Number of users of popular social media sites globally right now

Social media is growing these days, and almost everyone is on it, for whatever purposes. Here are the number of users of social media as of August 2015 compiled by Statista:

We see that Facebook is leading well beyond 1 billion users right now, with it’s Messenger following close behind at 700 million users.

Rival Twitter is at 360 million users, one reason could be the limit on the character count (140 characters to an update) does not attract many to use it as a marketing platform. It appeals to people who use it for personal use, businesses would rather use Facebook for marketing.

Whatsapp is steadily growing at 800 million users and we’re not surprised. With no ads popping up in the middle of your chats it has become the best social messenger this part of Africa, Europe and the Americas. WeChat is a similar app but has less users at 549 million users.  Social messenger Viber is also doing pretty well, now at 249 million

Facebook owned picture sharing app Instagram has about 300 million users. Here’s what could be a possible reason: it requires a higher volume of one’s data bundle. In areas where internet access is low or too expensive (which is a large part of the world!), data bundles would rather be used on less data consuming or even free-usage apps.

Business networking platform LinkedIn is at about 97 million users, connecting professionals around the world. It’s a very ‘serious‘ app and many don’t sign up as much because it may not seem ‘fun‘ which is what a traditional app should be. However,  in age where everyone is a startup entrepreneur or looking for new contacts, there is no better platform to connect on.