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A new year.
New round, new opportunities. New plans. A new cabinet (sort of). And maybe new social media channels becoming trending.
In short, a lot of new things. But one thing remains the same.
And that is that we will again give you an update on social media market share in the Netherlands and Europe after each quarter, so you know where to focus ...
... or what you could have focused on in recent months 😉
Netherlands
| Netherlands | September 2021 | December 2021 |
| 68,22% | 72,91% | |
| 10,17% | 7,61% | |
| 11,29% | 10,47% | |
| 3,48% | 3,23% | |
| Youtube | 3,16% | 2,09% |
| 1,28% | 1,93% |
In the Netherlands, we see many declines in terms of social media market share. As many as 4 of the 6 channels we discuss here show negative numbers with Pinterest and Youtube as relatively biggest losers.
They are losing about 25% and 33% of their market share, respectively, to Facebook and LinkedIn.
Why? It seems that advertisers are reverting to the security of Facebook in recent months. Not surprising when you consider that for many entrepreneurs these are still uncertain times AND November and December are usually months when there is a lot to be earned.
Furthermore, LinkedIn is also making another nice jump. Also logical, since there's a screaming staff shortage (you can find our job openings here, by the way) and that's why many companies are turning to LinkedIn advertising.
So. Now let's also see how the Germans are doing.
Germany
| Germany | September 2021 | December 2021 |
| 59,73% | 72,26% | |
| 8,64% | 7,42% | |
| 7,74% | 5,91% | |
| 5,22% | 4,59% | |
| Youtube | 4,19% | 3,12% |
| 0,65% | 0,66% |
In Germany, things are about the same. But with even slightly higher profits for Facebook.
Observant readers will note that Facebook's 12.5% increase in social media market share cannot be explained by the loss of Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube combined.
And that's right. Those collectively yield only about 4 to 5 percent.
In fact, the biggest loser in Germany is not in this list. That's Tumblr. With a market share of 10-15% in the summer it was still one of the bigger players, but now the social network with blog platform has only about 4% left.
Perhaps businesses were doing some nice content marketing on Tumblr during the summer months and then retargeting their readers via Facebook during the important period.
Belgium
| Belgium | September 2021 | December 2021 |
| 65,77% | 72,47% | |
| 16,19% | 12,76% | |
| 7,34% | 6,71% | |
| 3,76% | 3,42% | |
| Youtube | 2,39% | 1,91% |
| 0,53% | 0,45% |
Also in Belgium, Facebook is the big winner at the expense of all other social media channels. Even LinkedIn - which thus increased its market share in the Netherlands and Germany - shares in the malaise here.
While the losses are less than in Germany, other channels like Tumblr and Reddit are also surrendering in Belgium to account for the overall difference.
So we can be short on this ... and we are.
Europe
| Europe | September 2021 | December 2021 |
| 78,61% | 82,95% | |
| 5,57% | 3,76% | |
| 6,21% | 6,02% | |
| 3,89% | 3,13% | |
| Youtube | 2,13% | 2,23% |
| 0,40% | 0,34% |
Okay, but what is the state of affairs across Europe?
About the same. Facebook wins and the rest lose. Apart from Youtube. So it seems that, especially in Western Europe, we have started to watch a little less video and are a little more on LinkedIn.
Furthermore, some nuances take place. For example, relative to the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, Facebook gains a bit less and the other channels don't lose that much either.
Again, looking at Tumblr's numbers, we also see their market share drop from 1.94% in September to 0.68% in December (in the Netherlands, that market share dropped from 1.32% to 0.85%).
UK
| Europe | September 2021 | September 2021 |
| 64,17% | 58,56% | |
| 7,00% | 4,58% | |
| 15,17% | 21,74% | |
| 8,07% | 8,98% | |
| Youtube | 2,53% | 3,41% |
| 0,77% | 0,63% |
Okay, let's not beat around the bush: the UK has been a bit of an odd duck since their exit from the EU anyway.
And the breakdown of the social media market share in the UK shows this.
Whereas Facebook was by far the biggest winner in Europe, here it is once again one of the biggest losers. And YouTube and Instagram also posted modest gains over the previous quarter while losing in Europe.
Remarkably, it was the exact opposite in September. Facebook won handsomely at the expense of Twitter. So it seems the English had something to put right.
Conclusion
Looking at all the numbers, we can conclude a few things:
- The announcement of the development of a metaverse by Meta (now Facebook's parent company) has piqued the interest of lots of investors, and that comes at the expense of investment in other channels
- Instagram still does not fulfill its great promise
- In the UK, everything is always different
These are uncertain times with uncertain predictions. A new COVID variant can pop up at any moment, locking up all the countries and making social e-commerce rise even faster than expected, for example. With more advertisers on the biggest platforms as a result.
Anyway, it promises to be exciting again in Q1 of 2022. And of course, we'll give you another update right then!
Source: gs.statcounter.com
Written by: Daniel Kuipers
Daniel is the founder of Online Marketing Agency. He constantly scours the Internet for the latest gadgets and tactics and blogs about them in understandable language. Well, sometimes.