August 2025 marked a watershed in how Azerbaijanis consume media. According to analytics platforms, Instagram usage shot up by 8.69 percentage points compared to July, reaching 42.7%. That means nearly every second internet user in the country now turns to Instagram as their go-to space for communication, news, and entertainment. Just two years ago, in the summer of 2023, Instagram hovered around 28–30%, while Facebook comfortably held the crown.
Facebook’s trajectory tells the opposite story. Its share slipped to 30.76% in August — almost a full point down from July. For the first time since 2015, Facebook firmly ceded the top spot, losing ground not just among young people but also among parts of the older demographic.
Meanwhile, YouTube — long seen as the dominant video platform in Azerbaijan — suffered a sharp decline. Its share plummeted to 10.27%, down 5.04 points in a single month. Analysts point to the explosion of Instagram Reels and TikTok as major culprits, coupled with new monetization restrictions YouTube rolled out across the region.
Pinterest, holding steady at fourth place, slipped slightly to 6.15%. X (formerly Twitter) inched up to 7.2%, remaining a niche platform in Azerbaijan, mostly used by journalists, politicians, policy wonks, and globally minded youth. LinkedIn, riding the country’s growing IT sector and deepening ties to global business, rose modestly to 1.65%. The rest of the social media field barely registers, together accounting for just 1.28% of users.
Shifting Habits, New Patterns
An almost nine-point monthly leap for Instagram isn’t just a tech shift — it’s a social one. What began as a photo-sharing app is now a full-fledged media hub. Beyond influencers, it hosts official accounts for ministries, agencies, and international organizations.
DataReportal’s August 2025 survey shows the average Azerbaijani spends about 3 hours and 14 minutes a day on social media. Sixty-five percent of that time goes to Instagram — well above the global average of roughly 56%.
There are clear reasons behind this pivot. First, Reels algorithms make it easy to reach a local audience without paid promotion. Regional bloggers from Ganja, Sumqayit, or Khachmaz can rack up thousands of views, a reach once reserved for Baku-based tastemakers.
Second, Instagram has become the main informal newswire. While TV still caters to a more traditional audience and news websites grapple with declining traffic, social platforms are now the entry point for information. MediaPulse reports that 71% of Azerbaijanis under 30 get their news directly from Instagram.
Facebook vs. Instagram: A Changing Balance
Facebook’s dip to 30.76% isn’t unique to Azerbaijan — it’s part of a global pattern. The platform is bleeding younger users who want faster, more visual content. Still, Facebook hasn’t lost all relevance. It remains the hub for discussion groups, professional circles, parenting forums, and a wide swath of older political activists.
Interestingly, Facebook in 2025 has become less influential for news but more crucial for grassroots organizing. In June and July alone, over 600 Facebook groups sprang up to coordinate humanitarian aid for victims in Syria and Palestine. That kind of mobilization underscores that while its role is shifting, Facebook still carries weight.
YouTube’s Video Crisis
YouTube’s nosedive to just over 10% market share in August 2025 has multiple explanations. Users are flocking to short-form video. What was once the primary destination for entertainment and education is losing share to Reels and TikTok. Officially, TikTok doesn’t crack Azerbaijan’s top platforms, but young people are still accessing it through VPNs and back channels.
Trust is another factor. In a crowded information space, long-form videos are losing credibility, especially in politics and current affairs. MediaScope Azerbaijan’s August 2025 study found that only 18% of respondents trust YouTube bloggers as news sources, compared to 27% for Instagram posts and stories.
The economics matter too. Azerbaijani creators saw ad revenue from YouTube tumble 14% year-on-year. That’s a big disincentive to keep producing. Many pivoted to Instagram, where direct brand deals bring faster, often higher-paying returns.
Pinterest and X: Niche but Influential
With 6.15% of the market, Pinterest is hardly a mass platform in Azerbaijan, but it plays a distinct role. Its audience skews heavily female and clusters around design-oriented communities. Fashion, interiors, food, and DIY culture drive its use. Even with a nearly one-point dip, Pinterest retains a loyal user base that doesn’t overlap much with other networks.
X (formerly Twitter), at 7.2%, fills an entirely different niche — it’s the arena for political debates, cross-border exchanges, and international networking. Azerbaijani users here interact directly with politicians, journalists, and activists from Turkey, the U.S., and Europe. In August 2025, conversations spiked around the peace treaty talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Caspian energy strategy, and Turkey’s diplomatic maneuvers.
X has essentially become a tool of “second-track diplomacy.” When Washington floated new sanctions on Russian oil exports in July 2025, Azerbaijani experts used X to explain the ripple effects for the South Caucasus to their global peers in real time.
LinkedIn: A Mirror of Economic Change
LinkedIn’s climb to 1.65% may look modest on the surface, but it reflects profound shifts in Azerbaijan’s economy. Job postings in the country’s IT sector on LinkedIn surged 21% over the past year. Multinationals have been planting deeper roots in Baku and Sumqayit, with more than 110,000 Azerbaijani profiles active on the platform by August 2025 — nearly 40% higher than in 2023.
This momentum mirrors Azerbaijan’s role as an emerging energy and logistics hub. Global players in transport, petrochemicals, and renewables are using LinkedIn to recruit local specialists. That 1.65% share carries strategic weight far beyond the number itself.
Social Media as a Political Battleground
By the turn of 2024–2025, social media had fully morphed into a political stage. What once were backroom arguments are now front-and-center debates on Instagram and X.
Take the public response to Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan’s July statement on “the need for international security guarantees.” The backlash in Azerbaijan exploded online — Instagram and X were flooded with memes, commentary, and analysis. The hashtag #peacewithoutoccupation, launched by local bloggers, racked up over 4.8 million views in just 24 hours, according to SocialBaku.
Facebook still plays a role, especially among older users who prefer long-form text debates. But the generational shift is clear: Instagram and X dominate the fast-moving, image-driven narrative.
The Geopolitics of Information Security
With Instagram and X on the rise, Azerbaijan faces a new front: safeguarding its digital space. A National Cybersecurity Agency report in August flagged a 27% spike in fake accounts spreading anti-Islamic and anti-Azerbaijani content in the first half of 2025.
The concern isn’t just trolls. Analysts track coordinated networks tied to Armenia and pro-Russian actors working through X and Facebook to push skewed narratives on Karabakh. In July alone, more than 1,500 Facebook pages were identified as systematically spreading disinformation about the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijan’s response has been to deepen ties with global tech firms. In August 2025, the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport signed a deal with Meta to accelerate moderation of Azerbaijani-language content.
Instagram and the Rise of “New Politics”
Instagram’s surge to 42.7% in August 2025 isn’t just a media milestone. It’s a cultural and political shift. With more than 40% of the country’s population under 30, Instagram has become the natural habitat for a new generation.
Unlike Facebook’s text-heavy discussions, Instagram thrives on visuals, short clips, and stories. That’s where political culture is being reinvented. Memes are the new campaign posters; Reels carry more weight than hour-long TV talk shows. Young influencers, locked out of traditional media, are building audiences from scratch. Between July and August 2025, Azerbaijani bloggers pulled in over 280 million views on politically and socially charged Reels alone.
The implications are huge. According to the Global Digital 2025 report, 72% of Azerbaijanis aged 18–25 trust information on Instagram more than in traditional media. That’s both a measure of the platform’s power and a warning sign: manipulation on Instagram can hit harder than old-school propaganda ever could.
TikTok: The Shadow Giant
TikTok doesn’t appear in the official rankings of Azerbaijan’s top platforms, but its grip on the country’s youth is undeniable. Independent surveys put its share of the audience at 11–13% in August 2025 — numbers often left out of open reports due to VPN access and quirks of local registration.
And it’s not just about lip-syncs and memes. Since early 2025, Azerbaijani TikTokers have been churning out content on education, migration, and career paths. The platform has also become a venue for sensitive conversations on youth rights, labor migration, and gender equality. In effect, TikTok is already competing head-on with YouTube and Pinterest for user attention, and could realistically capture 15–17% of the market in the years ahead.
Journalism in the Age of Social Media
Social networks have upended journalism itself. News sites, once stand-alone sources, now depend heavily on Instagram and Facebook as distribution pipelines. By August 2025, direct traffic to Azerbaijani news portals had fallen 19% compared to 2022, while referrals from social platforms jumped 37%.
That shift forces editors to play by new rules: short copy, snackable infographics, and videos under a minute. Anything else risks vanishing into the void. But there’s a catch: this format also turbocharges disinformation. An August 2025 report from the European Digital Media Observatory flagged Instagram and X as the region’s main conduits for fake news about international events.
Social Media as Foreign Policy
For Azerbaijan, social media has become more than a domestic tool — it’s a diplomatic weapon. Nowhere is this clearer than in debates around Karabakh and regional diplomacy. Officials lean heavily on X to get their message across to an international audience.
In August 2025 alone, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushed out more than 50 infographics and videos across X and Instagram explaining the peace talks. Those posts drew more than 12 million views, roughly a third from outside Azerbaijan. Social networks have become not just spaces of internal mobilization, but instruments of public diplomacy.
Cyber Risks and Outside Interference
That visibility comes at a cost. The National Cybersecurity Agency’s August report underscored several troubling trends. Fake accounts tied to foreign networks are multiplying: more than 3,200 Instagram accounts pushing disinformation about Karabakh were shut down in July and August, many traced back to Armenia and Russia.
Hackers are also stepping up attacks on Azerbaijani journalists and activists. August saw more than 400 attempted breaches, up 35% from June. Analysts tie the spike to heated international debates around the peace process.
Then there’s the rise of synthetic disinformation. In July 2025, a deepfake video circulated on X showing a senior Azerbaijani official making inflammatory remarks. It racked up more than 250,000 views in a single day before being debunked.
Public Pushback and State Response
Azerbaijan’s society is becoming increasingly alert to the problem. A MediaPulse survey in August found that 61% of users had encountered fake news on social media in just the past three months.
The state is stepping up too. In August, the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport inked a deal with Meta to set up a local team of Azerbaijani-speaking moderators — a move aimed at faster takedowns of disinformation and hate content.
At the same time, demand for media literacy is surging. Starting September 2025, Baku schools will pilot a “digital culture” course designed to teach teenagers how to separate fact from manipulation.
Outlook for 2026: Possible Scenarios
Analysts see several trajectories for Azerbaijan’s digital landscape over the next year.
- Instagram’s Dominance Deepens. If current momentum holds, Instagram could claim 45–47% of the market by mid-2026, powered by Reels and the rapid expansion of e-commerce on the platform.
- Facebook Stabilizes. While sliding from its peak, Facebook isn’t going anywhere. It’s likely to hold steady around 28–30%, increasingly anchored in parent groups, local community hubs, and professional chats.
- TikTok’s Rise. Assuming no bans or regulatory crackdowns, TikTok could break into the 15% range by late 2026, challenging YouTube head-on.
- Niche Growth for LinkedIn and X. LinkedIn will continue to grow in step with Azerbaijan’s professionalization and global integration, while X is expected to hold its niche as the country’s international and political debate stage.
Comparative Snapshot: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia
Azerbaijan’s trajectory has echoes in the region but also sharp contrasts.
- Turkey. Instagram already commands more than 50% of the market. Facebook, though slipping, remains relevant in politics and local networking. TikTok is the fastest-growing platform with a 22% annual jump. Crucially, X plays an outsized role in Turkish political life — hashtags regularly break into global trending lists.
- Georgia. The story is different: Facebook leads with about 44%, followed by Instagram at 38%. YouTube holds up better in Georgia than in Azerbaijan, hovering around 12%. TikTok is officially measured at 10–11%. Georgians still gravitate toward long-text debates, in contrast to Azerbaijan’s youth-driven shift to visual formats.
- Azerbaijan. The country mirrors Turkey in Instagram’s dominance and the international use of X, but aligns with Georgia in Facebook’s continued clout. Its unique marker is YouTube’s dramatic collapse — a sharper decline than seen in either neighbor.
Why Instagram Took Off in Azerbaijan
The August surge that pushed Instagram to 42.7% was no fluke. StatCounter data confirm the platform leapfrogged Facebook (30.76%) and pulled far ahead of YouTube (10.27%). X (7.2%), Pinterest (just over 6%), and LinkedIn (around 1.6%) remain niche but steady players.
Quarterly numbers tell the same story. By late August, local media citing StatCounter noted YouTube had shed 72% of its share over three months, while Instagram gained 8.69 points in a single month. The shift reflects a broader global tilt toward short, vertical video and the rise of hyper-local influencers.
The base conditions are critical. By early 2025, Azerbaijan counted 9.23 million internet users — 89% of the population — and 6.73 million social media accounts (64.9%), according to DataReportal. With market saturation near, growth now comes from shifting time across platforms and deepening engagement.
Another driver: the “mobilization of the screen.” By August 2025, roughly two-thirds of web traffic came from mobile devices. That explains why “vertical short-form” beats desktop-style long videos every time.
Risks: Disinformation, Manipulation, and Precision Strikes
The heavier social media weighs in the information diet, the sharper the risks. In Q1 2025, Meta disclosed and removed covert influence networks linked to Iran, China, and Romania. The precedent matters not just for the EU or U.S. but for states like Azerbaijan, where Instagram and X are core channels of political communication.
The key lesson: disinformation no longer requires sprawling bot farms. A handful of well-coordinated accounts can seed viral narratives with surgical precision. That’s why fast-response channels with platforms — local-language moderation, accelerated takedowns — have become strategic imperatives.
Azerbaijan has started to adapt. In 2025, the Ministry of Digital Development expanded partnerships with major tech firms, tying digital policy to the rollout of its 2025–2028 national AI strategy. A September memorandum with Presight, for instance, was part of that effort.
The Bigger Picture
Social networks in Azerbaijan are no longer just social. They’re arenas of geopolitics, economics, and culture. Instagram’s dominance, Facebook’s resilience, TikTok’s stealth growth, and X’s diplomatic role show a country negotiating not just platforms, but power.
By 2026, the fight for attention inside Azerbaijan will be inseparable from the fight for influence beyond its borders.
Social Media as Soft Power: From Domestic Narratives to Global Audiences
Strengths of the Current Landscape
Instagram has become Azerbaijan’s “default media.” Cards, Stories, Reels, micro-infographics, and short explainers let officials, influencers, and journalists break down complex issues — from energy and logistics to peace negotiations — for mass audiences without friction. Its biggest edge: dominance among 18–34-year-olds, a group less likely to consume traditional political commentary.
X (formerly Twitter) operates as “second-track diplomacy.” Here, Azerbaijani voices engage directly with international journalists, analysts, NGOs, and current and former officials. For a country sitting at the crossroads of energy corridors and transit politics, this channel is indispensable.
Soft power, however, goes beyond politics. LinkedIn, though small in absolute numbers, has become a showroom for Azerbaijan’s ICT and logistics sectors, connecting local talent to global recruiters. The Ministry of Digital Development’s AI strategy (2025–2028) and its MoU with Presight serve as signals to investors of a maturing digital governance ecosystem.
Journalism and Advertising in the Instagram Era
News distribution in 2025 is platform-dependent. Globally, digital now accounts for nearly three-quarters of ad spending, and the summer 2025 outlook from major agencies was cautiously optimistic: 6% annual growth in ad revenues, dominance of UGC platforms, and accelerated AI integration in creative and targeting.
For Baku, that “new normal” means newsrooms packaging content into short texts, cards, and vertical videos. The downside: audiences need media literacy to identify context and source, while editors must double down on verification to avoid losing the “speed vs. accuracy” race.
The Attention Economy and SMB Gains
For small and mid-sized businesses, platform dynamics translate directly into revenue.
- Sales on Instagram. With 42.7% market share, it’s the primary storefront for fashion, beauty, F&B, and local services. “Storefront + chat + delivery” on a single channel often replaces the need for a website.
- E-commerce Lift. Even with modest volumes (tens of millions annually), Azerbaijan’s e-commerce is growing 5–10% year over year. Social platforms remain the cheapest source of traffic and conversion.
- Mobile First. With two-thirds of traffic coming from mobile, short, story-driven formats will continue to outperform desktop-oriented content.
Diaspora as an Amplifier
Azerbaijan’s diaspora acts as both multiplier and translator of domestic narratives for global audiences.
- On X, English- and Turkish-language threads connect directly with international journalists and think tanks.
- On Instagram, visual storytelling and human-interest series resonate more strongly with U.S. and EU audiences than raw data points.
Used in tandem, these two modes cut across language and cultural barriers, allowing Azerbaijan to frame its case on sensitive issues with facts and context, rather than emotion.
The Political Dimension: State and Institutional Priorities
- Local Moderation and Escalation. Agreements with platforms on fast-tracking Azerbaijani-language content disputes — from deepfakes to harassment — are now a matter of digital resilience. Meta’s Q1 2025 reports on dismantling covert influence ops make clear the need for constant, structured engagement at both technical and political levels.
- Fact-Checking and Media Literacy. Embedding media education into schools, universities, and the civil service is cheaper and more effective than putting out reputational fires after the fact.
- Open Data Analytics. Monthly briefings from state bodies or NGOs on platform shares, trending topics, and disinformation sources would build public trust and shrink the space for manipulation.
2026 Outlook: Realistic Scenarios
- Instagram: 45–47%, fueled by Reels and in-app commerce.
- Facebook: 28–30%, anchored in community groups, peer-to-peer services, and long-form discussion.
- TikTok: 13–15% actual share of attention, especially among youth, rivaling YouTube and Pinterest despite undercounting in official reports.
- LinkedIn: 2%+, tied to ICT and logistics hiring.
- X: 7–9%, as the go-to for political and expert debates.
- E-commerce: steady 5–10% annual growth, with performance budgets shifting further into vertical social formats.
What Needs to Happen Now
- For Government Communications. Develop unified visual language guidelines, a library of ready-to-use explainers (energy, transport, humanitarian topics), red-teaming protocols against deepfakes, and “graphic rebuttal” playbooks. Create a three-tier escalation system (local moderation → regional teams → global policy) and publish monthly transparency reports.
- For Newsrooms. Adopt a “two-track” model: every story gets a short vertical video with data hooks and a long-form version with documents and links. Build trust inventories — from open-source data bots to public corrections policies.
- For SMBs. Mix “Reels/Stories + lead forms + micro-landing pages” to optimize mobile traffic. Invest in UGC-driven creative, reflecting the global trend of ad budgets flowing into user-generated ecosystems. Position e-commerce as the “second checkout” — retaining customers through subscriptions and messenger-based sales rather than costly web traffic.
The Bottom Line
Azerbaijan’s social media sphere is no longer just about communication — it’s about power, perception, and positioning. Instagram sets the tone at home, X opens diplomatic channels abroad, LinkedIn signals economic maturity, and TikTok quietly grows into a cultural force. For 2026, the real test won’t be just which platform wins the numbers game — but whether Azerbaijan can leverage its digital ecosystem as a coherent instrument of soft power.
Regional Frame: Where Azerbaijan Sits on the Map of the Caucasus — and Beyond
When it comes to digital consumption, Azerbaijan looks more like Turkey than Georgia. Instagram dominates, X plays an outsized role in politics, and the shift to mobile-first vertical formats is faster and deeper. Georgia, by contrast, remains anchored in Facebook-heavy habits. For Azerbaijan, this alignment with Turkey is a competitive edge: it means a greater readiness to use visuals and micro-explainers to communicate complex issues — energy corridors, logistics, peace talks — to foreign audiences. In today’s crowded media battlefield, that ability translates directly into influence.
August’s numbers are not just a blip on the chart. They mark a new configuration of the social media market:
- Instagram as the media standard — the platform where stories, cards, and Reels define what most Azerbaijanis see and share.
- X as the external voice — a place for cross-border debates, policy conversations, and expert exchange.
- Facebook as the local fabric — neighborhood groups, community hubs, and peer-to-peer spaces that keep older networks alive.
- YouTube as the platform of long attention — still valuable for documentaries and archives but steadily losing ground to short-form verticals.
For this configuration to serve national interests, Azerbaijan needs more than platform-by-platform chasing. It needs strategy. That means:
- Local moderation and clear escalation protocols with platforms.
- Institutionalized fact-checking and media literacy programs to harden society against manipulation.
- Systematic packaging of national narratives into visual-first formats that can travel globally.
- A digitally mature state, complete with AI infrastructure and international partnerships, signaling readiness for the next stage of governance.
Only then does the data stop being a scoreboard of “who beat whom” and start functioning as an instrument — one that serves media, business, civil society, and the state alike.