Facebook remains the most widely used social network among marketing professionals in 2026, ahead of Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok, despite the growth of short-form video and the emergence of new digital platforms. 86% of marketing professionals use Facebook for business purposes, while Instagram ranks second at 82%, according to Statista’s Marketing Worldwide report, based on a Social Media Examiner survey conducted in January 2026 among 840 professionals.
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LinkedIn ranks third, with 72% adoption, followed by YouTube at 58%. TikTok, although it maintains a significant presence among younger audiences and in the short-form video market, is used by 32% of professionals.
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Further down the list are X, formerly Twitter, at 23%, and Threads, at 13%. The results show that the platforms receiving the greatest cultural attention are not necessarily the ones most widely used to develop campaigns, acquire customers, or generate sales.
What is the most widely used social network for marketing in 2026?
Facebook retains first place in the global ranking of social networks used by marketing professionals. Its 86% adoption rate puts it four percentage points ahead of Instagram and 54 points ahead of TikTok.
The ranking presented by Statista is as follows:
- Facebook: 86%.
- Instagram: 82%.
- LinkedIn: 72%.
- YouTube: 58%.
- TikTok: 32%.
- X/Twitter: 23%.
- Threads: 13%.
The figures do not measure the total number of users on each platform or the time they spend on them. They represent the percentage of surveyed professionals who said they use each social network as part of their marketing strategies.
The distinction is important because a platform can grow among consumers without automatically becoming advertisers’ primary choice. Companies also consider return on investment, targeting tools, advertising formats, available data, and the ability to turn interactions into business results.
Facebook is also considered the most important social network
Facebook’s leadership is not limited to the percentage of professionals who use it. It is also the social network considered most important by the largest number of marketers.
36% of respondents selected Facebook as their primary marketing platform. Instagram received 27%, while LinkedIn was close behind at 26%.
The gap is much wider compared with other platforms. YouTube was selected as the most important network by 7% of professionals, while TikTok received 2% and X only 1%.
These figures show that TikTok is still used as a complementary channel in many strategies rather than serving as the central platform of a company’s marketing efforts.
Facebook benefits from an advertising infrastructure developed over many years, as well as its integration with Instagram. Advertisers can manage campaigns on both platforms, share audiences, and adapt ads to different placements from a single system.
Why does Facebook remain relevant for brands?
Facebook’s staying power can be explained by the breadth of its audience and the variety of objectives it can support. Companies use the platform to build awareness, generate traffic, capture leads, promote products, and run remarketing campaigns.
Its formats include posts, images, videos, livestreams, groups, events, catalogs, forms, and ads targeted at specific audiences. This combination allows the platform to be used by both global corporations and small businesses and local companies.
Facebook also has an advantage derived from its maturity. Marketing teams have accumulated experience, historical data, and established processes for producing, distributing, and measuring campaigns.
Shifting a significant portion of the budget to a new platform requires creating new materials, learning different advertising systems, and demonstrating that the channel can generate equivalent or better results.
TikTok offers opportunities to build awareness and participate in trends, but its creative language, formats, and consumption patterns are different. Brands that simply reuse ads produced for other media may not achieve the same performance.
Facebook delivers the highest return on investment
Return on investment helps explain why Facebook maintains its position. According to another study included in the report, 54% of professionals consider Facebook one of the social networks that delivers the highest ROI.
Instagram ranks second, mentioned by 43% of participants. YouTube comes in third at 33%, followed by X at 24%.
TikTok ranks fifth, at 19%. This represents a gap of 35 percentage points compared with Facebook.
The ROI study was conducted by HubSpot in September 2025 among 1,505 B2B and B2C marketing professionals in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The ranking is based on marketers’ perceptions rather than a single standardized revenue measurement across all platforms. Performance can vary by industry, audience, campaign objective, and the model used to attribute sales.
Even so, the gap shows that Facebook continues to enjoy greater confidence among advertisers when it comes to justifying invested resources.
TikTok generates attention, but still faces the challenge of converting it
The gap between TikTok and Facebook usage reflects one of the main challenges facing social platforms: turning reach and engagement into measurable business results.
TikTok can drive trends, viral videos, and conversations around products. It also helps unknown brands get discovered by new audiences through its recommendation system.
However, generating views does not always translate into sales. Marketers need to connect content with visits, sign-ups, leads, purchases, or repeat business.
The report shows that 83% of professionals believe social media increases brand exposure. Another 71% say it generates more traffic, and 62% say it helps generate leads.
By contrast, only 46% believe social media directly improves sales. The difference indicates that these platforms demonstrate their value more clearly in the awareness and consideration stages than in final conversion.
Instagram remains Facebook’s main competitor
Instagram is the platform that comes closest to Facebook in terms of usage. The visual network is used by 82% of professionals, a difference of only four percentage points from the leader.
It also ranks second in importance, at 27%, and in return on investment, at 43%.
Instagram benefits from its strength in images, short-form video, influencer-created content, and product discovery. Its integration with Meta’s advertising infrastructure makes it easier for companies to distribute ads across both networks.
In addition, 65% of professionals plan to increase their use of Instagram for video marketing, placing the platform second in terms of growth prospects in this category.
The coexistence of Facebook and Instagram shows that brands do not necessarily choose only one network. They can use Facebook to reach broad audiences and run conversion campaigns, while relying on Instagram for visual content, Reels, and creator collaborations.
LinkedIn dominates business-to-business marketing
LinkedIn’s third-place position overall, with 72% adoption, is explained mainly by its strength in the B2B segment.
Among professionals who market to other companies, 87% use LinkedIn, making it the most widely used platform for this business model.
Facebook is used by 78% of B2B marketers and Instagram by 64%. YouTube reaches 57%, while TikTok remains considerably lower.
When asked which platform is the most important, 51% of B2B professionals selected LinkedIn. Facebook was chosen by 23%, Instagram by 19%, and YouTube by 4%.
LinkedIn allows companies to publish specialized content, reach decision-makers, generate leads, and build the reputation of executives and businesses.
These characteristics show why the importance of a social network depends on the type of audience. A platform that works well for fashion, entertainment, or mass-market consumer goods does not necessarily deliver the same results for enterprise software, consulting, or professional services.
Facebook dominates consumer marketing
Facebook’s position is particularly strong among B2C organizations. 93% of professionals who market directly to consumers use the platform.
Instagram ranks second at 87%, while YouTube reaches 61%. LinkedIn is used by 78%, although its role may be related to corporate positioning, recruiting, and institutional communication.
In terms of importance, 46% of B2C marketers consider Facebook their primary platform. Instagram receives 33%, YouTube 9%, LinkedIn 10%, and TikTok 2%.
The figures show that Facebook remains a central component for consumer brands, especially when they need to combine reach, targeting, and performance-driven campaigns.
TikTok may be relevant in specific segments and among younger consumers, but it still has not displaced Meta’s platforms as the leading B2C marketing channel.
YouTube will lead the growth of video marketing
Facebook leads overall usage and perceived return, but YouTube has the strongest growth expectations in video.
Approximately 70% of professionals plan to increase their use of YouTube for audiovisual strategies. Instagram ranks second at 65%.
LinkedIn reaches 52%, Facebook 49%, and TikTok 42%. Below them are X, at 17%, and Threads, at 15%.
The results show that the video market is not limited to short-form formats. YouTube offers both short- and long-form content, tutorials, reviews, interviews, and livestreams, while also functioning as a search engine for users interested in products and services.
TikTok continues to offer opportunities in short-form video, trends, and algorithmic discovery, but fewer than half of professionals plan to increase their use of the platform for video.
TikTok surpasses X and Threads, but remains far behind the leaders
Although TikTok trails Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, its adoption is higher than that of X and Threads.
32% of professionals use TikTok, compared with 23% for X and 13% for Threads. Its advantage is also evident in video plans: 42% expect to increase their use of TikTok, compared with 17% for X and 15% for Threads.
This places TikTok in an intermediate position. It has not yet reached the adoption levels of established networks, but it has stronger prospects than other competitors.
For brands, its appeal lies in its discovery capabilities, creator participation, and the opportunity to become part of cultural conversations. Its challenges include the need to develop platform-specific content, adapt commercial messaging, and demonstrate return on investment.
The low proportion of professionals who consider TikTok their most important platform — only 2% — shows that it still tends to be part of a broader channel mix.
Brands will invest more in influencers and social media
The competition between Facebook and TikTok is taking place amid broader growth in social media marketing. The net balance of professionals expecting to increase their investment in social media during 2026 stands at 54%, according to a WARC survey.
Influencer and creator marketing posts a slightly higher result, at 55%. Both channels are surpassed only by online video, at 65%.
The net balance is calculated by subtracting the percentage of professionals who plan to reduce their budgets from the percentage who expect to increase them. Therefore, the results represent an investment trend rather than a direct monetary growth rate.
The expansion of influencer marketing benefits TikTok as well as Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Creators can distribute content across multiple platforms and adapt partnerships to different formats.
For brands, this means competition does not take place only among social networks. They must also decide how much budget to allocate to advertising, owned content, and creator partnerships.
Social media management is a priority skill
The growing complexity of platforms is changing the skills that marketing leaders are looking for. Social media management is a training priority for 49% of CMOs.
This capability ranks third, behind only artificial intelligence marketing, cited by 55%, and marketing technology, at 53%.
Content development and management ranks fourth, at 46%, while analytics and marketing research reach 40%.
The figures show that managing social media is no longer simply about scheduling posts. Teams need expertise in digital advertising, audiovisual production, community management, crisis response, performance analysis, and sales attribution.
They must also understand the differences among platforms. Facebook may deliver better conversion results, TikTok may perform better for discovery, Instagram for visual content, YouTube for search, and LinkedIn for B2B relationships.
Fragmentation is the biggest problem in digital marketing
The presence of numerous networks and platforms creates opportunities, but it also increases complexity. Fragmentation across platforms and media is the main concern for 56% of professionals.
Cross-channel measurement and optimization ranks second, at 49%. Another 30% mention difficulties managing reach and frequency across connected television and digital media.
Interoperability problems between advertising tools are cited by 29%. In addition, 24% are concerned about ad blindness, or consumers’ tendency to ignore advertisements.
The same person may discover a product on TikTok, look for information on YouTube, see an ad on Facebook, and ultimately complete the purchase in a physical store. This journey makes it difficult to determine which platform had the greatest influence.
Fragmentation makes it necessary to use measurement systems that avoid attributing the entire conversion to the last ad seen by the consumer.
Popularity does not automatically translate into return
The comparison between Facebook and TikTok shows that consumer attention is only one part of the investment decision.
Professionals also analyze the cost of reaching an audience, lead quality, conversion rates, and generated revenue. A platform may be effective for building awareness but not necessarily for closing a sale.
Facebook retains advantages in adoption, importance, and perceived return. TikTok, by contrast, shows strength in discovery and better prospects than X and Threads, although it still functions as a complementary channel for a large share of brands.
The 2026 landscape does not suggest that a single social network will replace all the others. Organizations will distribute their campaigns according to objectives and audiences, but Facebook continues to occupy the central position: it is used by 86% of professionals, considered the most important platform by 36%, and recognized by 54% as one of the social networks delivering the highest return on investment.
