Social Media Marketing Statistics Updated November 2026

Human Written & Fact Checked · Updated

100 US Social Media Marketing Statistics for 2026

Your US social strategy needs more than a national platform ranking. Adults who have ever used a service are a different audience from people who currently use it, and neither measure identifies the platform they choose most often.

This evidence hub separates adult audience reach, broader age-inclusive use, platform preference, advertising revenue and trust risks. Each observation retains its source population and period. The fraud section describes reports received by a US regulator; it is not an estimate of fraud prevalence among US residents.

Headline figures

  • 84% of US adults said they ever use YouTube in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 70% of US adults said they ever use Facebook in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 51% of US adults said they ever use Instagram in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 37% of US adults said they ever use TikTok in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 95% of US adults aged 18–29 said they ever use YouTube in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 65% of US adults aged 18–29 said they ever use TikTok in Pew's January–June 2026 survey. (Pew Research Center, Oct 2026)
  • 68% of Americans aged 12+ currently used Facebook in Edison's January 2026 survey. (Edison Research at SSRS, Mar 2026)
  • 42% of Americans aged 12+ currently used TikTok in Edison's January 2026 survey. (Edison Research at SSRS, Mar 2026)
  • 22% of US social-media users aged 12–34 named Instagram as their most-used platform in Edison's January 2026 survey. (Edison Research at SSRS, Mar 2026)
  • Social-media-origin fraud losses reported to the FTC totalled $2.1 billion in 2025. (Federal Trade Commission, Apr 2026)
  • US social-media advertising second-half revenue was $48.2 billion (H2 2024) in the historical comparison period. (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)
  • Social media was the contact method in 28% of fraud loss reports with a specified eligible contact method in 2025. (Federal Trade Commission, Apr 2026)

Which platforms reach American adults?

National reach is a starting point for targeting, not a promise that your next post will be seen. Age-specific use gives a more useful audience screen than a single national average.

What does adult platform reach actually measure?

Pew asks whether respondents ever use each service. That supports a broad audience-presence comparison, instead of a count of daily users or people available to receive advertising.

How does use differ across video and general social platforms?

In Pew's January–June 2026 survey, the percentages below measure ever-use within each adult age band. The estimates below describe the share of each age group using a platform; they are not the age composition of that platform's users.

How do professional and discussion platforms vary by age?

In Pew's January–June 2026 survey, professional and discussion platform ever-use also differs by adult age. A lower national reach can still support a focused audience strategy, but the survey does not measure buying intent or response to a particular campaign.

How does usage look when teenagers are included?

Changing the population changes the benchmark. Keep Edison's age-inclusive results separate from Pew's adult estimates instead of averaging them into a synthetic national figure.

Which services are currently used in the age-inclusive survey?

Edison's January 2026 current-use question covers Americans aged twelve and older. These data provide a separate perspective on platform presence, including services that are not asked about in the latest Pew platform table.

How does YouTube use change with the recall window?

YouTube is measured separately with ever-use, monthly and weekly questions. Shorter recall windows identify more recent activity; none of these measures tells you how long someone watched or whether they saw advertising. The study uses a weighted national online sample, combining a probability-based panel with a non-probability sample. Preserve that design alongside the age threshold when comparing it with another survey. Repeating the same platform name across reports does not make their questions or sampling frames interchangeable. For a media plan, choose the definition that matches the decision: audience presence, recent activity or stated preference. Then validate creative response and conversion against campaign data.

Which platforms do Americans use most often?

A platform can have broad reach without being a user's first choice. Preference by age helps distinguish occasional presence from the service people identify as their main social destination.

Which platforms are most often used by the full social audience?

Edison's January 2026 denominator here is US social-media users aged twelve and older, instead of everyone in the population. Respondents name a main platform, allowing a preference comparison that should remain separate from multi-platform current use. A main destination can guide a first distribution test, while secondary platforms may still matter for particular content formats or customer tasks.

What are younger users' main social destinations?

In Edison's January 2026 survey, US social-media users aged twelve to thirty-four reported the main-platform shares below. This can inform where to test an audience proposition, but it does not prove that every younger customer behaves like the survey average. The combined age band includes teenagers and adults, whose circumstances and commercial needs differ. Campaign planning should preserve that limitation instead of treating the result as a narrowly defined youth segment.

How do preferences differ among older social-media users?

Edison's January 2026 most-used-platform shares below cover US social-media users in each older age band. Treat each age band as a distinct denominator: a proportion within one group cannot be directly converted into a national user count without additional population estimates.

How large is the US social-advertising market?

Revenue growth measures money flowing to platforms, not the return earned by an individual advertiser. Use the market series to understand commercial scale while judging campaign economics from your own measured outcomes.

What does the latest annual revenue benchmark say?

  • US social-media advertising annual revenue was $117.7 billion (2025). (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)
  • US social-media advertising annual revenue growth was 32.6% (2025 vs2024). (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)

The IAB/PwC series measures advertising revenue earned in the US market. Its growth rate is a market outcome, not a forecast and not a measure of how much sales increased for advertisers. These are publisher-side market estimates assembled from company submissions and other information, instead of a census of every advertiser's results. Social revenue can rise because platforms deliver more impressions, charge different prices, attract new buyers or change their inventory mix. The report does not isolate those mechanisms for an individual campaign. Budgets should therefore be evaluated using comparable attribution windows, audience definitions and business outcomes, instead of increased merely because the market itself is growing.

How is social-advertising revenue split across the year?

  • US social-media advertising first-half revenue was $52.9 billion (H1 2025). (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)
  • US social-media advertising second-half revenue was $64.9 billion (H2 2025). (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)
  • US social-media advertising first-half revenue was $40.5 billion (H1 2024). (IAB / PwC, Apr 2026)

Half-year figures help compare spending periods on the same basis. Their rounded components may not add exactly to the separately rounded annual headline, so retain the source's published total. The half-year split is useful when evaluating seasonality and planning comparable budget periods. A stronger second half does not establish whether holiday demand, platform pricing or a change in advertiser composition drove the increase. Nor should a half-year total be compared directly with a quarterly platform filing. Keep the market definition and reporting window consistent, and retain the original rounded units when sharing these figures. For campaign planning, compare equivalent periods and separate market-wide spending patterns from the results your own customers generate.

What do fraud reports reveal about trust risks?

Scam reports show why social commerce needs credible identity and clear customer support. They describe losses reported to the regulator, not the likelihood that an average platform user will encounter fraud.

How have reported social-origin losses developed?

The FTC series records reported losses linked to social-media contact. Underreporting, changes in reporting and the government shutdown affect interpretation; the figures are not an audited total of all losses.

How does social contact feature in loss reports by age?

The following 2025 shares use FTC loss reports that specify an eligible contact method. They exclude unspecified and write-in other contact methods and do not measure the percentage of people in each age group who were defrauded.

Glossary

Methodology and sources

Every figure on this page comes from the organisation that produced it: regulators, statistics offices, public bodies, research institutes, and companies reporting their own data or surveys. Each one links to the original report or dataset and carries its release date. Survey results keep their population and fieldwork period, and financial figures keep the measure the producer used. Figures from different producers are not added together or ranked against each other. The page is reviewed monthly and updated when a producer releases newer data.