Key Facebook Statistics Marketers Need to Know in October 2026

Before We Write Facebook Off, Look at the Numbers

Facebook has been “dying” for roughly a decade now. And yet, somehow, it keeps turning up to work.

While marketers have chased TikTok trends, Instagram Reels and whatever new platform everyone suddenly decided was essential this week, Facebook has quietly remained one of the biggest social platforms on the planet. The numbers back it up.

So, if Facebook is still sitting somewhere in your social media strategy folder, here are the Facebook statistics and trends marketers should know as we head into October 2026.

Facebook Still Has a Seriously Large Audience

Let’s start with the obvious question: how many people still use Facebook? The answer is: a lot.

The latest global data from DataReportal shows that Facebook remains the world’s most widely used social platform, with 56.3% of internet users aged 16+ saying they had used it in the previous month. YouTube followed at 55.3%, Instagram at 54.6% and WhatsApp at 54.4%.

That is not a niche audience.

It’s also worth separating two very different numbers. Meta’s advertising tools provide estimates of the people advertisers can potentially reach. Those figures are useful for marketers, but they are not the same thing as monthly active users.

Meta itself warns that advertising audience estimates should not be treated as a proxy for daily or monthly active users.

In other words: don’t throw “Facebook has X billion users” into a presentation and call it a day. Know what the number actually measures.

Facebook Is Still Relevant in South Africa

For South African marketers, Facebook’s story gets even more interesting.

DataReportal’s latest South Africa figures indicate that Facebook had 27.9 million users in the country in late 2025. Its potential advertising reach increased by 2.6 million people, or 10.3%, between October 2024 and October 2025.

Facebook’s advertising reach was equivalent to 61.7% of South African adults aged 18 and above.

That makes Facebook particularly difficult to dismiss if your target audience includes established professionals, households, parents, consumers or older millennials.

And there is a useful reminder here: global trends do not always translate neatly to South Africa.

A platform can feel “old” in marketing circles while remaining very relevant to the people actually buying your product.

Facebook’s Audience Isn’t Just Your Parents

One of the laziest Facebook assumptions is that the platform is exclusively for older users.

The data tells a more complicated story.

Globally, Facebook’s largest audience segment sits around the 25–34 age bracket, followed by 18–24 and 35–44 audiences.

Yes, Facebook has an older audience than TikTok. No, that does not mean everyone under 35 has packed up and left. It means Facebook can play a different role in the customer journey.

Instagram might be where someone discovers a brand. TikTok might be where they encounter it for the first time. Facebook can still be where they research it, join a community, read comments, compare experiences or eventually convert.

In fact, 53% of Facebook’s active users say they use the platform for brand research, according to the latest GWI data.

That’s the bit marketers should care about.

People Are Still Spending Time on Facebook

Reach is useful. Attention is better.

According to Similarweb data analysed by DataReportal, Facebook ranked fourth among the world’s leading social apps for active users, behind YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram.

But Facebook still commands meaningful attention.

The average Facebook Android user spends around 67 minutes per day on the app, putting Facebook among the platforms where users spend more than an hour daily.

And 67 minutes is a long time to have someone’s attention.

Of course, that does not mean a person spends 67 minutes staring lovingly at your brand post. Please do not put that statistic in your next pitch deck.

The point is that Facebook remains a substantial attention environment. Your job is to earn a slice of it.

Facebook Is Still a Major Advertising Machine

Now for the part marketers’ spreadsheets tend to enjoy.

Meta reported $60.8 billion in revenue for Q2 2026, up 28% year on year. Across its Family of Apps, advertising impressions increased by 14%, while the average price per ad increased by 12%.

Those figures matter because they show that Meta’s advertising business is not simply coasting on its enormous existing audience. It’s still growing. And increasingly, AI is part of the engine.

Meta has said that AI is playing a growing role in its recommendations, advertising systems and broader product ecosystem.

For marketers, that means the game is becoming less about finding one perfect audience segment and more about giving Meta strong creative and useful signals to work with.

In plain English: better creative matters.

Mobile Still Rules the Feed

Facebook’s consumption story is fundamentally mobile. That matters because mobile behaviour is fast, fragmented and unforgiving.

People aren’t sitting down at their laptops waiting patiently for your 1 200-word brand announcement to load. They’re scrolling between WhatsApp messages, work, music, YouTube, TikTok and everything else competing for their attention. So, your Facebook content needs to work in the feed.

That means strong opening lines. Clear visual hierarchy. Shorter copy where appropriate. Video that gets to the point. And creative that still makes sense when someone gives it approximately half a second of attention.

The platform may be mature. The audience’s patience is not.

Facebook vs TikTok, Instagram and YouTube

So, is Facebook still the best social platform? 

Wrong question. There is no universal winner.

The latest data shows Facebook leading self-reported social media use globally, while YouTube dominates active app usage and TikTok users tend to spend more time per day on the platform.

That tells us something important: different platforms win on different measures.

Facebook is particularly useful when scale, established audiences, community and brand research matter.

Instagram remains powerful for visual discovery.

TikTok excels at entertainment and discovery.

YouTube is a heavyweight for video consumption.

Your strategy should reflect what your audience is actually doing, not which platform currently has the loudest marketing discourse.

Conclusion: What Do These Facebook Statistics Mean for Marketers in 2026?

The biggest takeaway isn’t “Facebook is back”. Facebook never really left.

The smarter takeaway is that marketers need to stop thinking about social platforms as interchangeable buckets of eyeballs.

Use the data to answer better questions:

• Who is actually on the platform?
• What are they doing there?
• What role does Facebook play in their journey?
• And can our content give them a reason to care?

For South African brands, the answer may still be a very healthy “yes”.

Facebook reaches more than half of South African adults, has grown its potential ad reach and remains one of the world’s most widely used social platforms.

So no, you don’t need to make every campaign “Facebook-first”. But abandoning Facebook because it doesn’t feel shiny anymore? That might be the less clever move.

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