Social Media.
Social Media is online place where people can communicate in a short time from different place. Let’s know about Social Media.
What is Social Media?
Social media is a collective form of different websites and applications that mainly focuses on social communications, content sharing and collaboration, interactions and so on.
Examples of Social Media.
Presently, there are so many social messaging and communication sites in the field of social media. Here are 10 widely used and best social media sites-
- Viber
- Messenger
- YouTube
- Telegram
Facebook.
It is the most famous, biggest and widely known social media site which is being used all over the world. More than 2 billion people are using Facebook.
every month, which is almost a third of world’s population.
It was launched in the year 2004 and it’s headquarter is Menlo Park CA.
Facebook has 2.8 billion monthly active users (Facebook 2021). Even, there are about 1.84 billion users who visited this social media site on a daily basis. If you look carefully, Facebook has reached such a massive audience that, marketers can never ignore this site.
Facebook’s main vision was to bring the world closer, and it has done so during the last 17 years of its establishment.
Facebook is the leading social platform reaching 59% of social media users (eMarketer 2020).
Facebook has the most number of active users all over the world out of all other social media platforms. For many people, it’s not just a way of communication, it’s also a way of their life.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Facebook brought in $27.2 billion in ad revenue (Facebook 2021).
One of its most popular feature is the Facebook page. In Facebook page, people can share their business details, contact information, location, product highlights etc. In 2021, from a statistics of Facebook,
it’s known that, there are more than 200 million small businesses around the world using Facebook’s tools.
When it comes to time spent in Facebook, the latest of Facebook statistics show that, each and every user spend an average of 19.5 hours each month. (DataReportal 2021)
Instagram.
Basically, Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social media platform. It was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The head quarter of Instagram is also situated in Menlo Park, CA and it initially launched in October 2010.
It gives you some vast facilities to share audio, video, text, live video and photos. It also allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags. Post can be shared publicly or with pre-approved followers. Users can like photos and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.
Originally, it was launched for IOS in October 2010 and it gained its popularity within two months. The Android version was released in April 2012.
Since its launch in October 2010, Instagram has a meteoric rise to 1 billion active users. According to Instagram’s parent company Facebook’s latest announcements, the current number of Instagram users is 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million daily active users.
WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was launched in 2009 and its Head quarter is at Menlo Park of California. Brian Acton and Jan Koum is the founder of WhatsApp. Koum named the app as WhatsApp because it sounds like “what’s up”. It initially released on January, 2009.
WhatsApp is an internationally available American freeware and cross platform which is owned by Meta.
It allows users to send text messages and voice messages, video calls, audio calls, and share images or other documents.
WhatsApp client application runs on mobile devices but it is also accessible from desktop computers through the users mobile internet connection.
In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business. It allows the companies to communicate with the customers.
WhatsApp was officially made available for PCs through a web client, under the name WhatsApp Web. According to the statistics of March, 2020, WhatsApp has 2 billion monthly active users, up from over 1 billion MAU in February, 2016.
Viber.
Viber is also a cross platform voice over IP and instant messaging software application owned by Japanese multi-national company Rakuten. It is provided as freeware for the android, IOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux platform.
Talmon Marco and Igor Magazinnik is the founder of Viber. It was initially released on 2 December, 2010. The software was developed by Cyprus based.
It was Initially launched for iPhone. It was launched on the Android platform on July 19, 2012 followed by BlackBerry and Windows Phone.
In May, 2013 with Viber 3.0, a Desktop version for Windows and macOs was released. In August, 2013 Viber was released for Linux.
There are about 1.1 billion Viber users worldwide. More than 70 million interactions happen in an hour. Viber is available in over 40 languages. As of December 2016, Viber had 800 million registered users. According to statistics, there are 260 million monthly active users as of January 2019.
Twitter.
Twitter is an American micro-blogging and social networking service on which users can post and interact with messages known as tweets. Registered users can post, like and retweet.
Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams is the founder of Twitter. The headquarter of Twitter is San Francisco, California, U.S.
Tweets are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to only their followers. Twitter allows their users to update their profile via phone either by text messaging or by apps. As a social network, Twitter revolves around the principle of followers.
According to research published in April 2014, around 44% of user accounts never tweeted. The first tweet was posted by Jack Dorsey.
As of the second quarter of 2021, Twitter had 206 million monetizable daily active users worldwide. And it has the highest audience in United States reaching 77.75 million users.
LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is an American business and employment oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps.
It is one of the world’s largest professional network with nearly 800 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly is the founder of LinkedIn. And its headquarter is Sunnyvale, California, U.S.
LinkedIn allows members both workers and employees to create profiles and connect with each other in an online social network which represents real world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone to become a connection.
LinkedIn generated $8 billion revenue in 2020, an increase of 19 percent year-on-year. It has 756 million members. The United States has the most LinkedIn members. Over 57 million business and 120,000 schools have LinkedIn accounts.
The purpose and mission of LinkedIn is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. Unlike other social media platform, LinkedIn emphasizes a user’s professional connections. LinkedIn allows users to flourish their careers by searching for jobs, connections at a particular company and receiving recommendations from other users. LinkedIn will help you to find a job faster because most hiring managers and recruiters are already using it.
Messenger.
Messenger is an instant messaging app and social media platform developed by Meta Platform. It is one of the best and most popular for social media platform. One of the main reason for its being popular is that, messenger is a free messaging app.
It was released initially on 9 August, 2011 by Meta Platforms.
Originally, it was developed as Facebook chat in 2008, the company re-build its messaging service in 2010.
Facebook separated the Messenger’s messaging interface functionality from the main Facebook app. It allows the users to use the web interface or download one of the standalone apps. In April, 2020 Facebook released a Messenger desktop app for Windows and macOS.
Messenger is used to send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, GIF, audio, and other files. The service also gives the facilities of voice and video calling. This standalone app support using multiple accounts. Android users can sign up to the app without a Facebook account, requiring only a name and a valid phone number.
According to the statistics of 2021, there are 1.3 billion users are accessing Messenger globally. Facebook Messenger is expected to grow over 2.4 billion users by 2022. More than 20 billion messages are exchanged using Facebook Messenger on a monthly basis. There are more than 300,000 active bots on messenger. It is one of the leading messaging platforms in the US with more than 2 million monthly downloads.
YouTube.
One of the most and popular video sharing platform is YouTube. It is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google.
It was launched on February 14, 2005. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim is the founder of YouTube.
According to the statistics, YouTube is the second most viewed and most visited website right after Google itself.
In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. After being Google the ownership of YouTube, it has changed its business model. YouTube now offers paid content such as movies and exclusive content.
As Google is the owner of YouTube, it has expanded beyond the website into mobile apps, network television and the ability to link with other services.
YouTube is such a vast video sharing platform that it has different categories based on video contents. The categories includes- music videos, videos, video clip, news, short film, audio clips, audio recordings, stream, vlogs, teasers, live and many more.
It has more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. According to the statistics of 2021, number of YouTube users is approximately 2,240.03 million and it will increase rapidly. Again, YouTube generated $19.7 billion revenue as of January 2021.
Pinterest.
Pinterest is an image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information.
It was founded by Ben Sibermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. And it was founded on December, 2009.
This site has over 478 million global monthly active users as of March, 2021. This visual bookmarking platform had 89 million MAU in the United States, compared to 356 million international monthly active users. It is operated by Pinterest, Inc. based in San Francisco. Its headquarter is situated in San Francisco, California, U.S.
Telegram.
Telegram is a free-ware, cross-platform, cloud based instant messaging service. Telegram only keeps the information it needs to function as a feature-rich cloud service.
It was released initially on 14 August, 2013. Nikolai Durov and Pavel Durov is the founder of Telegram. Its headquarter is in London, United Kingdom.
This service provide end-to-end encrypted video calling, file sharing and other several features.
It was launched for iOS on 14 August, 2013 and Android in October 2013. The server of Telegram is distributed worldwide to decrease frequent data load with five data centers in different regions.
According to a statistics of April 2020, cloud based mobile messaging app Telegram reported 400 million monthly active users worldwide.
Social media has taken its position into the real world and has interfered with the lives of many. Most of the people of the world has taken social media as a part of their lives.
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ).
1. What is Social Media?
Answer: Social media is a collective form of different websites and applications that mainly focuses on social communications, content sharing and collaboration, interactions and so on.
2. What is the use of Social Media?
Answer: Social Media is useful because it keeps you in touch with your family and friends worldwide. It also creates opportunity for individuals to grow career.
3. What is Facebook?
Answer: Facebook is the most famous, biggest and widely known social media site which is being used all over the world. It is the leading social platform reaching 59% of social media users (eMarketer 2020).
4. What is Instagram?
Answer: Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social media platform. It was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
5. What is WhatsApp?
Answer: WhatsApp is an internationally available American freeware and cross platform which is owned by Meta. It allows users to send text messages and voice messages, video calls, audio calls, and share images or other documents.
6. What is Viber?
Answer: Viber is also a cross platform voice over IP and instant messaging software application owned by Japanese multi-national company Rakuten. It is provided as freeware for the android, IOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux platform.
7. What is Twitter?
Answer: Twitter is an American micro-blogging and social networking service on which users can post and interact with messages known as tweets. Registered users can post, like and retweet.
8. What is LinkedIn?
Answer: LinkedIn is an American business and employment oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps.
9. What is Messenger?
Answer: Messenger is an instant messaging app and social media platform developed by Meta Platform. It is one of the best and most popular for social media platform. One of the main reason for its being popular is that, messenger is a free messaging app.
10. What is YouTube?
Answer: One of the most and popular video sharing platform is YouTube. It is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google.
11. What is Pinterest?
Answer: Pinterest is an image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information.
12. What is Telegram?
Answer: Telegram is a free-ware, cross-platform, cloud based instant messaging service. Telegram only keeps the information it needs to function as a feature-rich cloud service.