The line graph depicts the average yearly percentages of adult internet users using 5 major social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter between 2012 to 2016. Overall, all social networks experienced upward trends of user growth during the time period.
Facebook had remarkably the largest share of online users, while other players’ user base were relatively small.
Around 62% of adults users browsed Facebook in 2012, then the figure rose up to about 70% in 2013, and levelled off roughly for a few years till 2015. From 2015, Facebook enjoyed another growth and attracted 79% of online users in 2016.
Other social medias’ users fell between 18-40% range during the time. Instgram, Pinterest, Twitter had similar adult users about 18% in 2012, while LinkedIn had 20% in 2012 which was slightly higher. After that, all internet platforms experienced a steady increase of user base. In 2016, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter occupied 32%, 31%, 29% and 24% of internet users respectively. It’s noticeable that LinkedIn experienced a slight drop of users from about 24% in 2014 to 22% in 2015, then the trend started to pick up again from 2015. For Twitter, the main increase happened between 2012 to 2014, with around 22% users in 2014, and the figure almost remained even with tiny increase to 24% in 2016.
