⚡ Social Media in South Africa

Social media are online platforms where people can create, share and interact with content while connecting with others through likes, comments, messages, live streams and shared posts, making it easy to build social communities.

South Africa is an African country with a population of over 60 million people.

According to our data, social media platforms are used on 56.9% of websites from South Africa.

⭐ Most Popular in 2026

The following chart shows the top social media platforms in South Africa in 2026, based on market share.

The most popular is Facebook with an impressive share of 86.5%, followed by Instagram with 61.3% and X with 47.6%.

Facebook 86.5%
Instagram 61.3%
X 47.6%
LinkedIn 36.7%
WhatsApp 11.2%
TikTok 8%
Pinterest 2.4%
SoundCloud 0.8%
WeChat 0.6%
Telegram 0.5%
Flickr 0.5%
Behance 0.4%
Linktree 0.4%
Tumblr 0.3%
Threads 0.2%

🚀 Highlights

Here is a list of the top platforms that are more popular in South Africa than worldwide.
Differences between global and country rankings are shown in parentheses.

8. SoundCloud ^(-4)
9. WeChat ^(-8)
12. Behance ^(-12)
13. Linktree ^(-13)
14. Tumblr ^(-2)
15. Threads ^(-6)
18. QQ ^(-1)
20. Mastodon ^(-5)
21. Substack ^(-9)
23. Weibo ^(-6)

✨ Best Social Media Platforms

Below is a more detailed list of the top 25 of the 51 social media platforms used on sites from South Africa, ranked by their market share.

Rank	Name	Market share
1	Facebook Menlo Park, California, United States A social media platform owned by Meta. Free	86.5%
2	Instagram Menlo Park, California, United States A photo and video sharing social media platform owned by Meta Platforms. Free	61.3%
3	X Bastrop, Texas, United States A social media platform that allows users to post short messages, images, and videos. Free$3+/month	47.6%
4	LinkedIn Mountain View, California, United States A business and employment-focused social media platform that enables professionals to network, search for jobs, share content, and engage with companies. Free$29.99+/month	36.7%
5	WhatsApp Menlo Park, California, United States An instant messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Meta. Free	11.2%
6	TikTok Haidian, Beijing, China A Chinese social media platform focused on short-form videos. Free	8%
7	Pinterest San Francisco, California, United States A social media platform for sharing and categorizing images in the form of pinboards. Free	2.4%
8	SoundCloud Berlin, Germany An online music streaming and distribution platform that allows musicians upload, share, and monetize audio tracks, while listeners discover and engage with content. Free$4.99+/month	0.8%
9	WeChat Shenzhen, China A Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app that has evolved into a super-app combining communication, commerce, and everyday services. Free	0.6%
10	Telegram Dubai, United Arab Emirates A cloud-based messaging app for mobile and desktop platforms focused on security, speed, and privacy. Free$$$	0.5%
11	Flickr Mountain View, California, United States A photo-sharing social network with free storage for up to 1,000 photos. Free$10.44/month	0.5%
12	Behance San Jose, California, United States A platform for creative professionals around the world to showcase their own work and to discover the creative work of others. Free$9.99+/month	0.4%
13	Linktree Melbourne, Victoria, Australia A freemium social media landing page service that lets users create a single customizable page of links to all their social profiles and websites from one shareable URL. Free$5+/month	0.4%
14	Tumblr San Francisco, California, United States A blogging and social media platform currently owned by Automattic. Free$6.99/month	0.3%
15	Threads Menlo Park, California, United States A microblogging and social media platform from Meta. Free	0.2%
16	Bluesky Seattle, Washington, United States A social network designed to operate without control by a single company, built as a reference implementation of the AT Protocol for distributed social networks. Free	0.2%
17	Discord San Francisco, California, United States An instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows users to communicate via text chat, voice, and video. Free$2.99+	0.2%
18	QQ Shenzhen, China A Chinese instant messaging software platform. Free	0.2%
19	Reddit San Francisco, California, United States A social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network where content is promoted by members ("redditors") through voting. Free$5.99/month	0.1%
20	Mastodon Berlin, Germany A decentralized social network running on independent servers and powered by Mastodon open source software. Free	0.1%
21	Substack San Francisco, California, United States A social media platform for writers and journalists that supports subscription newsletters and monetization. Free$$$	0.09%
22	VK Moscow, Russia A Russian social media and social networking service that allows users to communicate, share content, and join online communities. Free	0.07%
23	Weibo Beijing, China A Chinese microblogging website. Free	0.07%
24	Goodreads Seattle, Washington, United States A book-based social media platform owned by Amazon. Free	0.06%
25	Line Tokyo, Japan A Japanese instant messaging and social networking app often described as a super-app because it integrates services such as a digital wallet, news feed, digital comics, media streaming, and shopping. Free	0.06%

👉 See Also

🌎 Social Media in other countries

Data is based on the analysis of 17,795 websites from South Africa.
Statistics were last calculated on March 21, 2026.
For details, see our methodology and disclaimer.