A Website Wednesday Discussion
Here’s a report that I think I’m going to review annually. Its called the “Most Popular Social Networks Worldwide”. This most recent one is as of January 2018, and is ranked by number of active users – According to Statistica.com.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Remember that when you are looking at “Worldwide” trends that your local region may have slightly different relative numbers, and even have some regional social media players missing almost completely due to different cultural and regional engagement. However, the general order of importance will not likely have changed.
For example, not many Americans even know what QQ, QZone, Sina Weibo, or Baidu Tieba are, yet in Asia they are the regional giants.
Captain Obvious will happily declare that Facebook is still the reigning champion of social media worldwide with a commanding lead of 2167 million users.
Yet, what I find very interesting is that YouTube, with 1500 million users, is almost twice as popular as Instagram with 800 million users. Yet, YouTube is often misunderstood and ignored by many marketers and organizations who could otherwise leverage YouTube to improve their reach and engagement.
Is your organization even thinking of using YouTube? Is it using it at already? Have you made a strategic marketing plan with regard to how you want to use it, and most importantly – how your audience wants to you to use it? Remember, its all about audience engagement and their perceived value of your content with use of any social media outlet.
So many people I know still swear that Twitter is still super important. However, with only 330 million users, is it really worth the effort? Don’t get me wrong, in certain situations, with a specific type of audience it can be a perfect fit. However, IMHO it’s long running demand that you only converse in 140-280 characters has seriously hamstrung its growth, usefulness and perception as a viable conversation tool.
Sadly, Pinterest with 200 million users is looking like Instagram’s ugly step-sibling at this point. I’ve got to admit that I always liked Pinterest better. On Gilligan’s Island I liked Mary Ann better than Ginger too, but, it’s time to move on. Especially given that Instagram has 800 million users and very vigorous brand evangelism. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the 800 pound gorilla in social media is Instagram’s older sibling.
What takeaways do you have when you look at this report? How open are you to trying out new social media outlets to help expand and grow your organization? What have you tried and failed with before, and do you know why it failed?
Featured image attributed to: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
