The report – published last week – is the first publicly-available analysis of its kind for the UK, produced by research and communications agency We are Flint.
The findings reveal that 84% of all UK adults use social media, and two-thirds of UK adults use social media every day.
YouTube and Facebook are by far the most popular platforms among UK adults online (respectively 85% and 78%).
Although Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat are often mentioned in mainstream or trade media, their use remains relatively ‘contained’ among UK adults online (respectively 45%, 30%, 29%, 20%). Periscope remains niche at 6%.
Google+ shows resilience, coming in third (50%), while WhatsApp seals its recent growth by coming in fourth (48%).
The ‘stickiest’ platforms are Facebook (59% of UK adults online use it daily), WhatsApp (28%) and YouTube (27%).
Reports abound about young people moving away from Facebook, but in absolute terms it remains the second most popular platform among 18 to 29-year-olds (92%), behind YouTube (96%).
While there is an indistinguishable difference between men and women in terms of overall usage, women are six points more likely to use social media on a daily basis (76% versus 70%). The biggest difference in platform usage is Pinterest, with an 18-point difference in favour of women.
The only platforms with a statistically significant difference in favour of men are LinkedIn (6-point difference), Periscope (4-point) and Twitter (3-point).
LinkedIn may be used by only 30% of UK adults online, but it is most popular among people with high household incomes. It is significantly more popular among those taking home £48k+ (64%) than those earning below that threshold (25%).
Those in Scotland (97%) and England (95%) are marginally more likely to be social media users than those in Wales (93%) and Northern Ireland (89%). The same story plays out in daily usage: England (74%), Scotland (73%), Wales (67%) and Northern Ireland (53%).
There is little in it when it comes to usage in the UK’s largest cities. Glasgow takes the lead in both total usage and daily usage (99% versus 78%), closely followed by London and Birmingham (both 97% versus 77%), Manchester (96% versus 76%) and Leeds (95% versus 72%).
Those living in urban areas are more likely to be daily users of social media than their rural counterparts (75% versus 66%). Looking at overall usage, some social media platforms are significantly more likely to be used in urban areas, notably WhatsApp (13-point difference), Instagram (10-point difference), Pinterest and Snapchat (both 7-point difference).
Tom Hashemi (pictured), director of We are Flint, said: “The reason behind this study was to fill a gap in public data on platform-specific UK social media statistics. We went on the hunt for this data ourselves and came back empty-handed. Being supporters of the open source movement, we figured we’d publicly release them.”
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