Top 10 Most Popular Social Media Platforms
Top 10 Most Popular Social Media Platforms
Like it or not, social media plays a huge and growing role in the daily life of modern human beings. Millions of people share, like, chat, watch, post, and befriend through various social media platforms every day. But not all social media platforms are equally popular and used. The following ranking shows you the most popular social media platforms currently in the world based on active users.
| TOP 10 MOST POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS | |
|---|---|
| 2.5 billion users | |
| YOUTUBE | 2.0 billion users |
| 1.2 billion users | |
| 1.1 billion users | |
| TIKTOK | 810 million users |
| QZONE | 530 million users |
| TUMBLR | 490 million users |
| 430 million users | |
| SINA WEIBO | 420 million users |
| 340 million users | |
1. Facebook
- 2.5 billion users
- Launched in: 2004
- Owned by: Facebook, Inc.
With around 2.5 billion users worldwide, Facebook is the by far most popular social media platform in the world. Facebook was launched in 2004 by then Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg, alongside his roommates at Harvard, first intended to create a photo-sharing platform exclusively for Harvard students. Later they also extended the membership possibility to students of the other Ivy League schools. In 2006, Facebook then became free for all and quickly became popular in practically every corner of the world. Today, around 1/3 of the world’s entire human population has a Facebook account.
2. YouTube
- 2.0 billion users
- Launched in: 2005
- Owned by: Alphabet, Inc.
YouTube is primarily and a video-sharing platform. However, the platform has evolved into a social media platform and community over the years. YouTube was launched in 2005 by three former employees of PayPal. The site quickly became a success and only a year later, in 2006, it was bought by Google for approximately $1.7 billion. YouTube is still owned by Google today (more precisely by Alphabet, the parent company behind Google) and is still by far the largest video-sharing website on the Internet.
3. WeChat
- 1.2 billion users
- Launched in: 2011
- Owned by: Tencent Ltd
If you don't live in China, chances are you've never heard, let alone use, of WeChat. But the Chinese platform is the third-largest social media platform in the world. Founded and owned by Chinese technology corporation giant Tencent, WeChat currently has about 1.2 billion users. About 90% of those live in China. There, WeChat is not just a social media platform. It has become a super app and "app for everything". Chinese users use WeChat to share photos and videos, communicate, play games, and even make payments electronically. WeChat is far less popular outside, mainly due to the strict censorship on the platform and its privacy issues (the Chinese government uses the platform for its mass surveillance operations).
4. Instagram
- 1.1 billion users
- Launched in: 2010
- Owned by: Facebook, Inc.
Instagram was developed and launched in 2010 by Stanford University students Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The app was originally a photo-sharing platform that quickly became widely popular. In the first year of its existence, Instagram already had 10 million users on the platform. In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for exactly $1 billion. The platform's popularity has grown even more rapidly since then. Today, Instagram has about 1.1 billion active users all over the world. It is not just a photo-sharing or video-sharing platform these days, as an entire lifestyle has developed around the social media platform.
Whether one likes it or not, social media plays a big and growing role in modern human’s everyday life. Millions upon millions of people share, like, chat, view, post, and befriend through the various social media platforms every day. But not all social media platforms are equally popular and used. The following ranking shows you the currently most popular social media platforms in the world, based on active users.
5. TikTok
- 810 million users
- Launched in: 2016
- Owned by: ByteDance Ltd.
Launched only in 2016, TikTok has grown as fast as no other social media platform before. TikTok was developed by Beijing-based Chinese company ByteDance. It is a video-sharing platform where users can easily create and share short videos of lip-syncing, inserting messages, or other content of a humorous or otherwise entertaining nature. It was launched in 2016, originally only for Chinese users. It was only after the merger with the similar platform Musical.ly that the platform opened to users across the world.
6. QZone
- 530 million users
- Launched in: 2005
- Owned by: Tencent Ltd.
Tencent first developed QZone in 2005, before WeChat arrived. The platform began as a blogging site for Chinese users, but then quickly evolved into a popular social media platform. Since the launch of WeChat, QZone has somewhat lost its popularity among Chinese users. But it's still quite popular as an integrated feature for users of QQ, the most popular Chinese instant messaging app, which of course also owns Tencent.
7. Tumblr
- 490 million users
- Launched in: 2007
- Owned by: Automattic, Inc.
Tumblr is a micro-blogging social media platform. Every user who registers on Tumblr receives a small blog space on the platform on which the user can create and share all kinds of content: comments, images, or videos. Users also follow each other and can comment on each other's posted content, as is common for social media sites. Tumblr was launched in 2007. In 2019, Tumblr was sold to Automattic, the company behind the world's most popular content management system – WordPress.
8. Reddit
- 430 million users
- Launched in: 2005
- Owned by: Advance Publications, Inc.
Reddit is a social media platform and in many ways, it is a unique platform. Reddit allows its users to share pictures, videos, and news on the platform. Unlike other social media platforms, the images are usually not from the users themselves, but from across the internet. It is therefore a news aggregation site as well as a web content rating and discussion forum. The platform is also known for its regular Q&A sessions with a variety of celebrities. Reddit was launched in 2005. Since 2011, it has been owned by Advance Publications, a New York City-based media company.
9. Sina Weibo
- 420 million users
- Launched in: 2009
- Owned by: Sina Corporation
Sina Weibo is sometimes referred to as "Chinese Twitter". Like Twitter, Sina Weibo is a micro-blogging platform and the platform is similar in style, but it is larger than Twitter, despite being practically active only on the Chinese market. Sina Weibo was launched in 2009 by American-born Taiwanese-American actor, rapper, and entrepreneur Pan Weibo. It has since been sold to the Chinese Sina Corporation.
10. Twitter
- 340 million users
- Launched in: 2006
- Owned by: Twitter, Inc.
Twitter was launched in 2006 and is often credited with being the Internet's first micro-blogging site. The social media platform allows users to share short messages as well as images and videos. Twitter is also known as the preferred social media platform used by politicians, world leaders, and celebrities.
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