at 34%, or over 2.5 billion users. An interesting finding is that most people worldwide access social media through their mobile phones - a staggering 91%.

So what are the most popular social media channels? Some are names you might recognize readily, but others are more local. Perhaps unsurprisingly, messaging apps are among the most widely used social networking tools. According to Statisa, Facebook is first in active users worldwide (as of January 2017), followed by the messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The top 5 is rounded out by 2 Chinese messaging apps: QQ and WeChat. Worldwide, The Global Web Index found that the average internet user in 2016 has 7 social media accounts, up from just 2.5 in 2012.

Though the sheer number of social media users in China sometimes obscures other regional social media networks, there are may robust non-English social media networks that have taken root. Hootsuite has a nice roundup of some of the most popular social messaging apps and networks including VK in Russia, Tuenti in Spain and Line in Japan. Vincos looked at the use of social media networks worldwide, excluding messaging apps, to give a different picture of the most used social networks in each country. Here, Facebook appears more dominant worldwide, with notable exceptions being VK in Russia and QQ's social network Q Zone in China. LinkedIn and Instagram were also more popular than Facebook in parts of Africa.

To drill down even more specifically, I recently came across a great report for those interested in the non-profit sector. Non-Profit Tech for Good surveyed nonprofits across the globe about the internet and social media use. Do you make use of any non-US based social media networks? Does your organization?