Types of Social Media: 7 Popular Platforms Worldwide
Explore the types of social media used worldwide, from Qzone and LinkedIn to Instagram, Twitter, VK and Facebook, with active user numbers for each.
Social media is an online medium that lets users keep an online profile, or personal information online, so they can communicate with other people. The history of social media has witnessed the advance of technology and business worldwide, because social media has changed how modern people think and live. There are many kinds of social media. In Indonesia, they include Facebook, Twitter, Path, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google Plus. Of these, Facebook is the best-known social media in the world, with roughly 2 billion active users. Besides Facebook, here are the types of social media that are famous worldwide.
- Qzone
This type of social media is known only in China, yet it has the second-largest user base after Facebook, and most of its users are Chinese citizens. Qzone has 629 million active users.
- Google+
This social network from Google Inc. is one of the fastest-growing types of social media. In just 3 years, Google+ attracted 343 million active users.
This business-oriented social network is dedicated to professionals. Since its founding in 2003, it has reached 332 million active users.
This platform lets users hone their photography hobby and is one of the best-known social networks in the world. Founded in 2010 and now with 300 million active users, Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012 for US$1 billion.
Built around short messages of 140 characters, known as tweets, Twitter is another of the major types of social media. It has 284 million active users and has existed since 2006, when it was founded in the United States.
- Vkontakte
Many types of social media come from the United States. Vkontakte, or VK, however, comes from Russia and has 100 million active users. Most VK users live in Russian-speaking countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Still, this one of the types of social media is also available in 70 languages, including Indonesian.
7. Facebook
Last is the social network that people in almost every corner of the world use, because its features are easy to understand even for beginners. Founded on February 4, 2004, Facebook now has nearly 2 billion users around the world. Its features are updated constantly so users never get bored, and in Indonesia people use Facebook almost every day, from morning to noon, afternoon and night.
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