So you’ve officially gotten engaged – the ring is gorgeous, and the moment was just as magical as you always expected it would be. So what’s next? You have to share the good news, of course.

In years prior, you might have sent official announcement cards to family and friends or even submitted an engagement announcement and photo to the local newspaper. While some couples may still utilize these traditional methods, social media has changed the way many think about letting the world know about life’s big events.

Whether you decide to share a candid shot of the moment (if you’re lucky enough to have one) or use a more creative method to reveal your new relationship status, there are currently more than 6 million posts on Instagram tagged #engaged that prove this trend isn’t stopping anytime soon. We studied more than half a million of these posts (as well as engaged statuses on Facebook) to find out just how popular the online engagement announcement movement is and which cities and states had the most action (and “likes”) on their posts. Read on to see what we discovered.

Sharing the Big News

Utah is not without a variety of options if you’re considering popping the question. You could get engaged under the nighttime sky at a national park, at the top of a majestic ski slope, or even in a hot air balloon (for the truly adventurous). Of course, after you do that, there’s only one way to share the good news – social media, of course. Our study of over half a million online photos tagged with #engaged revealed that engagement posts shared in Utah earned the most likes across the country, scoring roughly 229 double-taps, on average. You don’t have to bend a knee or say yes in Utah if you want to score likes, though. Posts shared from both Idaho and New York earned more than 200 instances of digital affection.

States where you shouldn’t take it personally if the Instagram post with your big news doesn’t earn as much attention? Delaware, Iowa, and South Dakota, where pictures tagged with engagement notifications only earned between about 65 and 82 likes, on average.

Alternative Hashtag Options

#Engaged isn’t the only way to share your big news, and it might not be the best way depending on where you live in the country. In California, where posts tagged with #engaged earned nearly 171 likes on average, those that mentioned #SheSaidYes climbed to more than 234. California doesn’t just have a few good places to consider starting your journey toward eternal love – it also has one of the world’s most romantic locations for a proposal. New York also had more likes when tagged with #SheSaidYes, while states including Mississippi, Iowa, and New Hampshire had the least.

When it comes to getting engaged – or even posting about the special moment – there are no rules. Men proposing to their partners also take advantage of the opportunity to share the big news of their engagement online, and many use the tag #HeSaidYes to help spread the love. While tradition may suggest that a man should be the one getting down on one knee, plenty of women have taken matters into their own hands and made sure to tag the moment. #HeSaidYes posts earned the most online love in Texas, New York, and Missouri, but weren’t even half as popular in states like Washington, Maryland, or Colorado.

The Big Status Change

When it comes to the best age to do nearly anything, it seems like everyone has an opinion. Do something too young and someone is bound to call you reckless, but wait long enough and someone else might decide to remind you how old you’re getting. Even statistics have their own assessment on the best years in which to get married – and they don’t even necessarily line up.

While we can’t say if they’re the best ages to get engaged, we can say which ages are most popular for men and women to switch their online relationship status from “In a Relationship” to “Engaged.” We found women between the ages of 25 and 29 lead the soon-to-be-married pack, with 6 percent of women in this demographic identifying as engaged. While the most engaged men were also between 25 and 29 years old, less than 4 percent of men in this age group listed their upcoming marriage as an official Facebook status. According to our research, men over the age of 35 were more likely than women in the same age ranges to list themselves as engaged online.

Strength in Numbers

If you were originally hesitant about listing your relationship status online, you’re not alone – avoiding the status change might help you avoid unnecessary drama. Still, when you finally hit those milestone moments, there may be nothing quite as satisfying as getting to switch that status to help reveal the big news.

If you find yourself subbing out that old status for the engaged banner and live in either Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or Louisville, Kentucky, you might be glad to hear that you’re not alone. According to Facebook, the largest community of engaged men was in Oklahoma City, while the largest female population planning for their big day was in Louisville. In each city, exactly 3.3 percent of the profiles we looked at from each gender identified as engaged.

For men, other popular cities included Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana, while women were most likely to be engaged in Mesa, Arizona, and Kansas City, Missouri.

The State of Relationships

Our research found that 4.1 percent of men and women from West Virginia were listed as engaged on Facebook. If you happen to be engaged there, you won’t have to travel far for some of the most beautiful wedding venues in the country, and if engaged elsewhere, the charming Maylon House or the rustic Confluence Resort may be worthy of a destination wedding no matter where you’re from.

We also found that 3.8 percent of men from New Hampshire and Pennsylvania were happy to share the news of their engagement over social media, while 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent of women from Kentucky and Maine, respectively, had changed their relationship status to reflect pending nuptials.

Your First Disagreement

Not everyone has the same opinion on when, if ever, you should list the news of your engagement on social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. While Instagram certainly has become a popular outlet for sharing the magic of the moment, Facebook has a more complicated history when it comes to when, how, or even why you’d bother to finally update that relationship status.

Our study revealed that certain states across the country had some rather deep discrepancies between the number of men and women who’d changed their profile status to reflect the nature of their real-life betrothals. In Illinois, close to 30 percent more women were listed as engaged, while nearly 31 percent more men in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania made the online switch. States with the least inconsistencies between men and women’s statuses included Hawaii, West Virginia, and Arizona.

Save the Best for First

When you get engaged, you probably want the world to know about it. If you decide to share the big news on social media, there are a couple of unwritten rules you might want to make sure to follow before hitting the share button. Generally speaking, your immediate family should probably hear the news directly from you rather than seeing it online. You might want to wait at least a full day after the proposal before posting to make sure you’ve covered all of your bases by sharing the news personally with your closest friends and family and to bask in the joy of the moment for as long as you can before the whirlwind of wedding planning begins. And while you might ultimately create a unique wedding hashtag for the big day, you probably shouldn’t include that on your engagement post so soon.

Of course, the first step toward the perfect engagement isn’t the post or even the moment – it’s the ring. At Diamonds by Raymond Lee, we want to help you start your journey towards marriage bliss with a ring that symbolizes the family you’ll become together. With our hand-picked selection and nearly endless variety, you’re bound to find the ring of your dreams with us at Raymond Lee. From style to stone and everything in between, we want your ring to be absolutely perfect. Visit us online at RaymondLeeJewelers.net today to learn more.

Methodology

We used Facebook Audience Insights to analyze the number of men and women on Facebook who are considered active users. We then segmented them by demographics, such as gender and relationship status, to analyze the percentage of users who are engaged. For the top cities, we only looked at the 50 most populated cities in the United States and pulled the engagement data from Facebook Audience Insights.

For engagement announcements, we collected Instagram posts tagged with #HeSaidYes and #SheSaidYes. We analyzed over 540,000 #engaged posts, over 28,000 #HeSaidYes posts, and over 525,000 #SheSaidYes posts to see which locations in the country liked each post the most.

Fair Use Statement

Want to share the love? We’d love to see the results of our study shared on your website for noncommercial use. We only ask that you ensure a link back to this page so that our contributors earn credit for their work, and your readers can see the results of our study in their entirety.