Leading social media apps in Great Britain 2022, by downloads

In September 2022, mobile-first video platform TikTok was the most popular social media app on the Google Play Store among Android users in Great Britain, racking up roughly 298 thousand downloads. Instagram ranked second, with almost 167 thousand downloads, while photo app BeReal ranked third with almost 155 thousand downloads from the Google Play Store in the examined period.

Doing it for the gram: the reach of influencers on Instagram

Enlisting influencers – personalities with significant followings on Instagram – has become an integral part of modern marketing campaigns. Influencers have dedicated followers that have actively chosen to follow a given account, providing a cost-efficient way to reach a targeted audience. Among UK influencers, none have a following greater than David Beckham (@itsmarziapie). In 2020, the professional footballer and celebrity enjoyed a following of 65.2 million people. By comparison, British social media personality Holly H. ranked first among TikTok influencers in the UK, with 16.7 million followers on the short-video platform.

TikTok in the United Kingdom

In the last years, TikTok seems to have taken the global social media scene by storm, and the United Kingdom makes no exception. In January 2022, the popular social video app counted almost nine million active users (MAU) in the UK, up by 27 percent compared to the corresponding month in 2020. In 2021, the most popular TikTok video in the United Kingdom, titled "proving that cats rule," was posted by the user @mmeowmmia and generated nearly 185 million views.