Downloading trends on famous social media platforms over the last few years shows TikTok is on the rise

The last four years were nothing less than a roller coaster ride. From the COVID-19 pandemic to global lockdown to the work-from-home movement, and then the ongoing economic crisis It appears that all these events had a deep impact on social media platforms and usage.

Based on a research report, the changing trend of social media platforms can be identified through their downloads. The data used in the report started in 2018 and ended in October 2022.

While analyzing the collective results of social media applications including Meta's Facebook and Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, and Musk’s Twitter, the results were pretty satisfying, as the overall figure was up by fifty percent, which means downloads went up from 14 million to 20 million.

This gives the idea that the request for such platforms is still intact. However, based on individual performance, the trend was not good for everyone and revealed some surprising turnover.

The famous short video application TikTok being at the top of the charts didn’t come as a surprise. The platform was successfully able to expand its downloads by a massive 368 percent over the last 4 years. For the second position, Twitter took away the spot, leaving other platforms surprised. One major reason for this turnover is Twitter being a hot topic with Elon Musk taking over the micro-blogging platform and introducing some controversial features. The platform was able to show a 90 percent increase in downloads after carrying an almost straight linear trend since 2018.

It is believed that the current Twitter growth is only due to its being in the spotlight recently, and after some time, the trend will be back to normal. On the other hand, Meta's Instagram was able to do well, but in comparison to TikTok, Instagram was able to increase its downloads by just 11 percent.

While these platforms were either able to maintain their downloads or managed to increase them over time, the social media giant Facebook, followed by Snapchat, were two of the most popular applications whose downloads fell. It can be expected that the trend is likely to carry itself for another year, until 2023, and after that, a new shift might take place.

H/T: AppFigures

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World