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Three Takeaways From Marketing Land’s Audience Size Analysis of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat

Before embarking on any major digital campaign, there’s a question businesses looking to market their services or products must ponder.

Where is their customer?

Recently, Marketing Land offered some insights on some of the top social media networks today that could help companies seeking to find an answer.

For its analysis, Marketing Land decided to break down the audience sizes of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Facebook reach included ads shown on features of its platform like the news feed, but excluded Messenger and Audience Network. Instagram was broken down into two separate entities: the feed and stories. And lastly Snapchat, which launched its self-serve ads manager in June, was measured according to users who view stories, shows and discover channels.

Data was collected in August and analyzed seven countries with the largest media spend per eMarketer: the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, France, Australia and Canada. Marketing Land examined the following age segments: 13 to 17, 18 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35 and older. Marketing Land decided to segment their analysis this way due to Snapchat’s exclusion of a custom age range option in its self-serve ad platform.

After reviewing their findings, here are the three major takeaways we took from the Marketing Land piece.

Facebook still boasts the most active user base across all age groups.

With 2 billion monthly active users, Marketing Land’s research confirms what many believe to be true. However, the only age segment where Facebook did not maintain the largest audience size was among teenagers. Snapchat was discovered to lead the way in six of the seven countries analyzed for the purpose of Marketing Land’s study. Brazil was the only country where Facebook was more popular than Snapchat and Instagram among Generation Z.

Snapchat’s audience is largest among 13 to 20 year olds.

Much has been made about Snapchat’s influence over teenage and college-age adults. Based on Marketing Land’s research, perceptions seem to match reality. In six of the seven countries examined, Snapchat held the highest reach among this particular audience demographic. Marketing Land found that Snapchat audience sizes beat out both Facebook and Instagram in the US, UK, France and Canada.

Instagram Story is gaining ground, particularly, among Millennials who face choosing between Snapchat and Instagram.

The user base of Instagram’s traditional feed still outnumbers that of stories. But considering that Instagram Stories were introduced just last year bodes well for their future. In the US, UK, France and Australia, Instagram Stories narrowly trailed Snapchat in audience size. In Canada, audience sizes between Snapchat and Instagram Stories were practically even. Meanwhile in Brazil and Germany, Instagram Story has a much larger reach than Snapchat.

Marketing Land said this about Instagram’s popularity relative to Snapchat’s among Millennials.

“That may have to do with the Instagram experience more closely mimicking Facebook’s, where people can broadcast posts to groups of friends, as opposed to Snapchat, which originally served ephemeral private messages. That network effect appears to have kept this demographic on Instagram and helped its Stories feature quickly grow to rival Snapchat’s reach.”

Looking to dive deeper into the analysis of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat’s audiences? Read the full article published by Marketing Land here.

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