45 Social Media Stats that Customer Service Reps Should Know in 2021

Ten years ago, social media customer service was considered a novelty. Your team was going above and beyond by providing service to those who reached out to you on Facebook or Twitter.

Today, customers expect service personnel to be monitoring your social media channels pretty much 24/7. When someone posts something about your brand, they expect an immediate response. And, it's not just Facebook and Twitter that you have to worry about. Now, there are a variety of social media platforms where customers can voice their opinions.

Keeping pace with the constant changes in this space can be demanding for your customer service team. With different platforms being created and new trends forming on each one, it's hard to determine where you should focus your efforts.

To help, we've curated the list below of social media customer service stats. It summarizes the trends, platforms, and behaviors that your team should be monitoring this year. If you want to locate something specific, here's a table of contents to help you navigate the post.

Table of Contents

Social Media Customer Service Stats

Facebook Customer Service Stats

Twitter Customer Service Stats

Instagram Customer Service Stats

Other Social Media Channel Stats

Social Media Customer Service Stats

These stats have been organized into different sections and each includes a link to their respective sources.

Social Media Customer Service

1. 45% of the world's population uses social media. (Emarsys)

2. Approximately one in three (34%) use social media to learn about or discover new products, services, or brands. (Business 2 Community)

3. 51.7% of consumers expect businesses to respond to their negative review within seven days. (Review Trackers).

4. 42% of people that have social media use it to research products. (Data Reportal)

5. 91% of social media users access their channels through mobile devices. (Lyfe Marketing)

Data Source

7. Handling customer service requests via social media channels is up to 12 times cheaper than handling the same requests by phone. (BrandWatch)

8. The average social media user visits six different social networks per month. (Datareportal)

9. If you don't respond to comments on social media, it can lead to a 15% increase in churn rate. (Gartner)

10. Answering a social media complaint can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%. (Convince and Convert)

11. 94% of consumers say an online review has convinced them to avoid a business. (Review Trackers)

12. Globally, 54% of people had a more favorable view of brands that responded to customer service questions or complaints on social media. (Ledgeview Partners)

Facebook Customer Service Stats

Data Source

15. The best time to post on Facebook is between Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday between 9AM to 1PM. (Sprout Social)

16. There are roughly 80 million fake Facebook profiles. (Statistic Brain)

17. 70% of Facebook users visit the site daily, and more than half visit it multiple times each day. (Pew Research)

18. 74% of people use Facebook to keep up to date with friends and family. (Twitter)

Twitter Customer Service Stats

19. 60% of Twitter users expect a response to their tweet within an hour. (Twitter)

20. 63.7% of global Twitter users identified as male while only 36.3% are female (Statista)

Data Source

22. When a customer receives a response from a brand on Twitter, they're willing to spend up to 20% more on a product in the future. (Walker)

23. Behind price and brand reputation, cultural relevance drives 23% of a consumer’s purchase decision. (Twitter)

24. 71% of customer service complaints made on Twitter aren't answered. (Aspect)

25. Twitter’s global audience is composed of 38.5 percent of users aged between 25 and 34 years old. (Statista)

Instagram Customer Service Stats

27. 40% of U.S. adults are using Instagram, which is 7% higher than last year. (Pew Research)

28. There are over 500 million daily active stories on Instagram. (Statista)

29. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely to use Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok than any other age group. (Pew Research)

30. Your company's Instagram influences 80% of Instagram users' decision to buy your product or service. (Facebook)

31. 59% of Instagram users visit the platform on a daily basis. (Pew Research)

32. There are 1.074 billion active monthly users on Instagram in 2021. (Emarketer)

33. 67% of users use Instagram to keep up to date with what’s trendy. (Twitter)

34. 71% of businesses are using Instagram. (Oberlo)

Other Social Media Channel Stats

35. Pinterest is 31% more popular with women than it is with men. (Pew Research)

36. 82% of Gen-Z people say they trust Reddit when it comes to learning more about products. (Reddit Blog)

37. 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn, whereas only 9% with a high school diploma or less use LinkedIn. (Pew Research)

38. LinkedIn accounts for 80% of social media leads for B2B businesses. (Forbes)

39. Hispanic Americans (46%) are far more likely to say they use WhatsApp than Black (23%) or White Americans (16%). (Pew Research)

40. As of the second quarter of 2021, the photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, had 293 million daily active users worldwide. (Statista)

41. Service interactions with automated chatbots jumped 81% in 2020 (Zendesk)

42. The top two objectives for B2B digital marketers are increasing customer engagement and improving customer experience, highlighting the rise of a more customer-first approach than in the past. (Wpromote)

43. 63% of companies are prioritizing customer experiences more in 2021 (Zendesk)

44. 80% of consumers say the star ratings they trust the most are 4.0, 4.5, and 5 stars. (Review Trackers)

45. 59% of consumers message a brand to share a great experience, followed by 37% for customer service issues. (Sprout Social Index)

Customer Service Stat Takeaways

Social media proves to be an ever-growing necessity for service reps to better assist their customers. No matter which channel you choose to operate on, you need to maintain some strategies to fulfill your customer’s needs:

• Be responsive to your audience. Your customers have a high willingness to voice their opinions on your brand. It’s your job to respond to them and take their needs into consideration.

• Automate your inbox to quickly respond to customers, better manage your FAQ page, and track responses. Use automated customer service tools to your advantage to better satisfy your customers without the wait of a live rep.

• Keep diversity and inclusion at the forefront of your strategy. Different social media platforms are better suited for different age demographics and identities — make sure you aren’t only serving the needs of the few.
• Adjusting your strategy as you view social media critiques can prevent a negative brand image. Proactive social listening can help you avoid disaster before it strikes through quick customer service interactions. Whether it be a respectful Twitter reply, Instagram direct message, or more, your company can avoid a bad rep before the issue grows.

In all, customer service reps can build a strategy that takes in account these thought-provoking social media stats, and better serve their customers in 2021.

This post was originally published in March 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.