Top 10 most popular social media platforms in 2024

Social media continues to evolve, with new platforms entering the fray with novel ideas. However, it is difficult to challenge the established players. The latest research by marketing measurement platform Lifesight.io has just proved that. The firm used data from SEMrush to determine the top 10 most popular social media platforms in 2024 based on total visits last year. The list contains familiar names.

YouTube is unmatched in terms of user visits

According to the report, YouTube was visited 1.35 trillion times in 2023. That’s a staggering 80.49% growth in annual visits from 263.3 billion in 2019. This helped Google’s video platform build a massive lead at the top. Facebook is the next most popular social media platform in 2024, and it had only 216.4 billion visits last year. The Meta-owned platform remained almost flat between 2019 and 2023, growing just 15.33%.

The fact that YouTube’s total visits in 2023 were almost double the next nine most popular social media platforms is a testament to its popularity. Facebook, meanwhile, isn’t under threat despite a stagnation in recent years. It is distantly followed by X (formerly Twitter) with annual visits of 112.9 billion in 2023. Meta should be wary of X’s growth rate, though. The Elon Musk-owned platform saw a 63.19% increase in visits from 41.6 billion in 2019.

Instagram, another Meta-owned platform, registered 87.3 billion visits in 2023, up 62.40% from 32.8 billion in 2019. It is predominantly used on mobile with male users constituting two-thirds (67%) of its total visits. Reddit is right on its heels, though. With a better growth rate between 2019 and 2023 (68.72%), Reddit is threatening to leapfrog Instagram soon. It had 81.0 billion visits last year, making it the fifth most popular social media platform in 2024.

What should be a more concerning stat for Instagram is how Reddit has a similarly male-dominated user base and a high percentage of mobile traffic (72.27%). TikTok, the next platform on this list, is also moble-centric. However, it is equally popular among male and female users. Debuted in 2018, the Chinese app had just 0.7 billion visits in 2019. It reached 41.8 billion in 2023. Started as a shot-form video platform, it has expanded to other areas in recent years.

Most popular social media platforms have a majority male user base

WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitch, and Quora made up the top 10 most visited social media platforms last year. All of these platforms registered strong growth in annual visits between 2019 and 2023, ranging between 48% and 68%. While each has its specialty—WhatsApp is used for communication, LinkedIn for building professional networks, Twitch is popular in the gaming community, and Quora is used for knowledge sharing—there is something in common. All of these apps have a majority male user base.

Considering the current social media landscape, the top ten most popular platforms should remain unchanged next year. There may be some changes in the order (unlikely in the top three) but we don’t see a new entrant on the list. The looming nationwide ban on TikTok in the US may cause some shake-ups, though. TikTok had 170 million users in the US last year.