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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Hashtags used to be simple: Just add a pound sign in front of a keyword and hope it trends. But times have changed, and their role and importance has evolved. Marketers need to use them more strategically, which is why hashtag analytics is a non-negotiable.

Today, hashtags fuel discoverability, engagement, and virality. The right hashtag can boost reach, find your audience, and ride trending waves. But the wrong one leads you to dead air — no clicks, no ROI. 

Hashtag analytics via social listening cuts through the noise so you can focus on what actually works. Here’s how you can find the best hashtags that get traction. 

Key Metrics to Track in Hashtag Analytics

How to Use Hashtag Insights Strategically

Hashtag analytics: The process of tracking and analyzing data related to hashtag performance on social media platforms.

General social media analytics focus on a broad range of metrics (think follower growth, post engagement rates, etc.). It’s a closer look at the bigger picture.

Hashtag analytics are different. They collect metrics like reach, engagement and how often they’re used. This gives marketers a bird’s eye view of how certain hashtags perform. 

Without this specific data, you could be missing chances to grow, connect, and convert.

Hashtags are still one of the fastest ways to get discovered on social media. Users click on hashtags to see similar content using those same hashtags, which signals high interest and intent.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are flooded with content, and users have shorter attention spans than ever. Hashtag analytics helps you hook the right users by pinpointing which tags actually drive engagement, not just impressions.

For marketers, a hashtag tracker equals real-world results. Monitor campaign hashtags to:

Find words or phrases that spark the most interaction

Hashtag data turns guesswork into game plans. They aren’t there to decorate your posts, but rather to help you get discovered and engage your audience. This is only possible when you use the right hashtags, and without data, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the algorithm.

TIP: Check out our blog on the Best TikTok Hashtags for more views, including our Hashtag Hero AI assistant to help you generate the best hashtags for your posts!

Whether you’re using Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, or Instagram hashtag analytics, there are a few key metrics to pay attention to:

Reach: Number of unique users who saw the hashtag

Impressions: Total number of times the hashtag was seen

Engagement rate: The total number of likes, shares, comments, or clicks on posts using the hashtag

Sentiment analysis: The tone or connotation associated with the hashtag

Audience demographics: The type of user who interacts with the hashtag (e.g., age, gender, location, interests)

Trend time: How long the hashtag has been popular (or how its popularity has changed)

Together, these metrics give you a comprehensive idea of what’s working on social media and help you choose better hashtags for your campaigns.

Whether you’re tracking a single hashtag on Instagram or trying to find a collection of hashtags to use across multiple channels, the process looks similar.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how to analyze hashtag performance:

If you already have some hashtags in mind, start with those.

Or, you can check out competitors’ content to see what hashtags they’re using. Do the same for influencers in your niche. 

Plug those into an Instagram hashtag analytics tool or something similar to start generating data.

Look at specific metrics for each hashtag, such as reach, impressions, engagement, and frequency of use. Timeliness is key here, as you don’t want to use hashtags that are no longer relevant or popular.

Not all hashtag meanings are straightforward. Case in point: the infamous #WhyIStayed hashtag used by DiGiorno.

The pizza brand used this hashtag to promote pizza, not knowing it represented domestic violence victims.

Check to see who else is using the hashtag and how they’re using it. For example, is it crowded with irrelevant content? Dominated by big accounts? Being used in a completely different way than it sounds?

Ideally, the hashtag should match your audience and niche.

TIP: For information on how to leverage trending hashtags without any unfortunate mix-ups, check out our Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking!

Hashtags can be A/B tested. See how your content performs with different hashtags. If posts using one hashtag consistently get more saves and shares than other posts with different hashtags, that’s a signal.

Keep tracking your hashtag analytics to find better performers and drop the ones that aren’t pulling their weight. Regular testing will help you get ahead (and hopefully stay there).

Setting measurable goals can help you find those golden nuggets more easily. For example, do you want to drive more clicks to your link in bio? Increase reach by 20%? Clear benchmarks help you act on the data, rather than just collect it.

You could analyze hashtags the old-fashioned way, manually tracking likes, comments, and shares. Or, you can use a dedicated Instagram hashtag tracker or similar tool to do it for you.

Manual methods might work for small campaigns. But if you’re managing multiple hashtags across platforms, you need something more heavy duty.

Here are some of the top tools for the job.

Tip: Learn more about hashtag tracking tools.

Meltwater is built to provide your organization with digital media intelligence at scale, and its hashtag tracking is robust. It gives you access to real-time and historical data across multiple news sources and social platforms, including hashtags analytics on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, and others. You can track volume, reach, sentiment, and influencer engagement tied to specific hashtags. 

AI-driven insights help surface trends before they go mainstream. The platform includes built-in features like sentiment analysis, share of voice, and social listening so you can see how your audience is using hashtags.

Want to see the power of Meltwater's social listening and analytics solution in action? Click here and fill out the form below for a demo!

Brand24 is a helpful analytics tool for smaller teams or agencies who want serious data. Its hashtag tracking feature lets you track the number of mentions, analyze sentiment, and identify key conversations around your hashtag.

The platform automatically tracks brand mentions and related hashtags your audience uses. You can also manually search for hashtags and track performance across multiple channels, like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 

See who’s using the hashtag, which may help you find influencers, fans, or even critics who are shaping the conversation.

Sprout Social pairs a simple user interface with hashtag analytics, giving you a clear idea of which hashtags perform the best. It tracks hashtags on Twitter and Instagram to find frequently used hashtags and gives context into how they’re being used.

Sprout Social’s platform also includes an inbound hashtag analytics option. When users engage with you and use a hashtag in their response, you can tag the post to learn how they’re using hashtags in relation to your brand.

Tip: Take a look at other Sprout Social alternatives.

Keyhole brings hashtag analytics across multiple platforms to a single dashboard. It visualizes hashtag data so you can make sense of engagement metrics, demographics, and influencers faster and easier.

The platform delivers side-by-side analysis so you can optimize your content strategy across platforms. It also includes machine learning to predict which hashtags will help you hit the mark.

Whether you’re strictly using Twitter analytics or need hashtag data for broader campaign uses, your next priority is to act on that information. Here’s how you can put your insights to work:

Spot trending hashtags early. Look for spikes in usage and engagement so you can ride the wave before it becomes oversaturated.

Refine campaign targeting and timing. Use the data to time posts and maximize reach.

Track branded hashtags for real-time feedback. This helps you catch user-generated content and customer feedback you can amplify or respond to.

Keep an eye on competitors. See which competitor tags are gaining attention and how their audience is responding, which can help you find gaps and new trends.

Even with a good hashtag analytics tool, your hashtag strategy can still flop if you’re not careful. Here are some of the most common (and costly) mistakes to avoid:

Overloading posts with irrelevant hashtags: Doing this can give off spammy vibes and tank engagement.

Ignoring context and sentiment: Without checking the context, you risk hijacking a serious or controversial conversation and damaging your brand’s reputation.

Chasing vanity metrics: Don’t fall into the trap of using popular hashtags that boost views but lead to zero clicks, shares, or conversions.

Consult our FAQs below or our Hashtags Handbook for more insights into using hashtags.

Hashtag analytics is the process of tracking and measuring hashtag performance across various social media platforms.

Why is hashtag analytics important for social media marketing?

Hashtag Analytics: Boost Engagement with Smarter Hashtags

The digital world plays a significant role in modern life, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person events have gained a new level of importance. From the rise of run clubs to the resurgence of book clubs, IRL activities are filling a very real need for interpersonal engagement away from screens. Relatedly, experiential marketing and in-person events are brands’ secret weapons for driving engagement and finding differentiation in crowded marketplaces. Sometimes that looks like an attention-grabbing spectacle. For example, consider the Apple TV+ show Severance’s viral installation in Grand Central Station featuring the real-life cast of the show or Louis Vuitton’s viral activation last fall, when it transformed its flagship building in New York City into a stack of its iconic trunks, cleverly camouflaging construction scaffolding. 

Dig into more high fashion marketing activations in our Luxury Fashion Influencer Benchmarking Snapshot.

In a similar vein, in-person activations can also look like localized events and pop-ups that bring consumers and/or influencers together. Take the week-long, pop-up diner Cheez-It hosted in Upstate New York last spring or Miu Miu’s annual Summer Reads events, hosted this year in Beijing, Hong Kong, Milan, Osaka, and Paris. 

We used our social listening capabilities to see what social media buzz can tell marketers about the buzz around in-person events, as well as one app catering to them, Partiful.

 Social media buzz around in-person events is growing in 2025

In the first half of 2025, social media mentions of several categories of in-person events have increased. For example, discussions of board game and trivia nights, which had the highest volume of mentions (nearly 8,000 across 17 social channels), increased by 2% from January to June 2025, compared to the six months prior. In the same time period, buzz about speed dating events increased by 22%, but with only about a tenth of the volume of mentions.

There were over 4,400 social media mentions of in-person book clubs in the first half of 2025.

Particularly interesting is the buzz around IRL book clubs. Social media mentions were 14% higher in the first half of 2025 than they were in the second half of 2024, while engagement was 23% higher, indicating rising interest. For an example of how to hop onto the buzz around IRL clubs and events, look to Miu Miu’s previously mentioned Summer Reads activation. While attending influencers got to enjoy the events held at beautiful locations, their content generated excitement among their followers. 

This Instagram post from French singer Louane from MiuMiu’s Summer Reads event at the National Library of France generated nearly $23,000 in Estimated Media Value (EMV). 

Similarly, La Colombe and OkCupid’s Love Over Lattes singles happy hour events earlier this year, held in partnership with local influencers in three U.S. cities, tapped into the spirit of Valentine’s Day. This post by Kate Lazarski, hosting influencer of the Chicago Love Over Lattes event, generated about $11,600 in EMV. 

In each case, brands used events seemingly disconnected from their products to reinforce the community aspect of their brand identities and foster loyalty in the process. Though the discussion remains niche, many brands and consumers alike are showing renewed appetite for offline connections. Expect forward-thinking brands to get even more creative with in-person activations and partnerships as this trend continues to grow and evolve. 

Social media mentions of Partiful increased by 107% in H1 2025 compared to H2 2024.

Growing interest in in-person events and experiences is mirrored in the popularity of party-planning app Partiful. Launched in 2020, it now reports about 500,000 monthly active users, up 400% YoY according to one estimate. 

Our analysis found that social media mentions of Partiful in the first half of 2025 were more than double those in the six months prior. Spikes in conversation centered on jokes and memes (one of which the brand turned into social content of its own), as well as Apple’s February launch of its competitive app Apple Invites, highlighting Partiful’s growing place in popular culture. 

News and broadcast mentions of Partiful increased by a third in H1 2025 compared to H2 2024.

Additionally, the app has had strong visibility in traditional media; its news and broadcast mentions increased by 33% in the first half of 2025 compared to the six months prior. Some of its furthest-reaching news mentions included those in articles about a viral cake picnic in San Francisco, the growing popularity of in-person board game clubs, and NYC watch parties for the Women’s NCAA March Madness Tournament, among many others. 

Overall, the rise of Partiful and Apple Invites signals a broader consumer shift towards seeking out meaningful, IRL connections. Brands that can tap into that excitement, like Instacart and Pizza Hut already have, will have a distinct edge on their competitors.

What can marketers learn from the rise of in-person events in 2025?

Overall, there are a few key lessons that marketers can take away from the social listening data on in-person events:

Use digital connections to foster real-world ones. Whether working with influencers or partnering with apps and organizations, brands can use their existing digital marketing infrastructure to create IRL events and activations that get noticed. In particular, events that build on brand identity with creative and indirect approaches are surefire ways to stand out, especially if attendees have ample opportunities to create and share UGC.

Experiences are marketing must-haves. Promotions and activations that bring people together give brands the chance to engage with consumers in concrete ways, reinforcing their presence and driving brand loyalty. In turn, marketers can use such events to hear directly from the consumers themselves. Along with using events for promotion, brands can use them for invaluable feedback that they may not have access to otherwise.

Influencers deliver intimacy at scale. In-person events can only reach so many people, but influencer attendees and hosts help followers near and far experience them vicariously. Choose your content creator partnerships carefully and strategically to leverage in-person activations to reach new audiences.

What Marketers Can Learn from the In-Person Events Boom

Looking for the latest digital trends? Good news: our Digital 2025 July Global Statshot Report has you covered.

Published in partnership between We Are Social and Meltwater, this latest update in our ongoing Global Digital Report series has all the data you need to understand evolving digital preferences and behaviours, including rich insights into:

Top stories in this quarter’s report include:

A deep dive into the disruption of search

The world’s “top” social media platform

A big new milestone for internet connection speeds

…and that’s just a fraction of what you’ll find in the 540+ pages of the full report, so be sure to read on below to get the full story.

As always, we’d like to start by extending our heartfelt thanks to our generous data partners, who provide the world leading data you’ll find in this report:

All of this analysis has been written by Simon Kemp, without the use of generative AI [why does this matter?]. 

Simon has been producing the Global Digital Reports series for 15 years, so he’s intimately familiar with the global “state of digital”, and how people’s online behaviours are evolving.

If you’d like to follow Simon’s regular analysis, you can connect with him on LinkedIn.

As you explore this latest report – and especially as you compare trends in the data over time – please be aware of the following notes:

With the generous support of GWI, we’re delighted to bring you expanded insights into the use of the world’s top social media platforms in this quarter’s report. These charts provide valuable new perspectives on social media use, and enable readers to develop an even more detailed understanding of digital preferences and behaviours. Please pay careful attention to the descriptions on each chart to understand what it portrays, and be sure to check the footnotes to identify the relevant data source(s).

GWI has expanded its coverage of audiences aged 65+ to a range of new countries, which may impact various metrics across its research. Please keep this expansion in mind when comparing the latest GWI values with figures published in our previous reports.

Please also refer to our comprehensive notes on data to learn about other recent changes.

You’ll find our complete Digital 2025 July Global Statshot Report in the embed below (click here if that’s not working for you), but read on past that to find an in-depth analysis of what all these numbers actually mean for you and your work.

Let’s begin with our usual look at the latest global headlines:

The United Nations’s World Populations Prospects data shows that there are 8.23 billion people living on Earth today, with that figure up by 70 million people (+0.9 percent) since this time last year. The UN’s data also highlights the continuing trend of urbanisation, with 58.3 percent of the world’s population now living in urban centres.

Analysis from GSMA Intelligence indicates that there are 5.76 billion unique mobile users around the world in July 2025, which equates to 70.0 percent of the world’s total population. The global unique subscriber figure has increased by 111 million over the 12 months, delivering annual growth of 2.0 percent. Meanwhile, data from Ericsson shows that smartphones now account for roughly 87 percent of the mobile handsets in use.

At the start of July 2025, the world’s online population had reached 5.65 billion, suggesting that internet penetration now sits at 68.7 percent. Internet user numbers have increased by 146 million (+2.7 percent) over the past year, but 2.58 billion people remain offline at the time of writing.

Kepios analysis indicates that global social media user identities now stand at 5.41 billion, with that figure equivalent to 65.7 percent of the global population. That user figure has increased by 4.7 percent over the past 12 months too, with 241 million new identities starting to use social platforms since July 2024 [note that “user identities” may not represent unique human individuals].

These headline figures offer a valuable overview of the global “state of digital” in July 2025, but in order to understand what people are actually doing online – and how their behaviours are evolving – we need to go deeper into the data.

So, go grab some refreshments, get yourself comfy, and we’ll take a closer look at this quarter’s essential findings.

Over the past two decades, search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo have been the starting point for most people’s online activities and purchase journeys.

That’s still largely true today too, but online search behaviours and experiences are changing rapidly, and the impact of these changes will impact everybody who uses the internet – individuals and organisations alike.

So, given the critical importance of these trends, we’ll begin this quarter’s analysis with a deep dive into the changing face of search.

More than 4 in 5 online adults report using online search on a regular basis, with 80.6 percent of respondents in GWI’s latest survey stating that they’ve visited a search engine or web portal within the past month.

This figure ranks search engines third in GWI’s list of the world’s most popular online “properties”, behind messaging apps and social networks.

However, actual use of search engines may be even higher than GWI’s research suggests, because – even if the visit isn’t intentional – many web browsers automatically direct users to search engine results if they enter an incomplete, incorrect, or invalid URL in the address bar.

Indeed, this is likely the primary reason why “Google” remains the top keyword entered into Google’s own search engine.

For broader context, Similarweb reports that Google.com attracted an average of 83 billion visits per month between 01 March and 31 May 2025, from an average of 3.16 billion unique visitors each month.

Now those numbers are already pretty impressive, but other figures paint an even clearer picture of just how important Google has become to the world’s online activities.

For example, Similarweb reports that Google.com accounts for almost 20 percent of traffic to the world’s top 10,000 web domains.

Moreover, figures published by Semrush indicate that Google’s traffic may be even higher than Similarweb’s numbers suggest, with Semrush reporting an average of 105 billion visits per month to Google.com, from an average of 5.87 billion unique devices.

And furthermore, the available data suggests that Google handles trillions of searches every year.

But these figures aren’t really surprising, even if they’re still impressive.

Indeed, across the world’s 5.64 billion internet users, “finding information” remains a top motivation for going online, and more than 6 in 10 connected adults (61.3 percent) say that this is one of the primary reasons why they use the internet today.

 And we also see remarkable consistency in the use of search engines across demographics.

Retirees are the most likely to tell GWI that they’ve used a search engine in the past month, but GWI currently only polls respondents in this age group across a subset of its survey geographies.

Critically, that subset does not include India or China, where respondents are less likely to say that they use search engines overall.

And if we focus our attention on internet users aged 16 to 64, it becomes clear that there’s actually very little variation by age or gender when it comes to the regular use of search engines.

But this level of demographic consistency is actually highly unusual when it comes to digital behaviours.

For instance, even when it comes to other “ubiquitous” digital behaviours like the use of social media or email, we still see wider variation in the data across ages and genders for these activities than we see in the data for the use of search engines.

Consequently, this level of consistency may indicate that the use of search engines has become something of an inherent online behaviour.

However, GWI’s data suggests that the world’s use of search engines has been declining over recent months.

Four years ago, at the start of 2021, GWI’s survey found that 84.1 percent of online adults had used a search engine within the past month.

The Meltwater Blog

Hashtag Analytics: Boost Engagement with Smarter Hashtags

What Marketers Can Learn from the In-Person Events Boom

Digital 2025 July Global Statshot Report

Generative AI Content Creation: The Future of Creativity

Social Media Statistics in Singapore [Updated 2025]

How Love Island USA Was a Marketing Goldmine for Brands in Summer 2025

The Song of the Summer 2025 Based on Online Buzz

Top 12 AI Communication Tools

Earned Media Monitoring: How to Track Your Brand’s Impact

Three F1 Movie Activations That Drove Big Online Buzz

Tailoring Social and Media Intelligence for Global Enterprises

How to Create a PR Strategy