Tiago Bianchi
Research expert covering internet & gaming in Latin America and Spain
Get in touch with us nowWhat are the main social platforms in Spain?
With mobile devices being the main tool of access to social media for 97 percent of Spain’s population, messenger apps are the most used type of platform for around 84 percent of the country’s platform users. And Meta takes it all: WhatsApp is simultaneously the most used network by more than 91 percent of Spanish internet users, and also the platform with the highest satisfaction rate among its customers.Despite the amount of options regarding social networks for the most varied purposes, Facebook still is also the second most used platform in the country, followed by Instagram. In absolute number of users, the network founded by Mark Zuckerberg is also the biggest when not considering messaging apps, as the corporation’s solutions still dominate the download charts, both in the Google Play and App Store.
How do people use social media?
The preference for instant messaging apps has a reason: keeping contact with relatives, friends or acquaintances is one of the primary motivations for more than half of Spaniards to use social media. Unsurprisingly, most of the accounts followed in the country are from closer contacts, then followed by celebrities like musicians, acting performers, and other entertainment pages. But it is perhaps a desire for proximity that makes Spain so fertile for influencers to build their engagement with the local audiences.Spotlight: social influencer market
The power of the digital advertising market is one of the key aspects of the social media landscape in Spain: the country is the fifth largest digital advertisement market in Europe and the 12th largest worldwide. It was projected that in 2022 more than 1.83 million U.S. dollars were solely invested in social media, an amount expected to increase up to 2.54 million U.S. dollars by 2026.Despite influencers being the fifth most followed type of social media account in the country, around 53 percent of Spanish social media users follow these types of accounts or personalities. Used by more than 24 million users in the country, Instagram is also the choice for 74 percent of country’s influencers, followed by YouTube with 44 percent. Despite its growth worldwide, TikTok still has not overcome Meta’s dominance in the Spanish market, currently being used by only 24 percent of the Spanish audiences who follow influencers.
