• by Colin Kirkland , May 5, 2025

Last week, some of the biggest social media companies reported their earnings over the first quarter of 2025. MediaPost has compiled the highlights from each report, showcasing increased competition within a rapidly changing industry. 

LinkedIn

As in the previous quarter, Microsoft reported “record engagement” -- a 9% rise in session growth -- and a 8% boost in revenue for LinkedIn in Q3.

According to Microsoft’s earnings calls, the business-to-business social platform “continues to grow at double digits year-over-year” in terms of members, not daily active users, of which it has about 140 million. 

Driven by its recent TikTok-like video feed and vertical video features integrated into the platform’s search results, video engagement has also ramped up within the app, with time spent watching video posts up 36% year-over-year, and comments up 32%. 

Doubling down on video, LinkedIn recently launched BrandLink, an expansion of the company’s “Wire Program,” which allows marketers to sponsor video content from top creators and publishers on the platform. Brands are able to run in-stream ads ahead of the original content in feed in an effort to help localize video content more effectively. 

LinkedIn says it has seen 130% higher video-completion rates, a 23% higher view rate compared to standard video ads and an 18% higher lead conversion rate since testing the program last June.

Microsoft says LinkedIn has seen 75% more sign-ups for Premium Company Pages compared to the previous quarter. 

Reddit

As Reddit continues to expand its ad business, the community messaging platform added 7 million users since its previous quarterly report, and now touts almost 110 million daily active users, with some markets growing exponentially. 

In Brazil, Reddit says daily active users rates are up by almost 80% year-over-year due to the company’s machine translation tools. “MT is available in 13 languages, up from 8 in Q4, including Vietnamese, Thai, Polish, Romanian, and Latin American Spanish,” the report reads. 

On average, Reddit has also increased its weekly active users by 31% year-over-year, rounding out at about 400 million -- a notable boost compared to other leaders across the social-media landscape.

In addition, Reddit reported $392 million in revenue for the quarter, which is up 61% year-over-year.  

Reddit attributes some of its success to new advertising products -- especially Dynamic Product Ads, which the company started testing at this time last year. Still in beta testing, the ad product invites advertisers to highlight their items within relevant subreddits, effectively targeting niche communities. 

The company says improved machine-learning models are resulting in “meaningful progress” around the product. 

Snapchat

For the first time, Snapchat hit 900 monthly active users in its first 2025 quarter, and is now closer to its goal of 1 billion MAUs.

The company says that over the past year, it has added 38 million daily active users, totaling about 460 million DAUs. 

However, despite its steady growth, the company’s user base remained stagnant in Europe and actually decreased in North America.

To continue to grow its user base in these key markets, the company says it is “prioritizing innovation in three key areas,” which includes boosting visual communication, investing in AI and ML models and strengthening its creator ecosystem.

In terms of revenue, Snap reported a 14% increase year-over-year this quarter, amounting to $1.36 billion overall.

The company likens this success to its direct-response advertising solutions, which contributed 75% of its total ad revenue in Q1, as well as an increase in SMB advertisers (incentivized by a new Affiliate Program and expanded Partner Program) and Snapchat+ subscribers. 

Snap says that focusing on SMBs has spurred its total active advertiser base to grow 60% over the past year, while Snapchat+ is almost up to 15 million subscribers, showing a 59% increase year-over-year.

Meta

No longer defining itself as a “social” media company -- according to the recent antitrust trials -- Meta continues to add users and boost revenue across its family of apps. 

Meta added 80 million users in Q1, reporting 3.43 billion users in total -- about 40% of the world’s entire population. Therefore, the company’s market reach is substantial, amassing $42.31 billion in revenue for this year’s first fiscal quarter -- a boost of 16% year-over-year. 

Like its previous quarterly report, Meta is still losing money on its Reality Labs division, responsible for the company’s mixed-reality metaverse products, like its Ray-Ban glasses, which recorded a loss of $4.2 billion.

These costs contributed to Meta’s overall expenses, which totaled $24.76 billion -- an increase of 9% year-over-year. As the company continues to develop new experiential technology and AI data centers, its costs are expected to further increase.

As for its advertising business, Meta says ad impressions increased 5% year-over-year. The average price per ad is up by 10%. 

Notably, Meta’s newest app, Threads, reached 350 million monthly active users -- with a 35% increase in time spent on the app.

Meta has publicly shared that X competitor Threads is on track to become the company’s next major social app, having recently opened up opportunities to advertisers. 

YouTube

Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform YouTube has boosted its ad revenue by 10.3% year-over-year, bringing in a total of $8.93 billion in Q1 2025.

While this number is just short of analysts' expectations, it does not include revenue generated through YouTube TV or YouTube Premium, which was not included in the revenue report.

YouTube’s earnings are reflected in Alphabet’s overall Q1 results, which include $90.2 billion in total revenue -- a 12% increase year-over-year -- and $34.5 billion in net income, a 46% increase year-over-year.

YouTube -- which turned 20 years old this year -- says it has hosted over 20 billion video uploads to date.

According to Streams Charts recent Global Livestreaming Landscape report, YouTube beat out TikTok and Twitch in streaming engagement, amassing almost 15 billion watch hours in the first quarter.