As a Senior Account Executive at The Content Factory, Alayna developed and oversaw social media and content strategy for a wide range of TCF clients. She now serves as Inbound Marketing Manager at BlueSky ETO , a B2B software company. See all posts by Alayna Frankenberry .

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The internet can be a weird place, and social media is only getting weirder as more and more people gain access.

If your elderly relatives have started adding you on Facebook, you know what we’re talking about. But the surprises of the web don’t begin and end with your free-spirited aunt airing the family laundry online. The business side of the internet can be pretty surprising too, and if you know anything about social media marketing you know that social media statistics can be downright shocking.

It’s our job to stay on top of these stats and use our insights to shape a strategy that evolves with the web. So we monitor the trends, subscribe to our share of newsletters, set up media alerts and occasionally get our Google on.

When we do, we discover some pretty crazy social media statistics. Here are a few of our favorites:

Surprising Facebook Facts

1. 81% of parents report their kids start using Facebook between 8 and 13 years of age.

This is despite growing concerns about the negative effects of social media on children’s health. So where are these kids’ parents? According to Forbes, “95 percent of parents were aware their kids were using the service while 78 percent helped create the account.” Cool moms of the world, take note – helping your underage kid sign up for Facebook is the new letting your kid drink in the house. (Forbes)

2. Companies ignore 70% of Facebook questions.

When Facebook fans post their questions online, only 30% of them receive answers (Social Bakers).

These are some pretty crazy statistics when you consider that connecting with consumers is kind of the whole point of having a brand presence on social media, but many social media marketing experts see this Facebook fact as an opportunity.

If you’re willing to engage customers when your competitors aren’t, separating yourself from the pack becomes a lot easier. Keep in mind that customers expect brand responses within 4 hours on social media.

3. Shakira has more than 104 million Facebook fans, proving that honesty is the best policy (at least for hips).

The talented singer, songwriter and dancer is one of the most well-liked celebrities on Facebook. To put that number into perspective, Shakira’s native country, Colombia, has a population of 48.65 million — less than half of her total Facebook fans! (Women.com)

4. The average Facebook user has 155 friends on the platform, but would only trust 4 of them in a crisis.

Quantity doesn’t always mean quality when it comes to friendship — you might accept a friend request from the kid who sat next to you in 5th grade art class, but would you ask her to drive your mom to her rheumatology appointment? (Telegraph)

5. Facebook’s population is 6.5 times greater than the USA’s.

Here’s a fun Facebook fact: the population of the U.S. is a little over 325 million — Facebook boasts over 2.603 billion users. If you’ve only gotten a hundred of these users to like your page, you may want to rethink your brand’s Facebook strategy. (Statista)

6. Every month, 1.4 billion users participate in Facebook Groups.

In an effort to focus the social media platform more on users and their connections than on brands and publishers, Facebook’s putting an emphasis on what it calls “meaningful communities,” including new features for Facebook Groups. So while the Facebook algorithm might be burying organic brand posts, brands that create active Facebook groups can get an edge on the competition. (TechCrunch)

How to Make Money From Facebook Groups: The ULTIMATE Guide to Monetization Want to turn your Facebook group into a money-generating social media marketing machine? This monetization guide covers it all: how to attract affiliates and ad partners, sponsored posts and more.

7. Facebook posts with images get 2.3 times more engagement than posts without.

Blame it on our ever shortening attention spans. In this case, a picture truly is worth a thousand words (or likes and shares)! (Venngage)

Crazy Twitter Statistics

8. A Reddit user discovered that Tears of Joy is the most popular emoji on Twitter.

The r/dataisbeautiful subreddit highlights great data visualizations from across the web, and subscribers sometimes submit their own data analysis. Redditor u/pr33tish discovered that the laughing-so-hard-I-cried emoji easily takes the #1 spot, followed by the heart emoji.

Rounding off the top three is… the recycling emoji? We’re surprised, but we’re mostly just encouraged by Twitter’s conservationist spirit! (Reddit)

9. Katy Perry is the Queen of Twitter.

The pop star has over 100 million followers – about 19 million more than the entire population of Germany.

10. Twitter suspended 70 million fake accounts in 2018.

Worried that your followers may be bots? Use TwitterAudit to weed out fake followers. (Wired)

11. A kid who wanted a year of free Wendy’s chicken nuggets wrote the most retweeted tweet to date.

Before Carter Wilkerson broke the record, the title of Most Retweeted Post, with 3.3 million shares, went to Ellen’s famous Oscar selfie. With more than 3.6 million retweets, Carter earned his place in history — and yes, a year’s supply of nuggs.

The 10-Step Guide to Hosting a Twitter Chat Want to use Twitter to market your business? Then you need to learn how to run a Twitter chat. This 10-step guide will walk you through the process and the tools you’ll need to get the job done.

Instagram Social Media Statistics

12. Instagram has 500 million daily active users.

On one hand, Instagram’s nearly 1 billion monthly active users is nothing to sneeze at. On the other hand, we can’t get over how many people log in and use the platform every single day (how else are you going to share photos of your lunch, though?). (Hootsuite)

13. 95 million photos are uploaded to Instagram each day.

That’s a lot of lunch. (SocialPilot)

14. 71% of Instagram users are millennials (or younger).

If you want to reach users who are 35 years old or younger, Instagram is the social media platform for you. Learn more amazing Instagram statistics in our guide to Instagram marketing.

71% of #Instagram users are #millennials (or younger). Click To Tweet

Pinterest Social Media Statistics

Interesting Facts About Social Media Users

We hope you enjoyed some of these crazy social media statistics.

These days it seems there’s an app born every minute, so we’re sure new, even more surprising insights are around the corner too. To stay up to date on the latest social media marketing stats and strategies, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

And let us know you’re out there by tweeting us your favorite social media marketing fact from this list (or send us a new one to add!).