Who are Thailand’s 46 Million Facebook Users?

Research published in Digital in 2017 revealed that Thailand has 46 million registered Facebook users. That’s 2% of the entire global Facebook usership and a huge percentage of the Thai population. Clearly, Facebook is an everyday fact of life for most people in the Land of Smiles.

Where are they?

As you’d expect, most of Thailand’s Facebook users are in Bangkok, which has 30 million registered users. Coming in a distant second place are Chiang Mai and Nakhon Ratchasima with 1.3 million users.

Who are they?

Business owners looking to connect with new customers can leverage Facebook’s treasure trove of personal data to better understand their audience. Here are some of the unique characteristics of Thailand’s user base.

Male to female ratio – The population is split 51% men and 49% women.
Largest age group – 18-24 year olds claim the top spot with 14.8 million users. 25-34 year olds are a close second at 13.7 million users, and 35-44 year olds are next at 7.3 million.
Family matters – 3.6 million people have declared their marital status as married and 570,000 people are presently listed as engaged. Facebook has also identified 4.4 million parents, of which 430,000 have teenage children.
Expatriates – There are 2.9 million expats registered as living in Thailand with 96,000 from the UK, 160,000 from USA, 20,000 from Australia and 1,800 from Peru.

What are they doing?

They are posting, chatting, shopping and commenting—a lot. People in Thailand spend an average of almost three hours per day on social media. And while each person uses the platform differently, the common thread is that people want to engage. This is evident by the most popular pages in Thailand: a mixture of celebrity, viral video and news pages, which you can see below.What do they want?

The popularity of the above pages indicates a desire to be educated, informed and entertained. Facebook takes the place of the daily newspaper, water cooler gossip, gaming platforms, telephones, SMS messages, TV stations, magazines, and pretty much any other form of media you can imagine.

In the USA, Facebook is the primary news source for 40% of the population; that number is probably even higher in Thailand, given the flawed and insubstantial news available from local media. This provides enormous opportunities for businesses that are able to develop effective social media marketing strategies in Thailand.

However, companies looking to connect with this large and growing audience must recognize that digital marketing strategies differ significantly from traditional methods. Simply adapting an old-style marketing strategy to Facebook is likely to be counter-productive.

Instead, your content should blend in with the content already in Facebook users’ newsfeeds. As people are on Facebook to be educated, informed and entertained, your content should do the same. We recently wrote an article on how businesses can effectively use Facebook, which is a good starting point for any firm.If all this sounds like too much of a hassle, don’t be afraid to get help from an expert. Lexicon has achieved proven results with customers, and we’re sure we can do the same for you. Get in touch with us today at +66 223 588 68.

Lexicon is a full-service digital marketing agency in Bangkok, offering copywriting, social media marketing and graphic design services.