Which social networks does AI cite?

Key findings

1. instagram.com tops the list. It is cited in the answers for 35 of 41 brands, ahead of facebook.com (35) and tiktok.com (24).
2. Social networks get 2.3% of third-party citations: 1,179 of 51,159.
3. Google AI Overviews relies on them most: 6% of its citations, against 0.3% in ChatGPT.
4. Each engine has its favourite: linkedin.com in ChatGPT and Perplexity; instagram.com in Google AI Overviews; facebook.com in Google AI Mode.
5. The five most-cited domains take 97.5% of the group’s citations, spread over 8 domains.
6. By sector, they weigh most in travel, events and leisure (3.8% of citations) and least in industry, construction and B2B services (1.1%).

Data from Mencoro, October 6, 2026 to November 2, 2026: 9,721 answers to the buyer questions that 41 brands track in Spain. The brands are not named. Last updated on November 3, 2026.

The ranking

Ranked by reach: the number of brands whose AI answers cite the domain at least once, then by citations. Reach says more than volume, because one busy market can pile citations on its own niche sites.

Download the data (CSV)

By engine

By sector

Sectors with three or more brands in the data.

Why social profiles reach AI answers

When an engine answers a question about a local business, a shop or a professional, the brand’s social profile is often the most current public page about it: opening hours, photos, reviews, recent posts. Some engines lean on those pages much more than others.

That makes social profiles part of AI visibility, not just of social media. A complete, active profile on the networks an engine cites is one more page that can back an answer about your brand.

What to do with this

1. Find out which of your profiles each engine cites for your questions, and which competitors’ profiles appear instead.
2. Keep the profiles engines cite complete and current: name, category, location, hours, contact and a description that answers the buyer’s question.
3. Plan per engine: a network one engine cites constantly may never appear on another.

Methodology

• Data: the answers Mencoro captured over the last 28 days for the tracked questions of 41 brands whose market includes Spain, on ChatGPT (with web search), Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Perplexity. Not every brand tracks every engine, and an engine tracked by fewer than three brands is left out.
• What counts: Social networks, video and podcast platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, Threads, Vimeo, Twitch, Spotify, iVoox and Apple Podcasts.
• Citations: every source link an engine attached to an answer, rolled up to the registrable domain (es.rs-online.com counts as rs-online.com). Each brand’s own domains are set apart and reported separately.
• Source types: assigned from reviewed lists for the most-cited domains and from rules for the rest (public-sector suffixes, universities); anything unlisted counts as a company website.
• Privacy: the brands are not named, and rankings only list domains cited for three or more brands (two on Perplexity and inside a sector).
• Limits: the questions are commercial questions chosen by each brand, not a random sample of what people ask AI, and the mix of sectors shapes the totals.
• Updates: the report is rebuilt every Tuesday from the latest data. Figures quoted elsewhere may come from an earlier week.

How Mencoro captures each answer is public on how Mencoro works.

How to cite this report

Mencoro, “Which social networks does AI cite?”, data updated on November 3, 2026, https://mencoro.com/data-studies/top-social-networks/. You are welcome to use the figures and charts with a link to this page.

More data studies

• Which forums and user-written sites does AI cite?
• Which Spanish media does AI cite?