Social networks, numbers and trends to know in 2021.

The latest report on social network usage, published by MediaMetrics, has just been released. Passion Media has analyzed the report in detail to bring you the most important information to remember.

Hello You,

Ah, social networks. Again, everywhere, always. Today, there are more than 49 million people in France, that is to say no less than 8 out of 10 French people, who use them on a daily basis. Social networks represent more than ⅔ of the time spent on the internet in 2020 (including messaging services). It’s the perfect time to talk about the latest study conducted by Médiamétrie and Netratings on the subject. Passion Media has analyzed the results to bring you only the best. Here we go! 

Facebook, still the leading social network

We would almost think that it has been forgotten, and yet : Facebook is still the most used social network in France. It has even experienced a slight increase in its audience with a 3% growth in the number of users. This makes a total of 45.2 million visitors each month on the platform. Then we find in the top 5 and in order of appearance: Instagram (16.3 million users in France), Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat. Yes, TikTok may be much talked about, but it has not yet joined the famous Big 5. 

The professional social network segment

The flagship social network is, unsurprisingly, Linkedin. It is the reference platform to develop your network, make your skills known and multiply business opportunities. Instagram and Pinterest are also used for professional purposes but to a lesser extent or from a different angle. Finally, there is a little last one that could have emerged and that has been the subject of much ink lately: Clubhouse. It was positioned on a new trend that made the whole startup world quiver: audio. A multitude of formats had been developed, influencers had started to emerge… And then finally, the growth stopped. Today, the social network is more discreet, but nothing excludes that it will soon come back to the forefront. 

Instant messengers still essential

Two essentials: Messenger and Whatsapp. The link between the two? They both belong to the Facebook group. As a reminder, Whatsapp was bought by Facebook in 2014 for the modest sum of 22 billion dollars. On these two platforms, the vast majority of exchanges are made via private discussion groups. With family, friends, colleagues, neighbors… In short, this is the format that appeals the most and adapts best to everyone’s needs. 

Gen Z and social networks

Focus on the 15-24 year old generation. According to the study, they spend more than half of their surfing time on social networks and instant messaging services. And surprise! They have a soft spot for Snapchat which represents more than 40% of this time. But this is obviously not the only network they use. On average, they are on 3.9 platforms (vs 2.9 before the COVID crisis). In other words? The latest episodes have encouraged this generation to connect more and build relationships online (if not in real life). 

TikTok is slowly but surely entering the scene

So where is TikTok, that social network that you never hear about? Gen Z spends 12 minutes more per day on average than last year. As for the audience, it has taken off and reached more than 11 million unique visitors on average over the year 2020. Finally, TikTok is diversifying and broadening its target audience. Historically known for dancing videos, the platform is beginning to be known for complementary universes: gastronomy, music, art, media. 

Fans, followers, subscribers ?

A quick reminder of the technical jargon of social networks. On Facebook, no change, we talk about fans. On Instagram and Twitter we talk about followers (or super-followers as we talked about here). For Youtube, it’s always the subscribers. On LinkedIn, it’s more vague. It can be a contact, a follower or a subscriber. And finally, we don’t talk about it much in general, but if the like is generalized on all platforms, on Strava (social network for sports), we talk about kudo.