Instagram overtakes Facebook by the number of adult users in Ukraine for the first time

Despite the war in Ukraine, entrepreneurs and marketers continue to work and look for opportunities to advertise and sell their products both domestically and in other countries. We will tell you how to promote Ukrainian products in a future post. Today, we have prepared some interesting figures on the Ukrainian audience.

We will talk about the services that allow you to build the largest reach through video advertising, as this tool is the most effective for building brand awareness.

The leaders in Ukraine today are the same as in previous years: YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. We will only talk about these three services, because PornPub will not catch up with them in terms of audience size, and not every business will dare to advertise its product on an 18+ website. We do not take TikTok into account, as it currently does not allow advertising with targeting to Ukraine.

Advertising on YouTube

YouTube is not just a place where you can watch cats playing with laser pointers. It is a large platform where women and men watch videos in almost equal numbers. The platform’s total audience is 20.014 million users aged 18+, with women making up 10.584 million and men 9.430 million.

What to look for on YouTube:

/ Smartphones are #1 among devices. Be sure to add vertical video when placing ads. Pay attention to the types of video campaigns that use Shorts placement, which will increase your reach.

/ Smart TV and desktop have almost the same reach according to Google statistics. In advertising campaigns without device targeting, the actual values of impressions and reach on Smart TV are even higher than on desktop. If your goal is to build brand awareness, leave your ads on all types of devices. If you need instant online sales, Smart TV advertising is better

TikTok

Should have been on the second place in the reach ranking. But it was disqualified due to the inability to advertise in Ukraine and closed data on the number of users in our country. According to third-party estimates, it could be between 12 and 16 million people.

Instagram advertising

A social network with significantly more women than men. Of the total adult audience of 12.2 million users, 7.6 million are women and 4.6 million are men. George Carlin would say: “Why do women like Instagram more? Because they know how to take a selfie that looks like a portrait of the Mona Lisa, not a driver’s license photo.”

Interesting facts about Instagram

/ For the first time, Instagram has overtaken Facebook in terms of the size of the 18+ audience in Ukraine.

/ The largest size of Instagram’s audience was recorded in January 2022: 15.8 million users aged 18+. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, it has been falling and in January 2023 amounted to 11.6 million users. That is, over the past year and a half, it has grown by 0.6 million users.

What to look for on Instagram

/ For video advertising, rely on Stories and Reels placements.

/ Keep an eye on the frequency of your ad’s contact: it should not exceed 2 contacts per week, and it is advisable to change creatives every two weeks.

/ Ads that look like UGC rather than classic commercials work better.

Facebook advertising

Good old Facebook. There are more women here too. Maybe because they always want to know what their friends are up to and, of course, subscribe to all the possible groups about healthy eating, fashion, and cats. And men? They’re just looking for a place to complain about work and watch funny memes. The platform has a total audience of 10.7 million users, of which 6.5 million are women and 4.2 million are men.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian Facebook audience has decreased by 35%: in January 2022, it amounted to 16.4 million users aged 18 and older.

The most active users of social media are young women aged 18 to 34. If this is your target audience, you need to cover all of these platforms in your advertising campaigns: YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Men of the same age group are also very active, but their level of engagement is slightly lower than that of women.

Another important audience is users aged 35 to 44 who are active on YouTube and Facebook. Instagram is less popular among this group, especially among men. Given these trends, marketers should focus their efforts on creating content for younger users, particularly women, to increase engagement on YouTube and Instagram.

For older age groups (45+ years), Facebook remains the most popular platform, so marketers should focus on this platform to attract older audiences. In general, the strategy should take into account the age characteristics of users and their preferences for social media platforms to maximize communication.

The difference in the number of users under the age of 34 on Instagram and Facebook is striking:

/ Instagram users aged 18-34: 6.6 million

/ Facebook users aged 18-34: 2.573 million

A successful marketing strategy should take into account the specifics of each platform and their audience. Use this data and recommendations to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

If you need help planning and placing ads on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, contact UAMASTER digital agency. We are one of the TOP 15 best digital agencies in the world according to Clutch, we have the status of a Google and Meta partner, and we have been helping companies achieve their online goals for 20 years.

This article available in Ukrainian.