Overview of Popular Social Media Platforms 2022

1. 7 questions about social media platforms
2. Presentation of the most important social media platforms 2022
3. Conclusion on social media channels

Social Media – an achievement of modernity, digitalization, networking, and globalization. With the entry of Facebook into the German market in 2008, a rapid development has also begun here, which is still ongoing. According to Statista there were about 4.6 billion social media users worldwide in January 2022 – that's more than 50% of the entire world population and 400 million more than the previous year.

And usage is not exactly sporadic: On average, a German user spends 1 hour and 29 minutes a day on social networks using 5.3 accounts.

No wonder that almost all companies now rely on social media as part of their content marketing mix. Especially popular are LinkedIn for B2B and Facebook for B2C companies, as the Statista Content Marketing Trend Study 2022 has shown. But YouTube, Xing, Instagram, and Twitter are also being used diligently in the B2B sector to be visible to their own target group. The benefits of Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat, on the other hand, have been discovered by relatively few companies so far.

Why do some companies hesitate to get into Social Media Marketing when it works so successfully for others? I have this feeling that some companies simply don't know what each social network in Content Marketing is suitable for, which target groups are there and which rules of the game must be followed.

That's why we're taking a relaxed look in this article at what social media platforms there really are, what distinguishes them and how you best present yourself with your companies in the appropriate network.

7 questions about social media platforms

Before we dive in and take an in-depth look at nine of the most important social media channels, I'll answer the questions that most beginners are grappling with.

1. What are the most used social media platforms and how many users do the individual social media platforms have?

According to the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report by Hootsuite, Facebook is still the world's most used social medium with 2.91 billion users. It is followed by YouTube (approx. 2.56 billion), WhatsApp (2 billion), Instagram (1.48 billion) and Wechat (1.26 billion).

In Germany the ranking according to the Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report looks a bit different. The report determined what percentage of the population is active on which social media platforms. Here, WhatsApp (83.6%) is in 1st place, followed by Facebook (60.7%), Instagram (53.9%), Facebook Messenger für Unternehmen (35.6%) and Pinterest (29.4%). Further down the list are TikTok (25.8%), Twitter (22.1%), Telegram (20.3%), Skype (19.2%), Snapchat (19.1%), Xing (14.7%) and LinkedIn (14.6%). The last places are iMessage (13.7%), Discord (11.6%) and Signal(11.1%).

You can find more precise numbers on the users on the individual channels in the individual sections on the respective channel.

In comparison of 2021 to 2022, there are already noticeable changes if you look at the values of TikTok and Telegram, for example. YouTube also dropped out of the top 15 and other social media platforms like Discord and Signal made it in.

The most used social media platforms in Germany 2022 ( Source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report)

The most used social media platforms in Germany 2021 ( Source: Digital 2021 Germany Overview Report)

2. How many social media platforms are there?

There are no concrete numbers on how many social media platforms there are worldwide in total. This is due in part to the fact that some countries and regions have their own channels that are not known beyond their borders. On the other hand, there are also disagreements about what exactly is a social medium and what is not.

The Hootsuite report, for example, also counts short messaging services such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and Signal, while others do not. There is also disagreement about Pinterest: some people clearly classify Pinterest as social media, while others argue that it is a search engine.

3. How many companies are represented on social media networks?

In 2017, the digital association Bitkom commissioned a representative survey on the use of social media in companies. At that time, 73% of the companies stated that they rely on social media in their marketing mix.

Social Media Use by Companies, (Source: bitkom)

It is little surprising that these numbers have even increased meanwhile. The Statista Content Marketing Trend Study 2022 reports that 96% of all B2C companies surveyed and 97% of all B2B companies surveyed said they use social media channels for their content marketing to reach their target audience online.

4. Which social media channels are suitable for B2B and which for B2C social media marketing?

Statista has found out where companies currently prefer to do social media marketing and has clearly illustrated this in a diagram within the trend study on content marketing 2021.

Comparison of social media usage B2B and B2C (Source: Statista, Content Marketing Trend Study 2022)

As with almost all marketing activities, the fundamental question in social media marketing is who your target group is. B2B marketing is done a lot on LinkedIn and Xing, you can reach young end customers well via TikTok or Instagram. As a trade magazine, a profile on Twitter is worthwhile, as is advertising on Twitch for a video game development office.

You can find out more about the target groups on the individual channels if you read on.

5. How can companies use social media?

The different platforms are suitable for various purposes. On LinkedIn you can do employer branding well, on Twitter you can create brand awareness and exchange ideas with your customers, and on Pinterest you can generate traffic for your landing pages.

It is important that you always deal intensively with a network, look at what the competition is doing particularly well and above all are strategic and creative. The rest of the article is meant to be a support for you.

6. What tools can companies use to be successful on social media?

You don't have to make life unnecessarily hard for yourselves. With a few tools, working with social media becomes more pleasant and less time-consuming. At OMR Reviews we give you a good overview of Social Media Tools.

For example, there is Later, with which you can plan Social Media Posts in advance and have them published automatically. Or Canva (Pro) – the tool with which everyone can conjure up cool graphics and posts, without any graphic talent. With the Facebook Creator Studio you can plan, organize and analyze all your social media activities in the Facebook cosmos.

Here you get an overview of helpful social media tools:

Later

Canva Pro

Facebook Creator Studio

Hootsuite

Talkwalker

Emplifi

Facelift

Zoho Social

Falcon.io

SocialHub

influence.vision

With the planning tool Later you can plan your social media posts in advance

7. Are there any new social media platforms?

In 2021, a new social network suddenly appeared: Clubhouse. Thanks to a sophisticated marketing strategy (access only by invitation), there was a short-term hype about the audio social media platform. The principle: Passive listeners listen to experts in conversations; possibly they can ask questions via a chat or get permission to speak.

Although many experts and companies immediately started positioning themselves on Clubhouse, the medium has not yet managed to outperform other platforms in such a short time.

In 2022, the social media app BeReal. gained popularity. As the name suggests, the app is about posting real and authentic photos. And exactly when the BeReal app prompts its users once a day at an unspecified time to take a photo of their current situation and share it with friends. Users have two minutes to do this. This time shortage creates pictures of the current moment, which is supposed to ensure authenticity.

BeReal is mainly known in a private context and among the younger target group.

Presentation of the most important social media platforms 2022

Now we will give you a more detailed introduction to the different social media platforms.

1. Facebook

Facebook was the social medium that really started the hype in Germany in 2008. While Facebook was initially used only for networking private individuals, companies have increasingly discovered the platform for themselves. Nowadays, a feed largely consists of advertising, which fits in better or worse. Almost all established companies and brands are represented on Facebook and share news, snack content and insights.

Example: OMR Jobs on Facebook

Usage behavior and advertising potential on Facebook

Even in 2022, Facebook is still the most used social medium with 2.91 billion users worldwide. In Germany, 60.7% of Internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 used Facebook in December 2021 and 35.6% used the Facebook Messenger and were online for an average of 11.0 hours per month on Facebook. The potential of Facebook is still high: 25.75 million of the German population and thus 35.0% of those over the age of 13 can be reached with advertising via this social media channel. According to data from Facebook itself, the platform is used by 50.4% of men and 49.6% of women.

Facebook is used almost exclusively via mobile devices at 96.2%. 24.1% of German users access the network via both smartphones and desktop PCs or laptops. Only 3.8% use exclusively their laptop or PC, 72.1% on the other hand almost exclusively their smartphone.

Despite the large number of users, the willingness to interact on Facebook is rather low. According to Facebook, the average user likes just one Facebook page in his life. However, 6 likes and 2 comments are distributed on posts each month and one post is forwarded. Ads perform comparatively well: each user clicks on about 14 Facebook ads per month.

Companies on Facebook

According to Emplifi (formerly Socialbalers), companies from the following sectors perform best on Facebook:

• E-Commerce
• Retail
• Services
• Fashion
• Electronics

However, user engagement is decreasing in all age groups (source: Faktenkontor). Therefore, building up a valuable community from scratch is becoming increasingly difficult.

Overview of user numbers Facebook (Source: Faktenkontor)

2. Instagram

In the past, Instagram was simply a photo platform that was used like a digital photo album. But at least since the acquisition by Mark Zuckerberg, the social media platform is becoming more and more diverse. Especially videos are becoming more and more important and Reels have become a popular content format. How you can create Reels can be found here.

Usage behavior and advertising potential on Instagram

According to Statista and Futurebiz, Instagram was used worldwide by 1.48 billion and in Germany by 21 million users in 2021, and approximately 500 million users consumed the so-called Instagram Stories worldwide.

According to Facebook, 29.85 million people can be reached with advertisements on Instagram in Germany, which is almost a third of the German population. The advertising audience, which is 48.8% female and 51.2% male, can reach both genders almost equally well (Source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report).

While gender may be of less relevance on Instagram, age is all the more important. 14- to 29-year-olds are the best to reach, who use Instagram weekly at the majority (Source: ARD-ZDF Online Study). With increasing age, however, usage decreases: Only a quarter of those over 30 and just 9% of those over 50 are on the social media platform so regularly. Those over 70 hardly use Instagram at all.

Companies on Instagram

Instagram is seeing a steady increase in company profiles. Since June 2017, an additional 10 million company profiles have been created or converted from the accounts that existed up to that point. This is worth it according to Instagram, as 90% of Instagram users follow at least one company account. In addition, 2 out of 3 respondents stated that Instagram allows them to interact with brands and 2 out of 3 company profile visitors don't follow the respective company yet.

So it is hardly surprising that every second person is more interested in a brand when they have previously seen advertising from them. Especially with video formats, potentially new customers can be made aware of companies, because a third of the most viewed stories on Instagram come from brands and companies. (Sources: Futurebiz Instagram and Instagram Business)

Especially companies from the lifestyle sector, but also from the automotive and sports apparel industry, can record great success on Instagram. The international companies and brands with the most followers in 2020 are, after Instagram (> 330 mil.), National Geographic (> 130 mil.), Nike (> 100 mil.), Real Madrid (> 83 mil.) and FC Barcelona (< 82 mil.).

The German corporate accounts with the most followers are (source: KOM):

1. adidas Originals (> 37 million)
2. adidas Football (> 31 million)
3. BMW (> 25 million)
4. Mercedes Benz (> 25 million)
5. adidas (> 25 million)
6. FC Bayern Munich (> 20 million)
7. Porsche (> 19 million)
8. Audi (> 15 million)
9. Mercedes AMG (> 12 million)
10. Puma (> 10 million)

BMW gets 60,000 to 330,000 likes for feed posts and at least 200 comments - the company posts several times a day

3. YouTube

YouTube is the most popular network for video content in landscape format, which should be longer than a few minutes. This makes YouTube still have a unique selling proposition compared to other video social media platforms such as TikTok or Snapchat.

Usage behavior and advertising potential on YouTube

YouTube, with a daily usage of 73.8%, is very popular among young people between the ages of 14 and 29. The average monthly usage time on YouTube is over eleven hours, which corresponds to about 22.4 minutes a day.

72.6 million people and thus 91.5% of all adults in Germany can be reached with advertising on YouTube. Thereof 50.6% are female and 49.4% are male (Source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report).

Companies on YouTube

YouTube users want added value, whether in the form of knowledge or fun. This is also shown by the list of the 21 German companies on YouTube with the most subscribers.

Overview of the largest German companies on YouTube 2018 (Source: Online Marketing)

4. XING

Xing is the German career portal for networking. Companies can create employer profiles and private individuals can create private profiles. The focus is on business: companies are looking for new employees and private individuals are looking for new job opportunities.

Xing profile of OMR

Usage behavior and users on Xing

Xing has 21 million members in the DACH region and reaches 262 million page impressions per month in Germany and has an average dwell time of 4 minutes (mobile) or 6.5 minutes (desktop) (Source: Xing).

Xing is one of the social networks that are used rather sporadically. According to the ARD-ZDF Online Study from 2020, only 1% of people use the platform daily, 4% at least weekly and 11% at least rarely. 1% are still almost 2.2 million people who are on Xing every day. The platform is mainly used for job postings and networking. But the members also exchange ideas with each other in the different groups and network with each other.

Companies on Xing

Over 50 % of the users on Xing have the career level Professional / Experienced or Young Professionals, Students or Interns. This is a very interesting professional group for companies, which they can reach with the help of Xing ads. For this purpose, companies have different campaign types at their disposal: Ads, Lead Ads, Video Ads, Content Ads and Mailings.

5. LinkedIn

What Xing was for the German market, LinkedIn should become in the USA. But the business portal for networking with other professionals and companies already has 18 million members even in the DACH region.

Usage behavior and users on LinkedIn

LinkedIn primarily serves career purposes and it does this amazingly well: 95 applications are submitted to companies via LinkedIn every second. Thanks to more and more features such as carousel posts, live streams and Linkedin Articles, engagement is continuously growing and users are building a personal brand with regularly posted content. The e-learning offerings from Linkedin are also used diligently - 1 million hours of online courses are consumed every week (source: Futurebiz LinkedIn). As with Xing, there are also various groups on LinkedIn for different specialist areas in which members can exchange and network with each other.

LinkedIn account of OMR Reviews

According to LinkedIn, 13 million people can be reached in Germany with advertisements on the business platform, which is 18.6% of the adult population. The reach of LinkedIn is still growing. compared to the previous year, the growth was 8.3%, which is a good 1 million new users (source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report).

Companies on LinkedIn

55 million companies are represented on LinkedIn. Employees of these companies serve as ambassadors and share posts from their employers. This makes LinkedIn for employer branding ideal. But the social media platform is also suitable for talent search, because talents can be discovered through networking and free positions can be advertised without expensive job ads. Companies also use LinkedIn for B2B content marketing, advertise for seminars and books, and present their expertise.

According to LinkedIn, company pages with more than 150 followers benefit from steady growth. It also pays off to be thorough. With a completely filled out company profile you have 30% more views than companies with missing information. Very important is also: post regularly. Especially collages with three to four images achieve a significantly higher engagement in the form of comments (source: LinkedIn Business).

6. Pinterest

Social media platform or search engine? Opinions differ. On Pinterest, users can upload images and videos and augment them with text and links, and also 'pin' such posts, thus pinning them to their virtual pin boards.

Usage behavior and advertising potential on Pinterest

In Germany, about 14-15 million people use Pinterest and they store around 4 million pieces of content each month. Around 67% of all users are female, 24% male and 9% have not indicated their gender. Age is predominantly between 18 and 44 years (totaling 74%). But a quarter is older than 45.

A quarter, precisely 25.2% of Germans, and thus 17.56 million people, potentially consume advertisements on Pinterest. This means that the reach of the network has grown by 14.6%. With advertising on Pinterest, you can barely reach 16% of men, but 78.1% of women. The remaining 5.9% are users without gender data (source: Futurebiz Pinterest).

Advertising on Pinterest – whether organic or paid – is worth it because potential customers are already very far along and ready to buy on the customer journey. 77% of active Pinterest users discovered new brands or products via the platform and 25% of Pinterest usage is associated with the search for or targeted purchase of products (source: Futurebiz Pinterest).

Companies on Pinterest

A popular German company is IKEA Germany. The account has only 178,800 followers, but over 10 million monthly views. On dozens of pinboards, the account creates mood boards, based on which other users can create their own mood boards and even buy their desired products.

I confess: When I was planning my office, I also created mood boards on Pinterest and actually bought one or two parts at Ikea. I can confirm the effect on my purchasing decision.

Ikea Pinterest mood boards

Bauhaus Deutschland follows the same principle as IKEA on Pinterest. On themes boards like e.g. „Garden“, inspiration and information is provided. Besides pure pictures, which are oriented towards the sale of products, Bauhaus also offers guides and quick tips.

Bauhaus Pinterest profile

7. Snapchat

Snapchat is particularly popular in the U.S., whereas the platform is used less in Germany and if so, then by young people. The app is a mobile-first social network, which means it is primarily used via mobile devices. The use of the app is simple: videos can either be shared publicly or as a direct message to individual people. The platform also serves as a messenger service.

Usage behavior and advertising potential on Snapchat

On Snapchat, almost exclusively 14- to 29-year-olds hang out. Those who are older do not, as a rule, use this social medium, according to the ARD-ZDF Online Study 2020. If your main target group is Millennials and Gen Z, Snapchat is suitable for your marketing mix.

Weekly usage of Snapchat

With advertising on Snapchat, 15.30 million people can be reached, which is 20.8% of the German population. However, compared to the previous year, there was a small decrease of 0.30%. Snapchat is thus losing some of its importance in Germany. 56.7% of the users who consume ads on Snapchat are female and 42.8% are male (source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report).

Ads on Snapchat are integrated into the organic elements and are hardly noticeable. Instead, it is integrated into the user experience in a creative way using Snap Ads, local filters, and custom camera lenses. Snapchat Advertising is worth for

• acquisition of young talents,
• strengthening brand awareness,
• increase of traffic, leads, or app installations and
• achieving conversions.

Companies on Snapchat

Snapchat took in $911 million with advertising in 2020, recording a 62 percent increase in revenue from the previous year (source: Investor Snap). So it's no wonder that major brands with a young target audience use the social media platform for advertising: NYX Professional Makeup, The New York Times, and Ralph Lauren have implemented Snapchat augmented reality campaigns.

For the future, Snapchat wants to become especially attractive for cosmetics companies by developing special camera lenses with which users can try out cosmetic products digitally. If you also work in marketing for a cosmetics company with a young target group, you should now take a closer look at Snapchat.

8. TikTok

TikTok is one of the current trend social media platforms and is experiencing rapid growth worldwide. The principle of viral short videos was directly copied by Mark Zuckerberg and integrated into Instagram in the form of Reels. Many users of both channels share their self-created videos simultaneously on both platforms. Particularly characteristic: If a format or idea works well, it is not only liked and shared, but also copied. This creates countless versions of the same idea.

Usage behavior and users on TikTok

In Germany, 10.7 million users use TikTok– which is quite a little considering that there are over a billion users worldwide. 60% are between 10 and 29 years old. TikTok is used more by women and girls (60%) than by men and boys (40%) (Source: WUV and Wallaroo).

On average, each user opens the app 8 times a day and spends a total of 95 minutes on it. Only a small fraction of it is pure consumers: a whopping 83% of users have already published a video over their account (Source: Wallaroo).

Advertising and companies on TikTok

Netflix Germany advertising campaign with branded hashtag challenge for a new series in cooperation with 10 well-known German creators.

The potential of TikTok has not gone unnoticed by large and small companies: Brands like BMW, Maybelline, Boss, Netflix, eBay, KFC and Nespresso have already successfully launched advertising campaigns with the help of TikTok on the platform. The results are published as Success stories on TikTok Business and can be used for inspiration and analysis.

9. Twitter

Twitter is so special among the social networks because it is primarily geared towards short texts. In a tweet, you can indeed include images, GIFs, links, emojis, and short videos, but the core of each post are text and hashtags. The latter is important to be found by users who don't follow you. Due to the nature of the posts and also the target group that can be found on Twitter, it has a strong news character and is considered a microblogging platform.

Usage behavior and users on Twitter

Only 2% of Germans, i.e. 1.4 million people, use Twitter daily. Globally, however, Twitter is used massively: every day more than 500 million tweets are posted, which is approx. 6000 tweets per minute.

It becomes interesting when you look at who is represented on Twitter. 24.6% of verified accounts belong to journalists. Besides, 83% of all world leaders are on Twitter. The most followers has Barack Obama (> 111 million) (Source: Brandwatch).

Advertising potential on Twitter

Compared to other social media platforms, Twitter offers a small audience of 7.75 million for advertising. Only 10.5% of Germans over the age of 13 consume ads on the platform. However, there was a small decrease of 50,000 people and thus a decrease in reach of 0.6% was recorded in the quarterly comparison to the fourth quarter of 2021 (Source: Digital 2022 Germany Overview Report).

In the USA, Twitter is very popular for marketing measures. 65.8% of all companies with more than 100 employees use Twitter for marketing. An average Twitter user from Germany follows five companies. Companies can improve the bond with their customers through organic content, tweets, retweets and responses to inquiries (Source: Brandwatch).

Companies on Twitter

According to Twitter itself, it is worth it for companies to become active on the platform.

Advertising is done with:

• an increase of 18% in the connection with the brand message,
• an increase in brand awareness of 8%,
• an increase in brand preference of 7% and
• an increase in purchase intention of 3%.

If you want to include Twitter in your marketing mix, you should definitely take a look at your competition, research relevant hashtags and above all have enough content, because the half-life of a tweet is short and other companies therefore publish up to 10 posts per day (Source: Brandwatch).

Podstars by OMR on Twitter

Conclusion on social media channels

Social media marketing is more worthwhile for companies than ever before. Many companies are showing how successful social media marketing works on the individual platforms. As long as you know a little about a channel and are willing to play by its rules, publish enough content and interact with your community, you can also place your company sensibly. There are all kinds of software and tools to help you, our OMR Deep Dive Seminars and of course the popular OMR Reports.