Today, social networks are so firmly rooted in our lives that the composition of the top five most popular social platforms remains virtually unchanged from year to year. However, the penetration and use of these social networks varies depending on geography and demographic factors. Understanding these differences plays a big role when targeting specific audiences. When comparing the most popular social networks, it is important to pay attention not to the number of registered accounts, but to the number of active users. From the review you will learn which social networks are growing faster than others, and which are currently in decline.

The most popular social platforms

The chart, produced by analytics agency Statista, gives a clear picture of the number of active users (in millions) on the world's most popular social networks. Topping the list is Facebook. This can hardly surprise anyone. Facebook holds the majority of the market share with over 2 billion active users. In January 2017, the giant's closest competitor was WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook. Then he was in second place. Today, YouTube is in second place with 1.5 billion active users. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp occupy third and fourth places respectively.

They are followed by platforms, the majority of whose audience is located in the Asia-Pacific region. These are QQ, WeChat and Qzone (with more than 600 million active users). This shows that there are a number of popular social media in APAC countries. After them, we see a cluster of platforms popular mainly in the West - Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter.

What about in Russia?

In Russia, the penetration of social networks is estimated at 47%; 67.8 million Russians have accounts on them. According to Statista, YouTube is used most actively in the Russian Federation (63% of respondents), VKontakte takes second place - 61%. Global leader Facebook is only in fourth place with an indicator of 35%. Skype and WhatsApp dominate among instant messengers (38% each).

Social networks that are growing faster than others

Marketers usually don’t spend much time on SMM. Which social network should you concentrate your efforts on? Twitter, which amassed 313 million users between 2010 and 2017, has seen the slowest growth compared to its biggest competitors Facebook, WhatsApp and China's WeChat. Founded in 2013, Instagram had already surpassed Twitter in terms of audience size by 2014.

A new study from Statista shows that Twitter fell far behind its peers in 2017. It saw the lowest growth in monthly active audience, with only 23 million from Q3 2015 to Q3 2017. Facebook, meanwhile, grew by 461 million.

How users interact with brands on social networks

Knowing how to behave and what posts to make on social media is also important, since it shapes the image of your brand and, as a result, encourages users to buy your products or, conversely, unsubscribe from your groups. Social media is increasingly being used as customer engagement platforms where customers, existing and potential, want answers to their questions in real time. A chart taken from a Sprout Social report shows that 48% of users can be persuaded to buy by quickly answering questions in a group. 46% respond positively to promotions, and 42% may choose a brand's product if its page contains educational content. 27% of surveyed users admitted that they would be willing to make a purchase if they were shown materials that are usually left behind the scenes.

Half of Sprout Social survey respondents said they would unfollow a brand's community if I posted content that they found offensive, and 27% said they would mark a brand and its page as spam and block it. That is why, to reach and engage your potential clients it is so important to publish relevant and interesting materials that resonate with you target audience.

Social networks with the most active audience

An important factor that influences how much time we should devote to SMM on a particular social network is the level of audience engagement. Here again, Facebook dominates, and also has the highest engagement over time, according to data from analytics firm comScore's study of a panel of US consumers.

Facebook's success is amazing. In addition to the social network itself occupying the top spot, other corporate-owned platforms also took second and third place. Facebook Messenger has a 47% penetration rate, with Instagram right behind it.

From the latest data from Pew Internet, shown in the chart below, we can see that Facebook also leads in the number of active audiences per day. 76% of users log into the social network every day, on Instagram this figure is 51%. Only 42% of Twitter users check it daily, which is almost half that of Facebook.

The average daily duration of use of social networks in the United States is 2 hours 1 minute; in Russia, users spend a little more time on social platforms - 2 hours 19 minutes.

Engagement rates in different social networks

Marketing analytics company TrackMaven analyzed 51 million posts from companies across 130 industries to find out which social networks have the highest engagement rates. The results showed that the absolute leader in terms of engagement per 1000 subscribers is Instagram. This is so much higher than other social networks that we had to create a separate chart to illustrate the difference between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

As you can see from the second graph, Facebook is significantly ahead of Twitter and LinkedIn. This is largely due to the fact that more people post on Twitter because there is no algorithm to show content to only a small portion of the audience. Because of this, brands have to flood their feeds with posts to break through the information noise. This, in turn, reduces the response rate to publications. Below is the average daily number of posts per account on three social networks.

General statistics on social media usage around the world

Every year, WeAreSocial updates its comprehensive Global Digital Report, which compiles actionable data on social media around the world. From it you can find out how differently social platforms are used in different parts Sveta. It is surprising that Western countries are seriously lagging behind in the rate of penetration of social networks.

Below are the main conclusions of the studies.

• The number of Internet users in 2018 reached 4.021 billion people, which is 7 percent more than a year ago.
• Audience social networks in 2018 there are 3.196 billion people - 13% higher than last year's figure.
• Number of users mobile phones is 5.135 billion people, this means plus 4% compared to last year.

The numbers are growing rapidly, especially for active users of social networks with mobile devices— penetration level 39%, which is 5% more than in 2017.

If we talk about the structure of web traffic depending on the type of device, then the most traffic is generated by mobile users (52%, which is 4% higher than last year). Only 43% of all web pages are visited from desktops, which is 3% lower than last year.

Northern, Western and Southern Europe, as well as North America, boast the highest levels of Internet penetration, with 74%–94% of the total population using the World Wide Web. In Russia, 110 million people use the Internet—76% of the total population.

The growth in the global audience of social networks since January 2017 was 13%. The fastest growth in the number of users is observed in Saudi Arabia. Since January 2017, their number has increased by 32%, the global average is 17%. Other countries with the highest growth rates include India, Indonesia and Ghana. The reason for the jump was the development of technology, which made it easier for the population to access social platforms. Social networks grew the slowest in the UAE, South Korea and Great Britain -<5%. В России пользователей соцсетей стало на 8 826 000 человек больше (+15% к прошлогоднему значению).

Since Facebook has the largest share of users, it would be useful to know how the content you post will perform on the social network and what features to use to increase its reach. According to social network statistics, the average reach of a publication is 10.7%, with organic posts having 8% (organic reach in Russia is 11.3%), and for paid posts this value is 26.8% (27.4% in Russia) . Organic and paid Facebook posts have huge potential. It is important to target publications correctly in order to receive quality leads.

You can get a more complete picture of the state of the global digital market in 2018 by studying our review of the Internet 2017-2018 in the world and in Russia: statistics and trends, which we prepared based on the Global Digital 2018 study.

Popularity of social networks by country

The graph below from the GlobalWebIndex report, based on a survey of Internet users, perfectly reflects the popularity of various social networks by country. Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are among the top ten most active audiences on each social network, significantly ahead of the US, UK and European countries.

Of the four social networks presented (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+), Russians are the most active users of the video service. Twitter and Google+ are used relatively often by only 20% of our compatriots, and Facebook is regularly viewed by just over 40%.

Demographic statistics of social media use

As can be seen from the graph, different age groups have a similar pattern of social media use. This suggests that social networks have reached a stage of maturity where they can reach all demographic groups, regardless of age and gender. The exceptions are Instagram and Tumblr, which have younger audiences.

Strategies for interacting with social media audiences

According to The State of Social 2018 study, 96% of brands have a presence on Facebook.

Moreover, only half of the respondents have a documented SMM strategy. Large businesses are a little more responsible about this issue than small companies (60% said they have such a document).

When it comes to the types of content brands publish, images, links, and text lead the way. Even though video posts tend to get the most engagement, video content only comes in fourth. This is primarily due to the complexity of creating such materials.

At the end of 2017, Smart Insights, together with Clutch, conducted a survey among business representatives, in which they asked which social networks were of the greatest value to them. It turned out that among B2C companies Facebook is considered the most effective (93% of respondents), and most B2B companies prefer LinkedIn (93%).

The Value of Social Media for Brands in 2018

1. If you think that your target audience is not on social networks, you are mistaken.

Through social networks you can reach any audience, regardless of gender, age, social status. 98% of online consumers are registered on social networks, a fairly large part of them are adults 55-64 years old.

1. People devote a third of their time on the Internet to social networks.

The average user spends 2 hours 15 minutes a day scrolling through their feed and communicating on social platforms, and young people aged 16-24 spend almost three hours. If you do not consider SMM as a channel for attracting customers, then you are voluntarily giving up the attention of your target audience to your competitors.

1. Half of all social media users follow brand pages.

4 out of 10 internet users follow their favorite companies on social media, and a quarter follow brands when planning to buy something. People respond positively to such content, so an active presence on social media is of great value to companies.

1. Social networks are the main source of information for consumers.

People aged 16-24 prefer to look for information about brands on social networks rather than on search engines. A quarter of users in this age group admit that a large number of likes on a brand’s page can persuade them to make a purchase. In the group of 35-44 years old, 20% of respondents said the same. Social commerce can be considered one of the main channels for generating profit, which means it is important to diversify your efforts and not rely only on advertising.

1. Watching videos is a favorite pastime on social media.

Facebook is the largest social network in terms of number of users, but YouTube takes first place in terms of traffic and the reason is because of the video. Video posts receive the most active response, and that is why leading brands constantly publish videos on their pages.

The following materials were used in preparing the article:

1. Global Social Media Research Summary 2018 by Smart Insights
2. The State of Social 2018 report by Social Media Week
3. The Biggest Social Media Trends Shaping 2018 article published on the GlobalWebIndex blog
4. Social Networks Study: How social networks were used in 2017 by analytical agency Metricool
5. Global Digital 2018 report package compiled by WeAreSocial analytical agency

Do you want to order the maintenance of your company’s communities on social networks? Contact us by phone:

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1

Facebook is the most popular social network of all time. On the site we all know, you can upload photos, update your current status, send messages to friends, and publish messages and opinions on your page. Facebook was originally called "The Facebook" - it was a kind of fantasy idea of ​​​​one Harvard University student. The social site instantly became popular and continued to grow. Facebook was initially restricted to university students only.

The social network began its journey at Harvard, and soon its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, opened it to other educational institutions. Soon the site of this social network became available not only for students and attracted millions of people from all over the world.

Many companies use Facebook to build a reputation and promote their products. There are several external companies that help support Facebook services. A service seller can create a Facebook page and post content on a regular basis in the form of advertisements.

When Facebook first appeared, two students from Harvard University accused the creator of this social network of stealing their idea. After the trial, Zuckerberg had to pay monetary damages, the exact amount of which was not disclosed. Another time the case went to court was when the co-founder and CFO filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg after he was fired from the company, and the case was also settled for a secret amount of money.

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2

It is the second most famous and popular social network that allows users to send and read messages called tweets. But tweets must be short - their size is limited to 140 characters. Twitter was first created in March 2006 and launched in July 2006. By 2013, this social network became one of the top 10 most visited sites. Today there are more than half a billion registered users on Twitter. Many celebrities, politicians, world leaders, media channels and other businesses have Twitter profiles so that their fans can follow their daily lives and events.

The second top social network also became famous for the fact that they came up with the use of hashtags (#), i.e. the most widely used symbols to represent various events, so millions of people on Twitter have been able to use them in their tweets. Before it came to Twitter, the hashtag was only used as a button on the phone and was considered a symbol for numbers only.

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3

Linkedin is the third most popular social network in the world and is intended for professionals in any field. The site was created specifically for professionals and businesses to bring together the best jobs and the best employees in one place. Linkedin was founded in December 2002 and officially launched on May 5, 2003. In 2013, the site became one of the most popular social and professional networking sites with more than 259 million registered users in nearly 200 countries. Linkedin is available in twenty different languages.

This network allows users to create their profiles so that they can build real professional relationships with thousands of employers, employees and other professionals in their field. Here you can find a job and discover new business opportunities through the users you connect with on this social website.

Job seekers often use the site to view HR profiles to better prepare for interviews. When you sign up for Linkedin, you can tag jobs you're interested in where you'd like to send your resume. You can also congratulate other users on their promotion and you can see who visited your page.

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4

The site is used to store, collect and share information. Elements that are saved on a page are called “pins.” There are several other sites linked to this site that offer news and information and also have a save option. Just click on the "Pin" button on the information you want to download on the page and it will automatically load on your page.

Users can also pin each other's pages, so you can see what your friends are interested in. Pinterest is a huge platform where you can show off your creativity and interests. The user can also tag a Pinterest page from their Twitter or Facebook profiles. Pinterest has become one of the top 5 social networks over the past few years. As of February 2013, there are 48.7 million registered users, and this number is growing rapidly and intensively.

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5

Google Plus, which is owned by Google Inc. is another popular network with a large number of users around the world. Google Plus allows its users to create a profile page that contains a picture, background screen, work history, your interests and education history. The user can also post status updates and sees other people's status updates and can share photos. In order to see your friends' news, you need to add them to your “circle”.

In November 2011, Google Plus profiles became the backdrop for other Google services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Play, Google Voice, Google Wallet, Google Music, and Android, the most common smartphone operating system. Google Plus also has a Plus-1 button that allows its users to recommend content, something similar to the Facebook "Like" button.

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6

Tumblr is the sixth most popular social network that was created by David Karp in 2006. This social network is designed for micro-blogging. Users can post content and multimedia elements in a short blog form. The main Tumblr page is a combination of your favorite blogs and posts from people you follow.

In addition, here you can post images, videos, texts, quotes, or share links on your blog, and there is also the ability to share other people's blogs. The user can also set a schedule so that their posts can be delayed by several hours or days. Hashtags (#) are a great opportunity for friends and subscribers to easily find any messages and promotions. Today, there are over 213 million blogs on Tumblr.

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7

Instagram is the seventh popular social network that is used for mobile photo and video sharing on social media. It was created by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom and launched in October 2010. There are currently more than 300 million users of this popular social network.

Instagram allows its users to upload photos and share videos and follow other users. Users can also link their Instagram account to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, so that photos they post on Instagram will automatically appear on those sites as well. Since Instagram's creation, it has contributed to the emergence of some new trends on the Internet:

Selfie is a self-portrait taken using a smartphone or digital camera.

Throwback Thursday is a trend that started on Instagram and spread to Twitter and Facebook. Every Thursday you can post an old photo with the hashtag #TBT.

Woman Crush Wednesday - Every Wednesday you can post a photo of a beautiful lady you have a crush on.

Man Crush Monday: Every Monday you can post a photo of a handsome man.

Weekend Hashtag Project: The Instagram team suggests a specific theme at the end of the weekend. You can upload a photo that fits a given topic.

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8

VC

VK is the largest social network in Russia and Europe. Although VK is available in several languages, it is mainly popular among Russian-speaking users. VK currently has more than 280 million users. The most widely used function on VK is messages. A VK user can send private messages to another user or a group of two to thirty users.

You can send audio, photos, videos, files, documents and maps in private messages. The user can also post news, opinions and share interesting links on his page. There is a “Like” button, just like in Facebook, but if on Facebook likes automatically appear on the user’s own wall, then on VK likes are information that can be hidden. A VK user can also synchronize his account with other social networks.

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9

Flickr is another popular site that allows the user to post and share videos, images, and web services. Flickr was created in 2005 as Yahoo Flickr, and as of 2013 it has over 87 million users. This social network offers 3 types of accounts. The first type of account is free and with such an account the user has limited storage space.

The second is “no ads”, also free, offering the same amount of storage, but without annoying advertisements. The third is the Double account type, which allows users to get double the amount of storage. Photos and videos you upload can be displayed in normal view, slideshow view, detail view, or have an archive attached.

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10

Vine

Vine is a social network for video sharing. It was founded in June 2012, and since then, Vine allows its users to edit, record and upload videos of only 5-6 seconds in length. The user can also repost or exchange photos, and can subscribe to other users.

Videos you upload can be automatically posted to Twitter and Facebook. If you want to watch videos that are uploaded by other people you don't follow, you can search by username, topic, or trending video.

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Conclusion

This was an article TOP 10 Most popular social networks in the world. Thank you for your attention!

The top five most popular social networks in the world have not changed in recent years. Three of them - Youtube, Facebook, Instagram - are well known in Russia. The list of leaders is completed by two Chinese social networks. They did not spread influence in Europe and the USA, but became leaders due to the number of active users from Asian countries.

Dynamics of development of social networks 2004-2019

A very revealing video about which networks and what type of content are becoming more in demand.

Each social network is different in terms of user population, the nature of the content, and the specifics of working with regional areas. Different target audiences require different approaches, so differences between social networks are necessary when planning promotion.

The main thing is live users

When comparing social networks with each other, it makes sense to take into account only active users, and not the number of created accounts. In most social networks, the process of creating additional accounts is as complicated as possible - a mandatory link is established to a phone number, email, and accounts in other social networks. Owners of pages that are not logged in every day are asked to protect their data using additional bindings the next time they log in.

Maintaining business accounts on social networks and a separate budget for SMM are becoming the norm for large companies. The most popular social networks have additional functionality for registering and maintaining business accounts, and also offer integrated analytics systems for traffic, activity, and the effectiveness of promotions.

The most popular social networks in the world

According to research from analytics company Statista, the most popular social networks in the world, ranked by number of active users (in millions), as of October 2019:

China's largest social networks Qzone, QQ and the WeChat messenger have gained more than 570 million users from the Asia-Pacific region. Instagram and Twitter are popular mainly in Europe and the USA. Oddly enough, in terms of activity in social networks, Europe is still behind even Russia, so European social networks are not visible in the top 10.

Social networks: list of popular ones in Russia

Medialogy conducted a study on the mentions of platforms in social networks in August 2019. The Russian-language segment of social media was considered (Twitter, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, LiveJournal, forums and blogs). Data without self-citations were taken into account.
The leader in mentions was YouTube - 24.7 million messages, followed by Instagram - 13 million and VKontakte - 8.2 million.

In 11th and 12th places were Snapchat - 0.4 million mentions, and My World - 0.2 million, respectively.
Previously, Mediascope conducted a study on the audience of platforms; in terms of the number of monthly users, the leaders were VKontakte with 37.9 million people, Instagram with 30.6 million and Odnoklassniki with 23.1 million.
Despite the fact that Snapchat is in eleventh place in terms of mentions, it became the fifth social network in Russia by audience in the first half of 2019, according to Mediascope data.

What are social networks?

The list of popular social networks is headed by platforms for content that is easily accessible to the user: photos, videos, things that don’t take a long time to read. If you are promoting a brand on a particular social network, the content must be strictly adapted to the requirements of the audience. Don't try to promote text content on Twitter or Instagram: users of these platforms are accustomed to receiving visual material with only a small text component. Few people delve into the comments under posts for a long time; the main emphasis should be on visualization and conciseness.

Promotion on Facebook allows for variations with content. The platform is designed for a variety of content: short messages, photographs with captions sit side by side with designed longreads on a specific topic. There are many communities and opportunities to discuss anything with like-minded people.;

Social networks for business promotion: what makes you make purchases?

The Sprout Social agency, which has been studying American and global social networks since 2010, has published a chart that shows what brings users closer to completing a conversion action on a social network.

• Most users note that a quick response from a specialist is their priority;
• Half of brand followers on social networks react positively to promotions;
• Just over 40% expect to see useful information on a company page;
• 27% of users will be willing to make a purchase if you show them “behind the scenes.”

Half of the surveyed users threaten to unsubscribe from the page immediately, and 27% plan to mark the brand as spam and block it if annoying/negative/uninteresting information appears on the page. Reaching your audience and attracting new potential customers requires interesting and useful content that will resonate with your target audience. When choosing materials and designing publications, you will have to sift out a lot of unnecessary things.

Social networks are not only a place for people to communicate, but also a platform for working with potential clients, prompt responses and holding promotions to attract the target audience. If you decide to promote your business or product on social networks, remember the basic principles:

• Good promotion on one social network is better than bad promotion on several;
• The social network chosen for promotion must correspond to the specifics of the brand: cosmetics and perfumes are best presented through social networks with visual content;
• The content must be consistent with both the social network and the brand;
• For some social networks, interaction with the audience is critically important, and these are additional costs for developing promotions and competitions, which must be taken into account when drawing up estimates;
• Promotion in some social networks has a beneficial effect on promotion in search engines, this is especially true if the social network platform and the search engine belong to the same company.

A social network is a site through which you can communicate with other users of the resource. On such Internet platforms, you can publish and view information from other registered participants: music, photos and videos, documents, articles, and write comments.

The growing popularity of such portals encourages them to be used not only for personal purposes. Promotion and support of companies, sales of goods and services are the goals of strategies in social marketing (SMM). The key to success is choosing the right network among the many available. Otherwise, spending time and effort searching for the target audience will be useless. What social networks exist on the Internet, how do they differ from each other, and how have they earned popularity among their users? Let's take a closer look.

History of social networks

The first prototype of a communication service was described back in 1837 in a science fiction novel by Vladimir Odoevsky. The theory and principles of creation are set out in the works of mathematicians of the 1950-1960s. In 1954 the term itself appeared. Social networks became a reality with the widespread development of the Internet.

The first similarity was the resource Classmates.com in 1995, where you could find students from different educational institutions. The now more familiar look and functions appeared in the SixDegrees.com project in 1997. Registration, creating a personal profile, finding friends, communicating with them were innovative features for that time.

The now familiar social networks began to appear en masse in 2003. LinkedIn and Facebook are starting to work. Since 2006, Odnoklassniki and VKontakte have been created in Russia. Since then, the number of resources has been constantly increasing, new functions have appeared in them, which are not only convenient for users for entertainment and communication, but also for doing business.

What social networks are there on the Internet?

Based on functionality and opportunities for users, you can segment what types of social networks there are. To classify by content type, the following types of social networks can be distinguished:

Functionality

There are a lot of options for what to do on communication resources, but we can highlight the main ones. Services allow you to:

• Communicate – with colleagues, friends, like-minded people and many people who are interesting according to one or another criteria. You can join interest groups, meet for specific purposes, and share personal information with all or selected visitors to the resource.
• Search – people (according to certain parameters, for example, educational institutions, places of work, city of residence), companies and goods that are offered for sale through communication sites.
• Share news - media outlets and news agencies have their own pages. Information about events can be added by all participants.
• Relaxing - this is facilitated by a lot of varied content posted on the portal for a fee or free of charge: films, games, music.
• Learn - educational programs, lessons, materials and advice from other people allow you to obtain useful information in different areas of life. Learn to cook, master the grammatical subtleties of another language, attend master classes on making useful items with your own hands, hone your skills in using technology or computer programs - all this will be found in abundance.
• Store files and share them.
• Find a job or employee - professional networks are created to exchange experiences, develop business connections, and search for vacancies from employers.
• Share documents – working on one task has never been so easy! Borders, time differences, and other factors are offset by general access, the ability to comment and edit materials.

Reasons for popularity

The huge interest in communication sites that has been observed in recent years is understandable. Among the main reasons:

Regardless of what kind of social networks there are, users are increasingly aware of the hidden threats from their use. And we’re not just talking about dependence on a computer or other gadget, although the time spent is valuable. Much worse, and sometimes even more dangerous, is the fact that personal life circumstances become known to a wide circle of people. The intentions of the latter are not always honest. Here are just a few examples:

• Apartment thieves can find out when the owners of an apartment or house have been away for a long time by looking at vivid vacation photos.
• For the abduction of a child, information about the parents will play into the hands, which will convince the child to believe that the person really knows mom or dad.
• It is easier to choose a potential victim after making sure of the person’s financial viability using information from open sources.
• Groups are being created for teenagers to encourage suicide.

It is becoming a common practice when, before hiring, HR employees look through the pages of a potential candidate, wanting to learn more about him, his habits and social circle. Explicit photos, aggressive posts, support for extremism and other aspects can play a negative role both in employment and in your career.

Leaks of personal data, manipulation of audiences, hacking of accounts with subsequent use are becoming more and more common. And even the giants in this area are not immune from such troubles. All this makes you think about what to publish on resources and who to give access to view, and teaches you to observe the minimum requirements of caution on the Internet.

Trends and prospects

A 2017 report from We Are Social and Hootsuite shows compelling user growth on social media. With a total population of about 7.5 billion people, over 3 billion are registered in one application or another. 1 million new registrations occur every day. Moreover, the number of visits to sites from mobile devices is growing - almost 90% of visitors use smartphones and tablets, rather than desktop computers.

At the same time, if a couple of years ago on communication platforms it was possible to quickly find out news and events from the lives of real people, now the situation is radically changing. There are more and more advertisements, posts about cats, motivators and other general information. And this is no longer such a close, intimate and familiar circle of friends. The level of trust drops, which means it becomes more difficult to sell something.

More and more startups are emerging, which, although they will not dislodge Facebook from its leadership position in the near future, will attract part of the audience. Planning a marketing campaign requires more care and a preliminary analysis of the selected resource, product and target audience.

Forecasts are that active growth will slow down and the social media boom will subside. You shouldn’t give up your usual web portal in favor of only a page on Facebook, VK or another network. The familiar Internet and websites will remain on par with social networks.

What are the most popular social networks

Dozens of services work. Some of them are loved in several countries or even around the world, others unite citizens of one country and are not widely used outside its borders. An overview of what social networks there are and a list of popular world services is provided below.

Facebook

The unconditional first place is ensured by over 2.2 billion accounts in the world. Facebook has been in operation since 2004, created by Mark Zuckerberg. A simple and free communication service that allows you to:

• Register your own page where you post photos and other materials.
• Find other users, add them as friends, find out their news.
• Share information from the network or from other participants, upload videos and photographs.
• Create groups (open or closed).
• Find out the news.
• Comment and rate publications.

Facebook Inc. (the owner of the service) is constantly expanding its capabilities. Hyperlocal advertising (within a certain radius from the advertiser), Snapchat (disappearing stories), GIF animation for commenting, saving interesting materials, messenger and other functions confidently retain the interest of users.

YouTube

Video hosting You Tube from Google is the most popular video network in the world. It is also considered a social network, as it allows users to register, communicate, and share their videos. Here you can find information for every taste, from entertainment to educational courses. Founded in February 2005 in the USA. At the beginning of 2018, there are over 1.5 billion active users, and the result of several million views of popular videos is quite achievable.

Main features:

• Post your videos for viewing.
• Various formats are supported: panoramas, HD, Full HD, MPEG-4 AVC and others.
• Edit videos from the browser using editor programs (add titles, audio tracks, images, transitions).
• Comment, rate other people's videos or comments.
• Create group chats.
• Maintain a video channel.

The company is trying to control the content of the resource, periodically deleting videos that violate copyright and are recognized as extremist. In some countries, the resource is blocked for publishing materials objectionable to the authorities.

whatsapp

Mobile messenger for more than 1.2 billion people. WhatsApp was created in 2009, and since 2014 it has been owned by Facebook Inc. It is considered a social network due to its functions:

• Correspondence between participants.
• Creation of groups, communication in group chat mode.
• Share videos, music and other content.
• Possibility of assigning statuses for an account.

These features make it possible to classify WhatsApp as a social network, with one feature - it works based on the phone book. To communicate, you need the phone number of the interlocutor. Whether this limits it or, on the contrary, allows you to maintain privacy – there are different opinions. One of the advantages is that a large number of versions have been developed that support different operating systems, including Symbian (which is rare).

Instagram

An application for different operating systems for publishing pictures and short videos (up to 60 seconds), viewing materials from other participants, with the ability to rate and comment. Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has reached more than 1.1 billion registered members. In 2012, it was acquired by Facebook Inc. Popular Features:

• Blogging.
• Photo processing - effects, frames, special shooting modes, collages.
• Creating your profile and publication feed.
• View friends, rate and comment on their posts.
• Cross-posting – simultaneous posting of material on several social networks.
• Search for the necessary information using hashtags (special marks).

Instagram is especially popular among young people under 25 years of age and is actively developing. This network is one of the most promising for business, product promotion, brand promotion and services.

WeChat

The leader among Chinese services is WeChat, a micromessaging application. Considering the ban in the country of world favorites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Chinese users communicate with their developments. WeChat is not just an application; it has much more options. Basic:

• Personal communication, video calls, voice messages.
• Group chats for up to 500 people.
• Blogs, reviews, testimonials, “Moments”.
• Pay bills and purchases.
• Dating (including geographic search).
• Photo editing, text translation.
• One account on different devices at the same time.

And although there are a number of restrictions (for example, one publication per day), the application is relatively new (working since 2011), the number of accounts is approaching a billion. WeChat is being promoted outside of China (Russia, India and other countries).

Qzone

A Chinese social network with the following capabilities: blogging, watching videos, listening to music, communicating, making purchases. Basic options are free, additional options are available with a premium subscription. Since its founding (2005), it has attracted 600 million participants. Available in English and Chinese.

Sina Weibo

A Chinese version of a microblog, basically similar to Facebook and Twitter. Since its inception (2009), it has attracted the attention of more than 500 million users. Development is hampered by the support of English and Chinese languages ​​and government censorship of the country. It has a convenient tree structure for comments, an online shopping service, and a premium profile with advanced functionality. On the Internet you can communicate, meet new people, download and view photos, search for interesting information and follow the news.

Google+

Google's own development. The operating principle is based on the concept of circles. The user creates them himself, regulating who and what information will be available. Main features: sharing photos, videos, links, games, group chats, support for mobile devices, video conferencing. Launched in 2011, there are more than 135 million users. The profile is associated with an email from Google and affects search results. The service is considered one of the most promising; the number of accounts is expected to grow steadily in the coming years.

LinkedIn

Network for professionals. More than 500 million users from 200 countries communicate on its pages. The main emphasis is not on entertainment, humor, news and other content familiar to other services, but on a resume, portfolio, list of skills (with confirmation from real people), vacancies. Asking colleagues for advice, discussing professional issues, looking for a job or employees, getting recommendations are the tasks of LinkedIn. The project was launched in 2003 and purchased by Microsoft in 2016.

Twitter

Started working in the USA in 2006. Features: blogging with short messages (maximum 280 characters). An interesting option is “Moments” (plots with development). You can learn about high-profile, popular news without subscribing to other users. People famous in a variety of fields from show business to sports maintain their microblogs on Twitter. The total number of accounts exceeds 330 million.

What social networks are there in Russia?

In Russia, the popularity of online communication services does not lag behind global indicators. Only they have their favorites - Russian VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. It is imperative for anyone who promotes their products or brand through SMM to know their leaders in this industry.

The rating of all social networks in Russia is estimated as part of the traffic that is created by this service on the Runet. The assessment is based on the results of 2018 studies of the largest Russian statistical data collection services on the Internet: Yandex.Metrica, SpyLog/Openstat, LiveInternet, Hotlog, [email protected].

These services lead in activity among Russians. Let's briefly look at two main national developments.

In contact with

Russian network created in 2006. Owned by Mail.Ru Group. Supports over 90 languages, over 460 million registered users. Most popular among Russian-speaking users - the leader of all social networks in Russia in terms of use. Possibilities:

• Creating your own page.
• Correspondence with other project participants.
• Sending pictures, audio and video recordings.
• Online cooperative games.

This resource is most often chosen for online stores and sales. This is facilitated by a wide range of opportunities and a large Russian-speaking audience.

Classmates

Another successful development by Mail.Ru Group. It ranks third in popularity in Russia with more than 330 million participants. The project is available in 14 languages ​​and has been operating since 2006. Main features:

• Your own page for publishing information.
• Communication by messages or video calls.
• Search for people using different parameters.
• Payment for goods, money transfers.
• Additional paid options (invisibility, blacklist...).

The Odnoklassniki project works in both full and mobile versions, which is convenient and saves network traffic and time for loading the page.

List of social networks

A clear answer to the question “which social networks are better?” No. Each of them has a number of advantages and is popular in a certain environment. Country, age, range of interests influence preferences. We have decided on the main services, but the choice is much wider. Below is a list that includes the most promoted projects.
Social networks of the world:

• For communication: Facebook, VKontakte, MirTesen, Pinterest, Moy [email protected], Odnoklassniki, xbeee.com, Pikabu, ASKfm, Cloob, Instagram, Google+, Myspace, RetroShare, Vine.
• Thematic: Promise Bank, Diary, On the Wall, Habbo, Jeep-er Club, Auto Club AutoPCL, NumPlate, Last.fm, Olvet Community Network, MyAnimeList, Untappd, CHIF.SU, Wakoopa, Vsoyue, ktoprochto.ru, Nekto.me , Dravi.ru, Generations, Starichki.ru, Mom's page, MommyBuzz, BabyBlog, Badoo, Mamba, LovePlanet, Vichatter.net, Violetta, MegaMixGroup, Sociale by Vampir4ik, Ilovecinema.ru, Goodreads, Oplace, Zeenga.ru, We place , DRUZHNO.COM, Peers, Lemberg, Limpa, Badoo, LibertySpace, Locals.ru, Facerunet.ru, Krabitsa, Love Me Tender, Vpiski.Net, Neforu.ru, Budist.ru, Politix.ru, Politiko, In the Army, Classmates, Smeshariki, Moya Shkola.com, KSODIS, TOPodnoklassniki, Webkrug.ru, Car2gether, Tourout.ru, Marshruty.ru, Geoid, Naarende, IT Specialists, Habrahabr, Abyrvalg.NET, BookHook, Rybakiohotniki.ru, Foursquare, Schoolchildren .
• Professional: Doctor at work, My Circle, Professionals, E-xecutive, Mendeley, iVrach, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Academia.edu, Voiceland, Webby.ru, My Business Card, ResearchGate,.
• For blogs: Instagram, Fixfeel, Twitter, TipTopic.net, RuTvit, Toodoo, Blogosphere, LiveJournal, LiveJournal, Diary.ru.
• Asian: Tencent Qzone, Sina Weibo, QQ, Renren, Pengyou, WeChat, Douban.

Find like-minded people, meet love, get advice, learn something new and just chat - everything is possible on social networks. And what are the most popular ones you now know.

Social networks are the best way to keep in touch with your friends and/or relatives, look for new acquaintances, and share music, films, and photos. It's the end of two thousand sixteen and now there are several hundred platforms designed for building social relationships on the Internet. In this article we will look at some of the most popular ones in the world.

5 Tumblr

The number of users of the Tumblr microblog reaches two hundred and twenty million. This social network is very popular due to its simple interface, no restrictions on the content of posts and the ability to publish any images or videos. Registration is not required to view posts, but is required in case of publication. Many media outlets call Tumblr "the easiest way to blog."

4 VKontakte

The most popular social network in the former Soviet Union, fourth in the world, according to SimilarWeb. In conversations it is most often referred to as VK. According to Wikipedia, there are about three hundred and eighty million accounts. Registration is free. A general social network with the ability to search for friends, read various public pages, listen to music, watch videos, etc.

3 Twitter

The microblogging network, but, unlike Tumblr, has limitations (it is possible to write posts only one hundred and forty characters long). About five hundred million people use Twitter around the world. Registration is required to use. According to statistics from market research company Pear Analytics, forty-one percent of “tweets” (the name of online posts) are small talk, thirty-eight are conversations, nine are retweets (repeated messages), only four percent are news, and the rest are self-promotion and spam.

2 Google+

In second place by the number of users – five hundred and forty million accounts. Registration is required. In announcing the network, Google assured that the emphasis will be on users, privacy and live communication. The work of a social network is based on so-called “circles”, thanks to which a person regulates his communication. Users create their own “circle” (for example, “Relatives”) and add there all the people who fit this category. There are similar details with blogs.

1 Facebook

According to all existing companies specializing in Internet marketing, Facebook is the most popular network in the world. The number of users reaches one billion and seven hundred million. This social network allows you to create your profile with a photo and a detailed profile. There are many ways to communicate with each other on Facebook, including chat, virtual winks, and a wall where you can leave messages for other users.