The #1 Social Network Among Teens - It's Not Even Close

AMERICAN TEENS' FAVOURITE CHANNEL IS YOUTUBE, BY A LOT

TikTok usage is up and Facebook is down among teens, but that might be the least surprising news that came out of a recent report from Pew Research. 95% of US teens surveyed say they use YouTube every day, and 1 in 5 say that they use it “almost constantly." Compare that with Instagram at 62% and Snapchat at 59%.

That begs the question: When we’re thinking about the best channels to connect with young people, what typically comes up? If YouTube isn’t in that list, we’re missing out on the channel that is by far the most popular and, as we discussed last week, may have fewer competitors, especially if you’re a smaller brand.

There’s more than just YouTube data in this report. The researchers asked teens how difficult it would be to give up social media entirely and 46% said it would be somewhat easy. The findings seem to be at least somewhat in conflict with each other, but when we look more closely we can see that just about every app that was popular in 2015 has dropped in popularity (Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and Tumblr were each commonly used by teens and have fallen off). The only channels that have picked up new users are TikTok, IG, and Snapchat. It may be wishful thinking on the part of the teens, like a smoker claiming that they can quit any time they like, or perhaps today’s teens see themselves more as consumers of content in those channels, and therefore less connected to them.

Regardless of the cause of the shift, the topic of how “kids these days” are using the Internet is much discussed and rarely understood, which is why this report is both so surprising and so informative.

Theres been much discussion online and analysis of trends in the data that we haven’t covered here, so if young people’s social media behaviour is interesting to you, then you’ll want to check out these takes below – listed from shortest (a Tweet) to longest (Economist article):

• How different groups of teens’ social media behaviour differ
• How Gen Z uses TikTok for search
• The shift away from Facebook and why it matters
• Does Gen Z spend too much time on social media?

EVERYTHING ELSE THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• A professional social network called Blind is helping people to anonymously share info about their employers, salaries, and upcoming layoffs
• New Twitter feature called Spotlight allows business profiles to highlight their locations and makes it easier for people to get in touch with them
• Google Business Profiles are adding Asian-owned as a label to go along other labels such as Black-owned, Latino-owned, and LGBTQ+ owned
• TikTok Europe released an 8-minute "Tokumentary" on YouTube that shows businesses how they can make better use of the platform

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting