Social media networks are a major resource for both small and big businesses that are looking to promote their brands on the Internet. The platforms are easy to use and some of them even have paid advertising options for businesses that want to reach new audiences. However, just because your business needs to be on these platforms doesn’t mean that it has to be on every other social media site. To properly utilize the power of social media you need to know the most popular social media sites and identify the ones that work best for your business to avoid spreading yourself too thin.
To make this easy for you, we profiled most popular social media websites so you can now make informed marketing decisions.
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California.
YouTube allows users to upload, view, rate, share, add to favorites, report, comment on videos, and subscribe to other users. It offers a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media videos. Avai
lable content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, shortand documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. Most of the content on YouTube is uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, and Hulu offer some of their material via YouTube as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can only watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed potentially inappropriate are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old.
YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Red, a subscription service offering ad-free access to the website and access to exclusive content made in partnership with existing users. As of February 2017, there are more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, and one billion hours of content are watched on YouTube every day. As of August 2017, the website is ranked as the second-most popular site in the world by Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company.
DAILYMOTION VIDEOS
Dailymotion is a Video Sharing destination and technology platform on which more than 300 million unique monthly users can explore premium video content from top publishers. One of the biggest video platforms in the world, the Vivendi-owned company recently revamped its platform to prioritize premium videos from trusted publishers above user-generated content. North American launch partners include BBC News, VICE, Bloomberg Media, Cheddar, Hearst Digital Media, and more. Dailymotion is available all around the world, in 18 different languages and 35 localized versions featuring local home pages and local content.
In March 2006, Benjamin Bejbaum and Olivier Poitrey founded the Dailymotion website from the living room of Poitrey's apartment in Paris. Six individuals pooled together €6,000 ($9,271 USD) to start the business. In September 2006, Dailymotion raised funds in collaboration with Atlas Ventures and Partech International. They raised 7 million euros which was considered to be the most funds raised in 2006 from the French Web 2.0. In October 2009, the French government invested in Dailymotion through the Strategic Investment Fund. On January 25, 2011, Orange acquired a 49% stake in Dailymotion for €62 million, valuing the company at €120 million.
On 10 January 2013 Orange bought the remaining 51% for €61 million. On or about 2 May 2013, the French government blocked Yahoo's acquisition of a majority stake in Dailymotion.
On 25 February 2014, Orange revealed it was in discussions with Microsoft about a deal that could see Dailymotion extend into the U.S. market. In an interview with a local television station in Barcelona Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange, said there was "great hope" an agreement would be reached. Any deal would see Orange retain majority ownership of Dailymotion. Richard said his company was in talks with other potential partners as well with a view to expanding Dailymotion's international appeal, but said discussions with others were more in relation to content.
In 2015, Vivendi purchased 80% stake in Dailymotion from Orange S. A. In September 2015 Vivendi increased its ownership to 90%.
FACEBOOK
Facebook is the biggest social media network on the Internet, both in terms of total number of users and name recognition. Founded on February 4, 2004, Facebook has within 12 years managed to accumulate more than 1.59 billion monthly active users and this automatically makes it one of the best mediums for connecting people from all over the world with your business. It is estimated that more than 1 million small and medium-sized businesses use the platform to advertise their business.
TWITTER
Twitter-You might be thinking that limiting your posts to 140 characters is no way to advertise your business, but you will be shocked to know that this social media platform has more than 320 million active monthly users who make use of the 140 character limit to pass on information. Businesses can use Twitter to interact with prospective clients, answer questions, release latest news and at the same time use the targeted ads with specific audiences. Twitter was founded on March 21, 2006, and has its headquarters in San Francisco, California.
GOOGLE+
Google+ While it’s no Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, Google+ has its place among the popular social media sites. Its SEO value alone makes it a must-use tool for any small business. Launched on December 15, 2011, Google+ has joined the big leagues registering 418 active million users as of December 2015.
BLOGGER
A blog (a truncation of the expression "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries ("posts"). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Until 2009, blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "micro blogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
V CONNECT
VK (VKontakte; Russian: ВКонта́кте, meaning InContact) is a Russian-based online social media and social networking service. It is available in several languages but it is especially popular among Russian-speaking users. VK allows users to message each other publicly or privately, to create groups, public pages and events, share and tag images, audio and video, and to play browser-based games. It is based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
As of January 2017, VK had at least 410 million accounts. VK is ranked 15 (as of September 2017) in Alexa’s global Top 500 sites. It is the most popular website in Russia. According to Similar Web, VK is the 6th most popular website in the world. As of October 2016, VK also ranked as the most popular social networking website in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in addition to Russia.
PINTEREST
Pinterest Launched in March 2010, Pinterest is a relatively newcomer in the social media arena. This platform consists of digital bulletin boards where businesses can pin their content. Pinterest announced September 2015 that it had acquired 100 million users. Small businesses whose target audience is mostly made up of women should definitely invest in Pinterest as more than half of its visitors are women.
INSTAGRAM
Like Pinterest, Instagram is a visual social media platform. The site, launched on October 6, 2010, has more than 400 million active users and is owned by Facebook. Many of its users use it to post information about travel, fashion, food, art and similar subjects. The platform is also distinguished by its unique filters together with video and photo editing features. Almost 95 percent of Instagram users also use Facebook.
TUMBLR
Tumblr is one of the most difficult to use social networking platforms, but it’s also one of the most interesting sites. The platform allows several different post formats, including quote posts, chat posts, video and photo posts as well as audio posts, so you are never limited in the type of content that you can share. Like Twitter, re-blogging, which is more like re-tweeting, is quick and easy. The social networking website was founded by David Karp in February 2007 and currently hosts more than 200 million blogs.
FLICKR
Flickr, pronounced “Flicker,” is an online image and video hosting platform that was created by the then Vancouver-based Ludicorp on February 10, 2004, and later acquired by Yahoo in 2005. The platform is popular with users who share and embed photographs. As of October last year, Flickr had more than 112 million users and had its footprint in more than 63 countries. An average of a million photos are shared daily on Flickr.
LINKEDIN
LinkedIn Founded on December 14, 2002, and launched 0n May 5, 2003, Linkedin is hands-down the most popular social media site for professional networking. The website is available in 24 languages and has over 400 million registered users. LinkedIn is great for people looking to connect with people in similar industries, networking with local professionals and displaying business related information and statistics.
