The Top 22 Social Media Platforms You Should Know in 2022

These days, everyone is on social media. Even my 81-year-old grandmother effortlessly uses social media. Meeting someone who doesn’t use at least one or two social platforms has become an anomaly. 

As a result, social media allows marketers to reach out to their target audiences with minimal effort. However, with so many social media platforms, finding the best for your target audience can be challenging. 

Everyone is on social media, but not everyone uses the same platform. So who is using what, and as a marketer, where should you be?

A Comparison of the Top 4 Social Media Sites

The chart below shows the most popular social media sites with billions of active users worldwide.

  1.) Facebook 

According to recent studies, Facebook continues to rise in popularity. Do you know that 36.8% of the world's population uses Facebook monthly? Another fascinating fact is that 79% of Canadians aged 15 and up use Facebook. It's also the 7th most valuable brand in the world.

Although most of us use Facebook for entertainment, we can never rule out its marketing potential. Through Facebook ads, you may target people based on different criteria, including age, locality, gender, relationship status, education level, interests, gadget usage, etc.

According to online marketing experts, Facebook can also be used for local marketing through the Facebook business page. In a way, Facebook has become the best local business directory to match up with Google My Business.

In short, Facebook is a highly desirable social media platform for advertising because of its popularity and targeting possibilities.

Quick Facebook Facts:

• 2.936 billion registered users
• 1.93 billion active monthly users
• Stats pulled: April 2022
• Founded in the U.S.

   2.) YouTube

YouTube is the world's most popular social media platform for sharing videos. It enables the users to upload their videos, view others' videos and interact with them. 

You will always get something interesting to watch on YouTube because 100 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 

Quick YouTube Facts:

• 2.2 billion Monthly Active Users
• Stats pulled: 2022
• Founded in California, U.S.

  3.) WhatsApp

WhatsApp has become the last word in mobile messaging. It has become the most widely used messaging app since it was launched in 2009 by two former Yahoo employees.

The instant messaging app allows users to send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share pictures, files, and user locations.

Quick WhatsApp Facts:

• Two billion monthly active users
• Stats pulled: 2022
• Founded in the U.S.

  4.) Instagram

Instagram is a popular social media platform founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010 and later acquired by Facebook Inc. Users can share videos, images, stories, reels, and live videos on this platform. It's more popular among the younger generations.

 If you own a brand, never forget to create an Instagram business profile. It can help you in expanding your customer base and increase engagement. 

Marketers may grow their audience using Instagram Live Video and Stories by employing hashtags to attract a larger audience. Also, it offers business advertising options that can be accessed via Facebook.

Quick Instagram Facts:

• Two billion monthly active users
• Stats pulled: 2022
• Founded in the U.S.

5.) Facebook Messenger

It was developed as Facebook chat in the year 2008, but Facebook Messenger has been a stand-alone application with enhanced features since 2011. 

This social media platform allows users to send messages, share photographs, videos, stickers, audio, and files, interact with bots, and send newsletters. Also, they support voice and video calls.

Quick Facebook Messenger Facts:

• 1.3 billion monthly active users 
• Stats pulled: 2022
• Founded in the U.S.

6.) WeChat

 WeChat was launched by China's tech giant Tencent in 2011. It's a popular all-in-one platform in China and other Asian countries. 

In addition to chatting and calling, it allows users to shop online, pay bills, transfer funds, make reservations, book cabs, and more.

Another attractive feature of this software is that it allows you to connect with strangers without disclosing your phone number or other personal information. In short, it helps to maintain privacy when engaging with strangers.

 Quick WeChat Facts:

• 1.2 billion monthly active users
• Stats pulled: 2022
• Founded in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
• Founder- Allen Zhang

7.) Sina Weibo

This is one of China's most popular microblogging and social networking sites, with more than 573 million monthly users. In this platform, they have incorporated both the features of Twitter and Facebook. 

Quick Telegram Facts:

• Headquarters- Beijing, China
• Owner- Weibo Corporation

8.) Telegram 

Telegram is an instant messaging app that allows users to send messages across different devices with no size restrictions. Another significant advantage of Telegram is that the notes are encrypted and self-destructive, ensuring the security of the messages you send over the internet using this platform. 

Also, unlike other messaging services, you can create groups with up to 200,000 members. Telegram works on both iOS and Android smartphones, as well as desktop computers. According to statistics pulled in 2022, it has 500 million monthly active users.

Quick Telegram Facts:

• Headquarters - Tortola, British Virgin Islands (legal domicile)                                                                                Dubai, United Arab Emirates (operational center)
• Founder - Pavel Durov, Nikolai Durov

9.) Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media platform allowing users to upload photographs with links to websites, product pages, blog posts, and other online information. 

It's one of the most effective platforms for quickly attracting visitors to your website. About 433 million people use Pinterest every month.

Quick Pinterest Facts:

• Headquarters - San Francisco, California, United States
• Founders: Paul Sciarra, Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp

10.) Reddit

Reddit is an American social media platform for social news gathering, web content evaluation, and discussion. It enables users to submit their content and vote for it. 

The voting rate determines whether the information is promoted or downgraded, after which it is classified according to the regions of interest (known as subreddits).

Quick Reddit Facts:

• Headquarters - San Francisco, California, U.S.
• Founders - Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz

11.) Twitter

Twitter is a social media platform located in San Francisco, California. It allows users to send brief text messages called tweets with a limited number of characters (280).

It enables you to stay updated with current happenings and join discussions. According to statistics pulled in 2022, it has 217 million monthly active users.

Quick Twitter Facts:

• Headquarters - San Francisco, California, United States
• Founders - Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Noah Glass

12.) LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media platform used for professional networking and career development and permits job seekers to upload their resumes and companies to post job openings. It has more than 66.8 million monthly active users.

LinkedIn quick Facts:

• Headquarters - Sunnyvale, California, United States
• Founders - Reid Hoffman, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Konstantin Guericke, Allen Blue

13.) Skype

Skype is owned by Skype Technologies, a Microsoft division that allows users to communicate via audio, video, and text messaging. 

The best aspect about Skype is that you can make free group conference calls with up to 100 people using any mobile device or computer.

Quick Skype Facts:

• Headquarters- Luxembourg
• Founders - Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis

14.) Snapchat 

This is a popular multimedia instant messaging app among teenagers. Like WhatsApp and Instagram, users can send images to one another and update their statuses every 24 hours. 

As per statistics pulled in 2022, it has approximately 557 million monthly active users.

Quick Snapchat Facts:

• Headquarters- Santa Monica, California, U.S.
• Founders- Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown

15.) Clubhouse

The Clubhouse is social audio software that allows you to discuss, learn and post your views. It's almost similar to old internet chat rooms, but the chat only happens through audio instead of text messages. 

Here we can engage with other users and create your room where you can talk about anything. The Clubhouse has about 6 million registered users.

 Quick Clubhouse Facts:

• Headquarters - San Francisco, California
• Founders - Paul Davison and Rohan Seth

16.) Caffeine

Users can join either as viewers or as a broadcaster on this social media platform. As a viewer, you'll access live streamers around the world. Users can browse the streams, interact in a live chat, and rank streams. 

Caffeine is ad-free and does not require a membership.

Quick Caffeine Facts:

• Headquarters - USA, California, Redwood City
• Founders - Ben Keighran, Sam Roberts

17.) Microsoft Teams

It's a video conferencing platform that allows users to communicate via text messages, audio, or video call. It can also be integrated with Microsoft 365 services like OneDrive and PowerPoint. Microsoft Teams offers a robust security management system that lets teams of up to 10,000 individuals meet and discuss. Microsoft Teams has about 270 million monthly active users.

 Quick Microsoft Teams Fact:

• Headquarters - Redmond, WA, U.S.

18.) Tencent Q.Q.

Tencent Q.Q. or Q.Q. is an instant messaging app launched by Chinese tech giant Tencent in February 1999. However, it later extended to around 80 nations.

 It supports text messages, video calls, and voice chats. The app is a built-in translator, which helps translate conversations. As per statistics, in 2022, it will have 1,288 million monthly active users.

 Quick Tencent Q.Q. Facts:

• Headquarters - China
• Founders: Ma Huateng, daniel, Zhang Zhidong, Chen Yidan, kney

 19.) Tencent Qzone

QZone is a social networking site based in China founded by Tencent in May 2005. It has about 500 million monthly active users. 

Users can write blogs, keep diaries, send photographs, listen to music, and watch movies on this platform.

 Quick Tencent Qzone Fact:

• Headquarters - China

20.) XING

It's a professional social networking platform that helps people expand their professional networks. 

Like LinkedIn, users can do a job search, stay updated with the latest industry news, and find professional events like conferences, seminars, and trade shows. XING has about 16 million users.

Quick XING Facts:

• Headquarters - Hamburg, Germany
• Founder - Lars Hinrichs

21.) Tinder

Tinder is an online dating and geosocial networking application that allows users to post photos, brief bio, and a list of interests. 

Tinder also has a "double opt-in" system, in which both users must like one other to send messages. It has more than 75 million monthly active users.

Quick Tinder Facts:

• Headquarters - West Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States
• Founders - Sean Rad, Justin Mateen, Whitney Wolfe, Jonathan Badeen

22.) Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based search and discovery program that allows users to propose new places to visit in their region. 

It also returns relevant search results for the best restaurants, clubs, and local attractions. There are more than 55 million monthly active users and 60 million registered members of Foursquare.

 Quick Foursquare Facts:

• Headquarters - New York, New York, United States
• Founders - Dennis Crowley, Naveen Selvadurai

What are the benefits of marketing on social media platforms?

Nowadays, the world has become more social. It's estimated that in 2022, an internet user will spend an average of 147 minutes daily on various social media platforms.

Most people are active on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. It can be said that these platforms have changed the way we live our lives. 

If you don't use social media to its full potential, your competitors will, and you'll miss out on a conversion. If you execute your social media marketing well, your leads and sales will undoubtedly increase.

 In short, social media marketing platforms help,

• Attract traffic to your website
• Expand the reach of your brand
• Boost your conversion rate
• Enhance the interaction with the audiences
• Establish a strong brand identity and reputation

Challenges Faced by Social Media Marketing

By now, we know that social media can be used as an effective tool to promote businesses or create brand awareness. However, if we do not use social media correctly, it may draw unwanted audiences and generate little to no leads.

Let's now examine the drawbacks of employing social media marketing platforms.

It's not designed for businesses

Instead of facilitating commerce, social media marketing platforms were meant to connect people. People use social media to communicate with friends, share photos, watch funny videos, etc. 

There is no "buying intent" among social media users. If your goal is to target users in the “consideration” stage of the customer journey, you shouldn't rely too much on social networking networks.

Negative reviews may damage your brand's reputation

When you use social media, you publicly expose your brand to many people. There will always be bad actors who want to harm someone's reputation. 

Using social media monitoring and listening is a great way to collect information on brand sentiment and see how your products and services are being received. 

While this can be a valuable source of information, keep an eye out for negative comments that paint a flawed picture of your brand.  

Conclusion

You've learned about the various social media platforms in this post. 

The right social media platforms help you reach new segments of customers, expand your market, and improve your online presence and customer service. 

Also, choose social media networks where your brand's target demographic is active, regardless of the size of the platform.

Best wishes for your social media marketing endeavours!

FAQ’s

• Is marketing on social media platforms a good idea?

Boosted/promoted posts and display advertising is excellent ways to launch a retargeting or brand awareness campaign. 

It's one of the most effective ways to reach customers and demonstrate the value of your product or services. Also, audience targeting is possible here.

• What criteria should you use to determine which social media marketing platform is ideal for your company? 

Experts in social media marketing recommend conducting a social media audit to determine which platforms have the most active users and focus on those sites.

• Is social media marketing costly?

You can draw consumers naturally by publishing your products or services on numerous social media channels. 

However, you can reach a larger audience by advertising or promoting your platforms on social media networks. Even if these items are pricey, they will be worthwhile.

References

1. https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/
2. https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-sites/
3. https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2022/01/11/most-popular-social-media-platforms
4. https://buffer.com/library/social-media-sites/
5. https://makeawebsitehub.com/social-media-sites/