A lot has changed for social platforms over the last few years, and the trend is clearly visible when looking at downloads.
I rounded up the most popular names in social media and plotted their downloads over time going all the way back to 2018 to give you an idea of how the entire segment is performing.
Adding up the downloads of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, the trend is positive. Between January of 2018 and October of 2022, monthly downloads for the group are up 50%. In more absolute terms, downloads have gone from around 14 million to more than 20 million.
That means demand for social media is on the rise, which makes sense. But when we look at individual trends we see a much different story.
Looking at growth for each app, it's clear there's one winner, and that's TikTok, which grew its downloads 368% since 2018. The most in the group, and by far.
Second place might be a bit of a surprise --Twitter. That's "thanks" to all the turbulence it's been going through recently. Twitter's growth was mostly flat for almost the entire four-year period, but ended October with a massive spike which nets out to 94% growth.
I'd ignore the spike if I thought it was temporary, but even though Twitter seems like a hot mess right now I do believe it'll normalize soon.
Instagram saw some growth, but compared to TikTok, its 11% is really nothing to brag about. At least it isn't negative like Facebook and Snapchat. Both saw downloads drop.
I have a feeling the trends we're seeing now, including TikTok continuing to grow, Instagram "existing", and Facebook slowly fading, will continue into 2023.
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