Social networking platforms are clasped in a never-ending contest of musical chairs. Every year, the notions of a whimsical public, the introduction of new players, and changing global trends trigger a shift in social media’s most significant leaderboard.
Top 5 Social Networking Platforms in 2021:
The factor we use to define a social network’s size is “number of active users” – the total amount of individual users currently listed on the platform. It’s a metric that’s used throughout the tech sector as a basic sign of demand, engagement, and extension.
Facebook: heavyweight winner of social media platforms
Facebook is the indisputable heavyweight winner of social media platforms. Facebook is the social media platform that not only proved to the world what the internet can be but also essentially changed the way humans communicate with each other. In relation to other social media networks, Facebook is the most prevalent amongst people aged between 12 and 34 years, although their US-based portion of this demographic is most clearly narrowing. The organization’s turbulent beginning days and continued connection with major controversies haven’t prevented it from obtaining mind-boggling development since its 2004 launch.
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Youtube: Most popular video-sharing platform
The second-most prevalent social media platform on our list, YouTube grows with a super-powerful 2.29 billion enrolled users. Launched in 2005, this video-sharing platform was originally designed to be a dating network, with the originators reportedly publishing ads on Craigslist to attract women into posting videos of themselves speaking about their perfect partners. The organization overcame various technical and legal barriers on its way to becoming not only the world’s best video-sharing platform but also the aim of a $1.65 billion takeover by Google. All of this happened by November 2006 – only 16 months following its official launch.
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WhatsApp: Great engaging platform for brands
Established in 2009 by two ex-Yahoo! employees, WhatsApp’s primary purpose wasn’t to be a quick messaging (IM) app, but rather to just show “statuses” next to the names of every entry in a user’s address book.
WhatsApp is one of the top social networking platforms with almost over 2 billion users – a breakthrough they reached in 2020. The app’s latest growth rate has been surprising, with the last billion users bouncing on in only four years! WhatsApp’s groups, Stories, and page-style feeds make it an engaging platform for brands. WhatsApp endures being the most successful social messaging app, way more than Facebook Messenger.
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Instagram: the most famous photo-sharing app
This is the world’s most famous photo-sharing app comes with a sum of 1.22 billion global active users. Established by an ex-Google employee, Kevin Systrom, in 2009, Instagram is the result of an amazingly involved study of the social media aspect at the time. One of Instagram’s most enduring additions to the world of digital marketing was the creation of “influencers”. Certain users’ prevalence gave their profiles an “aspirational” aspect, which soon led to the beginning of a completely new marketing channel that allowed normal people to monetize their popularity. It’s also a great commercial platform for B2C marketing, with more than 70% of US companies actively using it as a marketing method. Instagram provides incredible commitment rates in comparison to Facebook, its largest contender.
WeChat: Great messaging and video calling app
With an amazingly broad range of features that enable users to do everything from sending text messages and managing video calls to processing digital payments and playing video games, it’s no wonder that WeChat has great recognition. It’s also a testimonial to WeChat’s enormous value that the app reached this level of reputation even after actively sharing users’ personal data with the Chinese authority as part of the latter’s mass inspection and licensing attempts.