Social media trends 2024: Instagram is ahead, LinkedIn is growing strongly

More and more people are spending most of their internet time on social media. Instagram and Facebook account for the lion's share of this. In addition, LinkedIn in particular is becoming increasingly important for companies and marketers.

According to Hubspot, almost 5.5 billion people worldwide surf almost 1.1 billion active websites. However, almost all users, namely around five billion, spend the majority of their screen time on the relevant social media platforms. It is clear that younger people are increasingly accessing these platforms via mobile devices. In order to reach as many target groups as possible, responsive web design (RWD) is therefore becoming increasingly important. This is because it can automatically adapt to different image formats and device sizes thanks to web standards such as HTML5 and JavaScript.

 Plenty of exercise for the different age groups

Since 2019 at the latest, TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram have overtaken Facebook as the number one social network among the younger generations. As an advertising platform, however, Meta's flagship is still ahead for many companies. This is because they use it to reach the higher-income generations in Germany in particular. This is shown by Hubspot's new comprehensive market overview based on various surveys and studies.

According to the ARD and ZDF online study, Facebook was still slightly ahead of Instagram in the group of 30 to 49-year-olds in 2023, at 50 to 46 per cent. Among 50 to 69-year-olds and those aged 70 and over, it was even clearly ahead. TikTok and Snapchat hardly play a role in the latter two age groups.

 Permanently more influx since Corona

Since the coronavirus crisis, more and more people have been using social media to share information. This trend continues to this day. According to the Metawater Digital Report 2024, Facebook has slipped to third place after WhatsApp and Instagram among 16- to 64-year-olds. Although WhatsApp is less relevant to marketing as a communication platform, it is far ahead of Instagram (around 62 per cent) and Facebook (around 60 per cent) in the usage ranking at 84.7 per cent, according to the study.

 There is no way around LinkedIn

Unlike Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, LinkedIn is a pure B2B platform. As such, it can only compete in this ranking to a limited extent, but still reaches over 22 million people in the DACH region - and the trend has been rising for years. The platform is becoming increasingly important for marketers. The Meltwater Digital Report 2024 shows that adverts placed here can reach 21.6 per cent of the German population over the age of 18. Managers and recognised industry experts are particularly active on the platform.

New content formats such as videos and the popular LinkedIn events are what characterise the network today. For companies of all sizes, there is hardly any way around LinkedIn, whether to generate new business, communicate internally or externally or attract new employees. Worldwide, 67 million companies already have their own account on the network.

Analyses show that complete, regularly maintained profiles in particular generate continuous growth. Companies receive support from communication professionals such as Evernine. In detailed workshops, SMEs learn how they can realise the full potential of their LinkedIn presence in the B2B environment. Further information can be found here.