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Stormy & Birgit

Advertising on Social - Child Storm insights

Social media has become unpredictable to live without. Not from our daily lives and not from a good media plan. In the Netherlands, 14.6 million people aged 15 or older now use one or more platforms. So the market is still growing. But beneath that growth, everything is shifting. Time for an update per platform, based on Newcom's National Social Media Survey 2026.

 

The networks

  • Facebook, with 9.9 million users, remains one of the largest networks in the Netherlands. Striking: the number of users is exactly stable compared to last year. In fact, daily use is growing slightly again to 7.2 million. Facebook written off? Far from it.

  • Instagram, is the strongest grower among the major platforms. The network now has 8.9 million users, an increase of 640,000 (+8%). Daily use also continues to rise to 6.2 million. Visual content remains the winning recipe.

  • YouTube, continues to grow steadily to 10.6 million users, making it the second-largest platform in the Netherlands. 4.9 million people watch daily.

  • X continues to decline. From 2.8 to 2.7 million users. Daily use remains stuck at 1.4 million. The exodus of previous years has leveled off, but there is no sign of recovery.

  • LinkedIn has 5.8 million users and that number is fairly stable. The interesting part is in the daily use: this rises by 17% to 2 million. The business network is therefore increasingly becoming a daily habit. For B2B brands, this is the moment.

  • TikTok continues to grow to 4.7 million users (+6%) and 3.4 million daily users. No longer just a teenage platform for a long time.

  • Snapchat is shrinking slightly. The platform has 3.9 million users (-2%) and daily use drops to 2.9 million. Still strong among teenagers and people in their twenties, but the peak seems to be over.

This year's surprises come from off the beaten path. Signal explodes from 0.9 to 2.3 million users, a growth of 1.4 million in one year. And travel app Polarsteps grows by 36% to 2.5 million users. BeReal, which was still the promise last year, is actually sliding away: daily use falls to about 300,000 people.


Advertising

Two things stand out. First: sentiment is shifting. Dutch people see the usefulness of social media, but concerns about its influence are increasing. Two out of three Dutch people now support a ban for children under 16. In the long run, this will also affect brands active on these platforms.


Second: daily use says more than total reach. Over a third of the Netherlands is on social media every day anyway. Smart buyers therefore do not just look at how many people are on a platform, but at who returns daily and whether that is your target audience.


Choosing a platform is all about the match between target audience, objective, and budget. Each network has its own dynamics, cost structure, and advertising opportunities. Getting more out of your media budget is not a matter of spending more money. It is a matter of looking smarter.


Need help making that choice? Please contact us. 


Source: Newcom Research & Consultancy, National Social Media Survey 2026



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