Which social networks are the most active? What social networks do I use, why and why is it bad? Specialized social networks

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 take third and fourth place 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. This is why it is so important to reach and engage your potential customers by publishing relevant and interesting content that resonates with your 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 on mobile devices - the penetration rate is 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 most high level Internet penetration - 74%-94% of the total population uses 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Global Social Media Research Summary 2018 by Smart Insights
The State of Social 2018 report by Social Media Week
The Biggest Social Media Trends Shaping 2018 article published on the GlobalWebIndex blog
Social Networks Study: How social networks were used in 2017 by analytical agency Metricool
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:

The most popular social networks among Russian-speaking users are three projects - Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and the world-famous Facebook. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. But which site is better? Which of them makes sense to register your own page?

In this article we will compare all three projects according to a number of criteria important for visitors - convenience, entertainment opportunities, information content, and others. This will help beginners make their choice. So, let's get to know the comparison participants in a little more detail.

Comparison of social networks VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki

Now that you have a brief idea of the projects, let's move on to their direct comparison. Let's start with the most important thing.

Popularity with the audience

Ease of interface and management

Information content

Social networks are now not only a means for finding people and communicating with them, but also an information environment. On social networks, users share personal experiences, exchange valuable information on issues that interest them, and so on.

Entertainment options

The modern social network is a real “food processor” of the entertainment industry. Resources of this type have already replaced many gaming sites, entertainment portals, and online cinemas. Why leave the social network if all this is already there?

There is quite a lot of entertainment content on Facebook - music, videos, online games, applications. The only problem is that the administrators of the social network adhere to a strict policy regarding the distribution of unlicensed products, so you will not find any pirated media content there (and some people go to social networks just for it).
Odnoklassniki provides its users with everything they need. Music, both licensed and pirated, is posted on the pages in tons. It's the same with video. There has also been progress with games - over the past year, the number of applications and games on Odnoklassniki has increased, and more favorable conditions have been created for developers of this kind of content for its production.
Focusing on the youth audience, the VKontakte administration is simply obliged to provide users with the necessary functionality in terms of entertainment. And she copes with this task perfectly. Tens of thousands of applications and games of various types, a convenient music player, watching videos and listening to audio. A variety of legal and not-so-legal content. What else do you need for happiness?

Earning money on social networks

For most Internet users, it has long been no secret that not only their owners and those investing in development, but also ordinary users of these projects can make money on social networks.

Facebook provides the opportunity to earn money for users of various qualifications - both beginners and advanced. The former can engage in primitive activities: paid comments, placing “likes” on posts. For the latter, broader prospects open up - promotion and promotion of communities, development of browser games and applications, organization of trade. And the list doesn't end there.
Odnoklassniki has the most solvent audience on the Russian-speaking Internet, which makes them simply an ideal place to offer your goods and services. Create free applications with paid premium features, open your own online store, advertise your own brand - there are many options for earning money.
On VKontakte, as on Facebook, there is more than enough work for users. And if we take into account the fact that the project is focused primarily on Russian-speaking users, making money with it is much more convenient and profitable than with its direct competitor. Particularly popular on VKontakte is making money by creating various communities and groups, on which advertising materials are subsequently posted and affiliate programs are promoted.

Mobile capabilities

Now there is a pronounced trend towards the “mobilization” of social networks. More and more people are accessing their pages from various portable devices such as tablets and mobile phones. Developers of social networks understand this very well, so they have taken care of ensuring the most comfortable experience on their projects for owners of mobile devices.

Let's sum it up

Analyzing the information written above, we came to the conclusion that that it is impossible to define a universal social network for all occasions. Everyone should choose the project that suits their interests. For example, if a person wants to be promptly informed about any events and receive first-hand information, then Facebook is most suitable for him.

If his choice falls on entertainment and games, then he won’t find anything better than VKontakte. And if you want to resume communication with people lost many years ago, then first of all you should look in Odnoklassniki.

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Everyone only knows about the 2-3 most popular social networks. But do not forget that there are many other thematic communities on the Internet in which people united by common interests or professional fields are constantly active every day.

The most popular social networks in Russia: 2018

The social network is available in 90 languages or more, is highly popular among the Russian-speaking audience, and is the largest in all of Europe. The headquarters is located in St. Petersburg. VKontakte makes it possible to send messages and images, share video and audio recordings, tags, create your own groups and communities, and relax playing browser games. The social network strives to remain the fastest and most modern way to communicate on the Internet. This is the most popular social network in Russia (2018).

This domestic social network belongs to Mail.Ru Group and was created in March 2006. In terms of popularity this year, it ranks 3rd in Armenia, 4th in Azerbaijan and Russia, 5th in Kazakhstan, 7th in Ukraine, 27th in the whole world.

According to a December 2017 survey, 19% of the domestic audience use the Odnoklassniki website almost every day or every day.

A free social network that allows you to share photos and videos. It incorporates elements of a social network. Instagram allows you to take photos and videos, use filters, and share them through your account or other social networks. At the moment, both from the user’s point of view and from the point of view of promoting one’s services and products

A popular video hosting site in the world that stores a lot of videos. A unique social network in which everyone can find both and make it their main one.

This is the most famous social network in the world, which appeared on February 4, 2004. Its creator was Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates while studying at Harvard University. The first name was Thefacebook, only university students had access to it. After this, students from Boston universities gained access, then students from all American universities with an email address at .edu. Since the fall of 2006, anyone can register on Facebook.

The emphasis in this social network is on personalization and ease of use. The content is divided into several categories - video and audio, chat, link, quote, photo and text. People subscribe to blogs that are interesting to them, the posts of which appear in the news feed. They also mark posts they like using the corresponding button and reblog to their page to comment on them.

There is support for automatic export of messages to Facebook and Twitter using the RSS protocol.

Social photo hosting, whose users upload images to appropriate collections and share photos with other people. Added images are called "buttons" and collections are called "boards".

Other most popular social networks in Russia

A popular portal where users create their own electronic diaries and communicate with each other. There are also counters for websites.

Russian-language social site, which is a collective blog. There are elements of a news site. Habrahabr is intended for publishing analytical articles and news. Topics: Internet, business, modern information technologies. Several years ago, a number of topics were separated into separate resources.

A popular platform on which users create their blogs and communicate with people. Popular social networks in Russia include it in their list.

The largest music catalog that creates separate and general charts for each user.

Not the most popular social networks and portals

This social network is designed for users to communicate with each other. With its help, you can find friends with similar interests and similar entertainment, create an individual personal page design, start a diary, become a member of communities or create your own based on interests, communicate on blogs, share videos, audio and images. About 300 thousand users maintain their blogs on Privet.ru.

This is a popular web service designed for blogging and communicating with like-minded people.

A social service for Russian news channels, which was launched in the spring of 1998. Designed for organizing and maintaining electronic mailing lists.

Specialized social networks

A business social network that brings together entrepreneurs and specialists based on certain characteristics (geography, profession, industry). It appeared in the summer of 2008, and today there are about 7 million registered users. The social network is intended for discussing professional problems, finding partners and investors, self-education and obtaining new ideas. The largest communities on the network have over 2 million people participating.

Facebook, VKontakte and others are part of the life of any modern person. Even grandmothers are on Instagram. But which social networking sites are the best and most popular? Let's find out below!

How social networks appeared on the Internet

First, let's go over the history of the development of social networks. In 1995, the website classmates.com appeared. People there looked for those with whom they studied at school or college. The service quickly became famous. The idea was picked up, and in the early 2000s the first “Big Three” appeared:

LinkedIn and Facebook are the most popular social networks on Earth today. And Facebook even holds 3rd place in the ranking of the most visited sites in the world (Google and YouTube are in first and second place).

Nowadays, more than 3 billion people are registered on social networks. Half of the Earth's inhabitants! And in Russia, about 45% of people over 18 years old use them.

By the way, in 2018, Russia entered the TOP 10 countries in terms of growth in social network users. But which sites are the most popular among us? Written in the review below.

The most popular social networks in Russia: list

The “Audience” item shows global visit statistics for November 2018. according tosimilarweb.com

1. In contact with (VK)

Founded: 2006

Founder: Pavel Durov

Global audience: 2 billion per month

The undisputed leader in Russia. Millions of people come here every day to communicate and have fun, not to mention make money. VKontakte has long turned into a platform for a variety of businesses. The resource actively supports commerce: there is an advertising exchange, the possibility of mailings and money transfers, as well as various paid functions.

Founded by a simple student from St. Petersburg, today VK belongs to Mail.ru Group. This also includes the next site from our list.

2. Classmates

Founded: 2006

Founder: Albert Popkov

Global audience: 1.1 billion. per month

The same age as VKontakte, but half as popular. It is believed that Odnoklassniki is used mainly by older people. This platform is more focused on communication than business. So her main income is paid emoticons and gifts, as well as functions like the “invisibility” mode and adding additional photos to the album. Business is also not very developed.

3.Instagram

Twitter was originally founded as a short messaging service within the Odeo company. But after Odeo changed hands, they immediately saw the prospect. Twitter quickly gained popularity around the world. Messages of no more than 280 characters (until September 2017 - 140 characters) are convenient primarily for news and announcements.

Social networks in our lives

The role of social networks in the life of a modern person cannot be underestimated. We get to know each other, communicate and even fall in love within them. Psychologists have been talking about the influence of social networks on the human psyche for several years now. The problem of social media addiction has long been considered a serious disease. A modern person, susceptible to such an illness, does not leave these sites for hours, forgetting about the real world, food and sleep.

But if you don’t go to extremes, then social networks are an excellent tool for communication, promotion and earning money. Many have found work, calling and even love here. So there is no doubt that social networks will continue to develop, becoming more advanced and convenient.

Some people believe that over time they will contain so many functions that many other sites will simply not be needed. Will it be so? Let's see.

PS: Interesting facts about the impact of information technology on human life

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Hello everyone, the holidays are over, no matter how sad it is, we must continue to live. Today I want to tell you what apps and social networks Americans use.

Two years ago I moved to live and study in the USA, talked to many people, this is already my

1. Snapchat

Let's start in order, the very first application on the list is, of course, Snapchat. In my opinion, this is the most popular mobile application in America.

With all the functions of stories on Instagram and WhatsApp, young people remain faithful to it and constantly use it; for them it is something so secret, not accessible to anyone, personal.

On Snapchat you usually only add people you know and friends. The acronym used for this is “AMOSC”, which stands for Add Me On SnapChat or add me on Snapchat.

You don’t need to take a really high-quality photo that will always hang in your feed, you don’t need to bother at all, everything will be gone in 24 hours. You can play around, shoot something funny, experiment, share your emotions and impressions. And only those whom you have chosen and added can see this.

2.Instagram

Instagram includes almost all the features of other social networks. The interesting thing here is that Americans actively use personal messages and create conversations. For this they also use the acronym “DM”, which stands for Direct Messages.

3.Twitter

People like the microblog format. They love to share their thoughts and mood, it will immediately go into the feed. It is very convenient to advertise your posts. I wrote it, left a link and everyone who regularly reads you can already read the article and comment.

Also, every popular company, school club, sports team, famous person, in general, almost every more or less well-known organization has Twitter, which allows people to follow any news.

4. Pinterest

The fourth application on the list, it is very popular in the USA, quite a lot of people actively use it - the Pinterest application. In Russia it’s not popular at all, I think many people don’t even know about it, I haven’t seen this application at all here and before my trip to the USA I didn’t know anything about Pinterest.

This is an application where people get ideas for everything, there are a lot of pictures, life hacks, and some interesting solutions. There you can find absolutely everything, recipes for cooking, ways to combine different clothes.

It’s easier to search on Pinterest than just searching in a search engine, because there are no different advertisements, fake sites and fake content, everything that is really needed is selected.

5. Simple phone messages

What follows is not exactly a social network and application. Various messengers are popular with us. Some use Viber, others WhatsApp and Telegram, some just VKontakte. But Americans don’t understand why all this is needed if there are regular phone messages.

People correspond there, exchange videos and photographs, all in regular messages. Moreover, all mobile operators in the United States have one tariff plan, in which calls and messages are unlimited.

But let’s also discuss what is unpopular there, what applications they don’t use.

It was very strange for me, Americans don't use Facebook. I will not be responsible for the entire population, but young people do not use it, many are not even registered there. They find it inconvenient.

P.S. I asked ten classmates if they used Telegram, among whom were Americans, Spaniards, Italians, Swedes and a Greek. No one knew about such a messenger at all, they just laughed at the name. Nobody had ever heard of Durov.

I told them about the rally in support of Telegram and the free Internet in general, everyone supported it :)

I think that's all, I mentioned all the social networks and applications that are popular in the USA among guys from 16 to 25 years old. By the way, here is our international team.