SA Social Media Trends Highlight Growing TikTok Engagement And Waning Facebook Activity

Source: © 123rf 123rf From a consumer perspective, the SA Social Media Landscape Report 2025 found a steady decline of Facebook usage and an increase of TikTok usage

This is one of the insights shared at the SA Social Media Landscape Report 2025 webinar on Thursday, 26 June, presented by Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx.

World Wide Worx produces the report with Ornico, and research by Ask Afrika TGI.

TGI and Ask Africa surveyed 24,500 people, representing over 28.7 million South Africans.

Facebook dropped from 59% of South Africans using it to 56%, while TikTok has gone from 34% to 38%.

While Facebook has shown a decline across all age groups, when the grannies and grandpas get into it, they are all highly active users, although the platform has become more mainstream.

TikTok shows quite a big gap, when looking at users versus highly active users, amongst the very young, and eight percent gap in terms of those who use it and those are highly active users.

“That gap is slightly smaller as they get older, but it's a bigger gap compared to Facebook, and that tells you that TikTok isn't mainstream yet,” says Goldstuck.

On TikTok, if you look at the highest income user, there's a big gap between users and highly active users, that is 60% versus 51% are using it.

This income graph highlights is the fact that TikTok is very much predicated on your income in terms of how actively you use it, or what proportion of people use it.

The higher your income, the more likely you are to use it.

Instagram, except for the 25- to 34-year-olds, does not show a massive gap between users and highly active users.

However, there is a massive correlation between income and the use of Instagram. The higher your income, the more likely you are to use Instagram.

X follows a similar level of usage, which again points to a kind of mainstream usage.

LinkedIn shows a big gap between those who are active versus those who are highly active, especially when you look at the most economically active group of 35 to 44 year olds, but even the 25 to 34 year olds show that gap to some extent.

As with X, the highest income groups are the most active on LinkedIn, but it's not a dramatic correlation as you go down the income groups with usage versus income.

Biggest audiences

The companies with the most Facebook audiences versus other platforms show Woolworths and Pick and Pay are neck to neck as having the most followers on Facebook.

While Spar is almost non-existent compared to those two, ShopRite seems to be behind them, but when you combine ShopRite and Checkers, then it is massive, and their activity and reach are dominant in the Facebook and X environment.

Share of voice

Woolworths has more than 50% share of voice, followed by Checkers and then Shoprite, while Pick n Pay almost vanishes here.

But then, looking at the share of conversation with people talking about the brand, Spar suddenly leads.

“This could speak to the issues Spar faces, so they become a talking point, but it is interesting to see Pick n Pay jumping ahead of Woolworths in share of conversation, with Woolworths actually having the lowest share of conversation,” he explains.

Word cloud for retail

When you look at the word cloud for retail in South Africa, we see words like beauty leaping up alongside the brands themselves.

“Beauty appears to be what is driving the conversation and the activity around retailers on social media,” says Goldstuck.

This year, the survey focuses on the concept of fake identity, with the theme, Fake Identity: The Era of Digital Doubles.