What are Daily Active Users (DAU) + DAU stats from top social platforms

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What are daily active users (DAU)? 🤔

DAUs represent the number of unique users who have interacted with your product or application within a 24-hour period.

For example, on a social media platform like Facebook, a user who logs in and interacts with the platform by liking a post, sharing a video, or commenting on a friend's photo is considered an active user. Add the total number of users who perform the specific action over a day and you have your DAU.

How to calculate daily active users (DAU)? 📲

Counting the number of unique users who have engaged with your product or service within a 24-hour period is the easiest way to measure Daily Active Users (DAU). However, there are a few things to consider before doing so.

Step 1: Define an active user 💪🏼

It's crucial to define an active user and have a clear understanding of how DAU contributes to long-term retention. Don’t choose a random action metric that doesn’t contribute to long term retention. You have to be extremely mindful about the action the user performs to be counted as an active user 💪🏼

Step 2: Fix a time to calculate DAU everyday 🕡

Select a fixed time to calculate DAU daily and stick to it every single day. Doing so helps you accurately understand how small product changes affect your DAU. Plus this consistency also allows you to compare DAUs across a long time period.

Step 3: Identify a unique identifier 💁🏼‍♂️

You need to identify a unique identifier for each user, such as their email, username, or user ID. This will allow you to distinguish every person using your product, during the time of data analysis.

If you don’t have a unique user ID, you need to speak with your data team and get it sorted ASAP 🤘🏼

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What are some examples of daily active users (DAU)? 👊🏼

Here are some examples of daily active users for some of the world’s best social media platforms. These are all facts based on the first quarter of 2021 👇🏼

Facebook: 1.88 billion daily active users

Instagram: Over 500 million daily active users.

Snapchat: 280 million+ daily active users.

Twitter: 199 million monetizable daily active users.

LinkedIn: 76 million daily active users.

TikTok: 1 billion monthly active users (this is a rough estimate).

What are some other products where measuring DAU makes a lot of sense?

Social media products

Photo & video-based products (think your smartphone’s gallery)

Entertainment apps like music, television, etc..

What are some things that affect the daily active user count?

New user acquisition ✋🏼

The number of new users acquired daily can affect DAU. If more users are signing up and try the product, there is naturally an increase in DAU. Plus social media apps like Instagram have serious network effects where DAU organically increases as there are more users on the platform.

Existing + New User Retention ➕

The ability to retain users over a longer period of time can have a significant impact on DAU. You have to holistically think about DAU from both an old & new user perspective. Gamification is a great way to increase DAU in an organic way. An incredible example of gamification done well is the CRED app 💪🏼.

User experience & Onboarding 🚶🏼‍♂️

The quality of user experience can immensely impact DAU. If users find the product or service easy to use and navigate, they are more likely to use it daily. Also if the onboarding is smooth and doesn’t pose a ton of challenges, it leads to a lift in the number of daily active users 🚀

Thanks for reading 👋🏼

P.S: If you loved reading about this growth metric, you will find this list of 23 growth metrics incredibly helpful 💪🏼