Do you know where people go searching for your business after Google? Well, the answer is social media sites or platforms.
Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives, and that too, beyond entertainment. The definition and boundaries of social media sites have evolved past the mere connecting platforms.
Today a plethora of social media sites have become an imperative place for business corporations and marketers to spread the word about their services and products. This implies that there is no chance to ignore the essence of social media in the present scenarios.
If we talk numbers, then the below-stated stats suffice why social media sites give a reason to flaunt your business online:
- Over 55% of the global internet users go looking for buying suggestions on top social media sites.
- Over 4.5 billion people of the total world population are utilizing social media in the present times.
- 70% of the global population has accounts on distinctive social media sites.
- On average, people spend about 3 to 4 hours on social media platforms per day.
- The current social media trends indicate that the count of social media users will go up by 3-4 billion in the near future.
These figures suffice to show people’s level of engrossment on social media sites. But these figures are comprehensive, which means you just can’t go on promoting your business on any of the most popular social media sites. Wondering why and, if so, what to do? Let’s discuss this in detail further…..
Top 100 Social Media Sites
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Do All Top Social Media Sites Count For Your Go-To Option?
Social media marketing is no less than a superman, which takes you closer to your audience bit by bit. In fact, organizations today plan proper budgetary allocations toward social media marketing and social media optimization because businesses have to go the whole nine yards where there is a potentially interested target audience. Social media marketing is of assistance when you need to:
- Establish your brand name.
- Explore new ideas.
- Expand your business traffic, and
- Enrich your connection with your target audience.
The above 4 Es are what need to be fostered, and there is no other way that stands in line with social media marketing for this.
Since there are a plethora of top social media sites and the most popular social media sites are uncountable which calls for analyzing the depths of how well every single site suits your business and your target audience base.
For instance, TikTok or Snapchat won’t be an optimum pick if you deal in home decor. So rather than burning your money for nothing by publicizing your business over any and every social media site, you must follow a smart approach and invest your time and hard-earned over such platforms that can actually generate and amplify your revenues. On this note, this blog provides insights on the most popular social media sites that can do wonders for your business’s growth.
11 Most Popular Social Media Sites
Social media sites have opened a hub of opportunities for marketers to shout out about their services and/or products digitally. Since the number of social media sites is growing so rapidly, it has become indispensable to assess the ins and outs of different social media sites or platforms.
This blog has enlisted insights on the most popular social media sites or platforms so as to cut down the hefts of beating your head around analyzing the stats and user ratio. So make sure to give this blog a read!
1. Facebook
When it comes to the most popular social media sites, Facebook needs no introduction. Maintaining a Facebook Business Page is a sure-shot investment that a business must go for. Why? Well, there are two main reasons for this:
Firstly, the majority of netizens are active on Facebook to stay updated.
Secondly, the platform is profused of a plethora of opportunities for businesses to grow and manage their audience base based on their interest. That’s why Facebook Ad Campaigns have become an imperative part of social media management.
With a huge user community of over 2.9 billion users, Facebook ranks No. 1 among the top 100 social media sites. Facebook Groups are an optimum way to put forth your services or/and products of specific nature in front of a specific target audience.
It is the best place to make people aware of any news related to your business, whether you’re organizing an event, looking for personnel in a specific department, or simply want to entice the buyers toward your brand name.
Facebook Marketplace is the optimum virtual store for your audience to sell your products or services, and Facebook Ads Manager, Facebook Pixels, and Facebook Chatbot will be of your utmost assistance here as it eases the process of creating distinctive ads, be it in video format or image format, targeting different audience base as per location and niche. After all, there is no point in leaving a platform where around 1.80 million users check in daily, and more than 10% of people come with an intent to make a purchase.
Facebook Ads opens the house of options to align Call To Action (CTA) tabs or buttons to your ad posts; you can select whether you want to get WhatsApp or Messenger messages, host a question and answer session or raise money. Also, did you know the ‘watch party’ option of this platform can be used to premier a video in real-time? Well, now you do. If used wisely, it can be an exquisite way to engage people very well, the reason being that video-based content is most supported on Facebook.
Facebook Business Manager Account is needed to start off with organic and paid ads. Also, there are a plethora of options that won’t be available initially if you’re a newbie on this site. Nonetheless, they would be active with time.
By using features and tools like A/B Testing, you can check in advance which ad post has brighter chances of engaging audiences and garnering more likes, shares, and comments. You can schedule posts for later as well.
Oftentimes, we come across a Facebook post over WhatsApp that shares information about a product or service, don’t we? And believe it or not but sharing Facebook posts has garnered much more shares than any other social media site. Now it makes perfect sense that acquiring a business page on Facebook is a quintessential part of your social media marketing campaign.
2. YouTube
With over 2.2 billion users, this subsidiary of Google is the second most popular social media site where people dive in daily. With this, it is not just one among the most popular social media sites but also among the top social media sites. Also, the percentage of people who use YouTube over cell phones goes beyond 60% of its total community, which indicates that it makes reaching a wider audience cluster as easy as pie since a major part of the population has a cell phone in the present time.
Though YouTube supports video-based content only, it still leaves the creators with an enormous pool of options to go about like community posts that can be used just like Facebook posts, except for the fact that they aren’t shareable yet but can be aligned with a link and of course, can garner comments and likes for you.
Another way to go around this is by providing a full-fledged descriptive description in your channel’s ‘About’ section. Make sure to provide links to your other social media accounts in this section. There are ‘n’ number of creators on YouTube today, so you can also take cues from competitors’ channels and generate thumbnails, video titles, video content (short/long/reels/live streams), and video description that fit the taste of your target audience base.
Since YouTube is now Google’s subsidiary, this social media site’s ranking algorithms work in uniformity with that of its parent corporation. This hints toward stressing upon relevance, quality, and enticing presentation of the content.
With ads, site links, and descriptive product images, YouTube has laid down a way to advertise for brands. Needless to say that you can amalgamate your projects with influencers or pioneers as well. So investment and revenue generation goes hand-in-hand after a reasonable time on YouTube.
Most searched content on YouTube revolves around tutorials, events, gaming, reviews (product/food and what not), and entertainment. Cutting it short, you can find an audience of every taste on this platform. You have to reckon which one is of relevance to your content.
3. Instagram
Over the past decade, Instagram has raked in around 2 billion users who actively spend the lion’s share of their time on this platform. It won’t be wrong to say that this platform is one of the most popular social media sites with a hub of influencers, small business corporations, big business conglomerates, bloggers, vloggers, and the general public.
People who’re really interested in a variety of content, be it learning, products/services, entertaining, or promoting. The Instagram audience wants one thing, and that comes around revolving magnificent and enticing creative copies and video content that can bound them around your brand name. Statistically speaking:
More than 60% of the Instagram community follows at least 1 brand on this site.
As per Instagram, more than half of the site’s audience gets enticed towards a product/service when they see an ad on it.
A plethora of business corporations have a professionally crafted Instagram business profile that sets them to serve their target audience effectively. This site’s normal features like story sharing, and highlights, solely do half of the work of promoting, let alone Instagram Ads manager, where you can spend on and manage your ads.
In the advent of such a tough competition, two things can be specifically paid attention to so as to not stand behind in the race:
- Creating alluring captions.
- Collaborating with powerful influencers.
With Instagram, the hefts of targeting the right audience base and displaying your services and/or products stand at bay. Where reels can feature a “how-to” tutorial video, using carousel ads can assist in setting up a single thing in distinct backdrops or uses.
Instagram’s audience is vastly diversified, which is why the creators on this platform are walking with it, whether they are occupied in food blogging, cosmetic products, informational, travel-related content, or even yoga classes.
4. Pinterest
With over 400 million active user profiles, Pinterest is an avant-garde platform to open new horizons of revenue for your business. Yet, its potential is quite underestimated among businesses which is the reason that even after being one of the top 100 social media sites, people have turned a blind eye towards this when it comes to online business growth. Pinterest has a lot in store for businesses. Well, scroll down a little to know more about it.
If you go advertising on Pinterest, the chances of a potential buyer coming across your pins (advertisement) escalates. How? This is so because 80% of users visit this platform to discover products or services they are interested in. When it comes to promoting your business online, this platform is a visual-based search engine second to none.
On top of it, if your business deals in products/services that revolve around the women-centric niche, then you certainly need to go for Pinterest advertising, the reason being the percentage of the female audience on this platform is above 70%.
Pinterest offers a wide variety of image or pins sharing options using which one can entice more traffic to a particular web page. The platform has deployed an advanced AI mechanism in place that can manage bids for your ad campaigns automatically and effectively.
5. Quora
Most plausibly, you must have crossed paths with Quora while searching for a knowledgeable topic. It is a community hub where users ask their questions (to be more precise, ‘query’) and answer and re-answer the questions of others as well. But it is not just confined to that. In fact, it is now being put to use as a transformational platform where you can give reviews and answer queries so as to engage the audience.
Rather than an advertising platform, Quora is an authority-building site. This is so because over 62% of the people trust answers cited or published on this social media site. That really is a big deal! This means the more your answer appears on the SERP as a quora search to someone, the chances of potential engagement for your business escalates.
Till date, over 4 lakh topics have been discussed on Quora. And, though it is profuse of opportunities to publicize and advertise your business, it must be noted that this site is primarily built for going public with solutions/answers and having an open end discussion. That’s why the focus while using this platform should be on responding back with concise, clear, and informative answers. After all, trust-building is the key factor that marks an authoritative image of your brand name in people’s eyes, and Quora is quite a pro-social media site to pull the strings in this case.
This doesn’t mean that you have to live off Quora marketing or advertisements entirely, but be certain to be specific for the user’s service by providing optimum answers to their problems or queries. So get a profile on this top social media site and guide people.
6. LinkedIn
Whether you’re a recruiter or a job searcher, you certainly have come across LinkedIn. Where this platform is a hub of information to more than 40 million job searchers, it is the source that accounts for piloting 40% of traffic to an organization’s website. That is exactly why LinkedIn is one of the top social media sites.
If you aren’t using this one of the top 100 social media sites, you’re certainly missing out on a key advertising platform. How? Scroll down a little to know about that…..
LinkedIn has the potential to fetch more advertising growth than Twitter or Facebook does. This is the best place to go along for social media marketing for a plethora of reasons:
Firstly, LinkedIn is the foremost platform that liberates the users to deal individually as well as open with its community network. This has been possible due to this site’s profile and page option. Profile options enable direct one-on-one interaction, which your potential audience can use to discuss specific details. On the other hand, having a LinkedIn Page is the optimum source to get in touch and openly engage with your audience on this, one of the most popular social media sites.
It proffers ample opportunities to build connections with your audience. Apart from the regular posts, here, you’re free to directly make your content or information land on the door of your target audience via the InMail feature. Business organizations reportedly garnered more than 80% additional revenues by bolstering their LinkedIn marketing campaign.
Professionals make optimum use of this platform by incorporating other’s website LinkedIn links in their posts so as to serve their audience with something time-worthy and vice-versa. This way, it becomes quite easy to expand your audience base and boost your business’s online presence, which in turn will shoot up your website traffic and potential lead conversion percentage.
Keeping your game a little upbeat by not overlooking key aspects can amp up your LinkedIn marketing game. It won’t be wrong to say that this site actually grasps all your needs in one place. How? Well, its features (both paid and free) let you mark your decision to pick the exact match for your required target cluster.
Moreover, you have to be considerate of what and how you’re serving your LinkedIn network over this social media site. You’ve to maintain diversification altogether with consistency but not overdo anything. If utilized this way, this new-age social media network can channelize your resources towards gigantic returns.
7. Twitter
Twitter is not just a voice-raising platform anymore. It’s one of the top social media sites that has been used by businesses to surpass digital horizons simply to get more attention for their brands.
Twitter is massively occupied by business professionals so as to stay updated with up-to-the-minute news and trends. With more than 300 million active users, this site is no less than a social media network.
You would be astounded to know that, as per buffer.com, Twitter is the new-age customer care helpline as a vast number of customer queries are made on this platform.
Where promoted Twitter ads assist you in fetching more audience outside your existing follower’s community, its chat feature lets you go the whole nine yards to engage with them profoundly. You can organize polls, incorporate hashtags and categorize your audience separately in lists.
Twitter is the 15th most popular social media site, which indicates it has the potential to bring in more people who’re interested in your line of business services or products. That’s the elite choice to accelerate engagement for a plethora of reasons. Read further to discover.
As per a report from Social Media Today, Twitter is a hub of journalists, with 94% of the journalists from the US alone. That means getting your business verified on this most popular social media site can mark authenticity in the eyes of your audience cluster. Also, per day over 4,20,000 new people join this social media handle.
8. WhatsApp
Well, there is no need to elucidate how WhatsApp is one among the top social media sites today. We all are a part of a group or have at least one acquaintance who has been displaying their services/products on WhatsApp Status. Or else, you must have come across a self-generated text from a business account over this most popular social media site. This just doesn’t conclude the features that make it stand in the list of top 100 social media sites.
WhatsApp is the fastest and optimum way to converse and analyze the needs of your clientele, as not everyone will be mailing you. Statistically, over 95% of people prefer chat options.
WhatsApp’s user base exceeds 2 billion people till date, which is why it is called the most popular social media site. Especially for small and medium business enterprises, this site is the optimum pick as they don’t have to go the whole nine yards spending huge funds as most of the features are free, and even paid ones are economical and avant-garde.
Besides videos and images, catalog sharing, QR scanning, and payment integration are also widely acknowledged business assisting systems merged with other features such as providing details and location of your business via your profile.
The number of active users on WhatsApp increases by 4% every year, which is sufficient to hint why this has to be a part of your social media optimization plan.
9. Telegram
Telegram is another most popular social media site with over 500 million users. Like WhatsApp, this site also fosters chat discussions and is profuse with media-sharing alternatives.
Its over-the-top features like chatbot and privacy-secured chats have made it rank among the top social media sites today. However, the privacy commitment makes the audience base a little tighter.
This platform was introduced at the time when the Meta-owned top social media site- Facebook, was encompassed with controversies over its amended privacy policy. And it raked in enormous attention from a plethora of users across the globe.
Among other things, Telegram groups have been enormously used by businesses to share about their products/services. The chatbot is a crazily adored feature that has been used to answer FAQs even without sitting on the other end.
10. Reddit
Reddit is among the most popular social media sites used to get traffic via engagements through discussion threads. It styles itself as the “front page of the internet” and presently holds the position of 9th most visited site. Though people have contrasting views about this site, it is extensively used to share links and establish a community base.
In layman’s terms, Reddit GIFs posts, image posts, or video posts are presented in front of Redditors, who then vote for the specific post. The number of votes garnered determines whether a post has an upvote or downvote. Subreddits can further help you divide your categories according to your brand niche and audience interest.
Reddit supports video ads, promoted ads, and display ads, but the community guidelines are needed to be well-taken care of since they are a bit tricky to understand. It is better to already be aware of the guidelines. Otherwise, you might stand in deep waters.
It’s the right place to be in the audience’s mind but without crossing the line of its guidelines.
11. Tumblr
Tumblr has grown tremendously ever since, and it stands in the list of top 100 social media sites today. The number of blog posts hosted on this platform is beyond 5 billion. The blog posts that are published on this social media site are not long structured content. This site ditches long structured content for precise short blogs, image texts, links, audio clips, or even one-liners on images as well.
Like one of the top social media sites- Facebook, Tumblr also garners likes and shares to posts, though in its own dialect, for instance, likes are regarded as ‘notes’ here, and if you come across the term ‘reblogged,’ it simply indicates your post has been shared in other posts or platforms.
When it comes to crafting a blog for Tumblr, putting on original and audience-oriented content is a marvelous pick. And you just need to be aware of some of the things like, rather than keywords, focus on the tags you’re adjoining your content to. Such small details can make you get past the crowd so as to have followers on this one of the most popular social media sites. People often share attractive and emotion-expressing content on Tumblr because this site tends to incline towards such content that is relevant to its audience.
Both organic and paid formats are available on this platform. CTAs and tags enlighten the pathway for the audience to land directly on the landing page you want them to land on. This platform’s audience base grows about 72% every single year, so you can be assured that it would escalate the number of engagements on your posts with time, provided that they suit its guidelines and framework.
Major Benefits Of Mind Mingles’ Social Media Optimization Services
Social Media Optimization improves SERP rankings and generates more traffic. But if you considerately put thought into this, your brand name’s needs aren’t confined to just these two things. Your business has to communicate with its audience and engage them so that they return to you for business dealing, of course, but also enjoy being associated with you.
That’s exactly what we at Mind Mingles stress upon while formulating SMO plans for your business. We are always up to serve you as per your distinctive requirements and pick the most suited top social media sites for your business that will not put your money to burn.
More than how many top social media sites you’re acquiring your base on, it is imperative to understand how effectively it performs. After all, not all top social media sites are surely worth giving a shot simply because they might not serve the relevance of your business and the audience on the platform optimally.
So if you’re perplexed thinking about which among the top social media sites to go for or should you certainly have to be on all the most popular social media sites, let us help you!
Gurleen Kaur is a Content Writer at Mind Mingles. She has presented her work in International Conference On Guru Nanak Dev Ji: Life, Philosophy and Legacy held at Mata Sundri College For Women and was awarded by the title of “Best Paper Presenter” under College Student Category for the same (Dated: 27th and 28th September, 2019) Has a strong grip over creating interesting, unique and informative content pieces for a wide range of niches. Firm believer that words have an impact.
