The world’s most popular social networking sites certainly have drastically changed over the years, and they’ll undoubtedly continue to change as time moves forward. Most of the old social networking will die, popular ones will stick around as they’re forced to evolve, and brand new ones will appear
We’ve moved on from the days of Orkut to a new social media era which is dominated by Facebook and Twitter and all sorts of other social mobile apps. A lot of young kids even admit to using Snapchat and Instagram the most, suggesting that it could be the future of where social networking is headed.
So, what’s everyone using right now? Have a look through the updated roundup of social networks below to see which ones are currently the trendiest.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/college-party-facebookevent-5b62ed6ac9e77c0050419744.jpg)
What We Love
- Massive community.
- Easy to find long-lost friends.
- Integrated messenger.
- Join interesting groups.
What We Don’t Love
- Highly addictive.
- Difficult to keep up with updates.
- Complicated to adjust privacy settings.
Most of us already know that Facebook is the top social network on the web. It’s has about 2 billion monthly active users and more than one billion that log on daily.
Statista website explore that FB Messenger, with tons of cool features, is the second most popular messaging app behind WhatsApp. People use Facebook individually and by joining or setting up groupies.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 so that it could be the one that was on top of instant messaging after failing to occupy Snapchat in 2013 .
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/GettyImages-556213885-570ff1e85f9b588cc263d51a.jpg)
What We Love
- Very large community.
- Easy to use.
- Get updates from major brands.
- Integrates with third party services.
What We Don’t Love
- Can feel disorganized.
- Not easy to find specific people or community.
- Difficult to develop followers.
Twitter is known as the real-time, public microblogging network where news breaks first. Most users love it for its short message limit upto 280 characters and unfiltered feed that showed them absolutely everything in the form of short tweets.
Twitter has changed dramatically over the years, and today it’s criticized a lot for going the way of looking and functioning almost exactly like Facebook. Besides Twitter Card integration, which now makes it easy to share all sorts of multimedia content in tweets, you can expect to see algorithmic timelines coming to Twitter as well.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/LinkedIn-58f271575f9b582c4d59faa9.jpg)
What We Love
- Easy to make new connections.
- Simple to find people you know.
- Well-organized website.
What We Don’t Love
- Too much information at times.
- Frequent messages from marketers.
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. Anyone who needs to make connections to advance their careers should be on LinkedIn. Profiles are designed to look sort of like extremely detailed resumes, with sections for work experience, education, volunteer work, certifications, awards and all sorts of other relevant work-related information.
Users can promote themselves and their businesses by making connections with other professionals, interacting in group discussions, posting job ads, applying to jobs, publishing articles to LinkedIn pulse and so much more.
YouTube
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/youtubevideoswontplay-5bf07a0246e0fb005186171f.jpg)
What We Love
- Many hours of entertainment.
- Interact with communities of followers.
- Active comment areas.
- Find others with common interests.
What We Don’t Love
- Less personal than other social sites.
- Overwhelming volume of information.
Where does everyone go to watch or share video content online? It’s obviously YouTube. After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine. Despite being owned by Google, YouTube can still be recognized as a separate social network all on its own as the premiere place online to go to watch videos on every topic under the sun and upload your own as well.
From music videos and movies, to personal vlogs and independent films, YouTube has it all. YouTube also launched a premium subscription option, called YouTube Red, which removes all advertisements from videos. It also now offers YouTubeTV, a separate live streaming subscription service.
If you have kids watching YouTube videos, you should probably use parental controls.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/how-to-use-instagram-collections-featured-1c924feff828402c9bdf39ce8e07bf65.jpg)
What We Love
- More interesting than most social networks.
- Useful filtering feature.
- See into the lives of others.
What We Don’t Love
- Strictly enforces policies.
- Ads can be a nuisance.
- Many photos are overly edited.
Instagram has grown to be one of the most popular social networks for photo sharing that the mobile web has ever seen. It’s the ultimate social network for sharing real-time photos and short videos while on the go.
Now it’s even a leading advertising platform for brands as well as Instagram Influencers, who massively generate incomes through the network.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/GettyImages-174410721-pinterest-recipes-58b04cd95f9b58604688b51b.jpg)
What We Love
- Very entertaining to use.
- Discover new ideas.
- Loaded with inspiring messages.
- Intuitive interface.
What We Don’t Love
- Loaded with affiliate posts.
- Limited range of topics.
- Can get cluttered.
Pinterest has become a major player both in social networking and in the search world, proving just how important visual content has become on the web. As the fastest standalone site ever to reach 10 million monthly unique visits, Pinterest’s beautiful and intuitive pinboard-style platform is one of the most enticing and useful resources for collecting the best images that can be categorized into separate boards.
Pinterest is also growing to become a huge influencer in social shopping, now featuring “Buy” buttons right on pins of products sold by some retailers.
Tumblr
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/GettyImages-588358800-57376ee8e0164643a230a6ff1d0ffe1a.jpg)
What We Love
- Large variety of content.
- Focused on writing and reading microblogs.
- Easy to set up and customize.
- Large user base.
What We Don’t Love
- Generates heated debates.
- Loaded with misinformation.
Tumblr is an extremely popular social blogging platform that’s heavily used by teens and young adults. Like Pinterest, it’s best known for sharing visual content. Users can customize their blog theme, create blog posts in all sorts of different types of content formats, follow other users to see content in their dashboard feed and be followed back.
Re-blogging and liking posts is a popular way to interact. If you post great content, you could end up with thousands of re-blogs and likes depending on how far it gets pushed out into the Tumblr community.
Snapchat
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/GettyImages-858499212-5a465af44e4f7d003a35ba49.jpg)
What We Love
- Very easy to use.
- Millions of users.
- Editing and filtering features.
- More personal and intimate than other platforms.
What We Don’t Love
- Small demographic of users.
- Content disappears every day.
- Lots of useless content.
- Difficult to find people you know.
Snapchat is a social networking app that thrives on instant messaging and is totally mobile-based. It’s one of the fastest-growing apps out there, building its popularity on the idea of self-destructing “snaps.” You can send a photo or short video as a message (a snap) to a friend, which automatically disappears a few seconds after they’ve viewed it.
Kids love this app because it takes the pressure off of having to share something with everyone like they would on traditional social networks. Snapchat is easy to learn. Snapchat also has a unique feature called Stories, which allows users to share snaps publicly when they want. Facebook and Instagram have recently added Stories as well.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/reddit-57f566845f9b586c35955087.jpg)
What We Love
- Massive user base.
- Wide range of perspectives.
- Subreddits organize content well.
What We Don’t Love
- Occasional inappropriate content.
- Confusing to find subreddits.
- Unmoderated content.
Reddit has never really had the nicest design but don’t let that fool you — it’s a happening place on the web. It has a very strong and smart community of people who come together to talk about the topics they love while sharing links, photos, and videos relevant to the subreddit topic thread where they’re participating.
Reddit AMAs are another cool feature, which allows users to ask questions to celebs and other public figures who agree to host one. Reddit works by displaying submitted links that get voted up or down by users. The ones that receive the most upvotes will get pushed to the first page of their subreddits.
Medium
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/Blogging-outdoors-5862f9d43df78ce2c395e8e1.jpg)
What We Love
- Large visibility for your writing.
- Potential payments for popular content.
- Can draw in new fans to your work.
What We Don’t Love
- Payments are usually very low.
- You give up all rights to your writing.
- Limited reader analytics.
Medium is perhaps the best social network for readers and writers. It’s sort of like a blogging platform similar to Tumblr but features a very minimal look to keep the emphasis on content that’s shared there. Users can publish their own stories and format them just the way they want with photos, videos, and GIFs to support their storytelling. All content is driven by the community of users who recommend stories they like, which show up in the feeds of users who follow them. Users can also follow individual tags as a way to subscribe to content focused on topics of interest.
Tinder
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/GettyImages-1163499163-6033a9de31e2464e90124fce54c9185c.jpg)
What We Love
- Very large dating pool.
- Provides fun ways to interact with new people.
- Swiping breaks the ice quickly.
What We Don’t Love
- Plenty of trolls and eccentrics.
- Can make the dating process impersonal.
Tinder is a popular location-based dating app that matches you up with people in your area. Users can set up a brief profile that mainly highlights their photo, and then anyone who’s matched up to them can anonymously swipe right to like their profile or left to pass on it as a match. If some who liked a profile likes theirs back, then it’s a match, and the two users can start chatting privately with each other through the app. Tinder is completely free, but there are premium features that allow users to connect with people in other locations, undo certain swipes and get more “Super Likes” to let another user know they’re extra special.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/facebook-to-buy-whatsapp-for--19-billion-470670701-5bee439846e0fb0051d2ded7.jpg)
What We Love
- Supports audio and video calls.
- Send your location.
- Messages are encrypted.
- Ad free.
What We Don’t Love
- Complicated to find past messages.
- Voice calls aren’t available in all countries.
- File transfers are limited to 100 MB.
- Need a person’s phone number to contact them.
Currently, the most popular instant messaging provider worldwide, WhatsApp is a cross-platform app that uses your internet connection or data plan to send and receive messages. Users can send messages to individuals or groups using text, photos, videos, and even voice messages. Unlike Kik and other popular messaging apps, WhatsApp uses your phone number rather than usernames or pins (despite being an alternative to SMS). Users can allow WhatsApp to connect to their phone’s address book so that their contacts can be seamlessly transferred to the app. The app also offers a few customizable features like profiles, wallpapers and notification sounds.
WhatsApp us