Global Ranking of Social Media Platforms by Active Users
Global Ranking of Social Media Platforms by Active Users - Social media platforms have emerged as an indispensable means of communication between individuals and have evolved into a significant channel for brand engagement with existing and potential customers. To date, a variety of social media services have been developed, and new services are ever-increasing. Although the definition of "social media" is highly debated, social media can simply be defined as internet-enabled applications that promote the creation and sharing of information and ideas.
Users interact with social media through websites, web applications, or mobile applications, with individual platforms combining one or more user activities such as content creation, blogging, microblogging, social networking, and social curation. Because such platforms host a vast amount of user-generated content, social media platforms have drawn the attention of marketers for their use in consumer engagement. However, user engagement with social media platforms varies in terms of user motivations, usage patterns, and the creation of user-generated content. Such variation affects how marketers can develop social media marketing strategies around social media platforms. Empirically, users are reported to prefer different platforms for social media marketing engagement activities. Hence, global rankings and comparisons among social media platforms are essential to social media.
Various rankings on web traffic volume have been produced, which have released the names of those social media services with the highest users, according to the defined measure. Rankings vary greatly according to the measures used and time period examined. Moreover, the rankings of social media platforms often change over time, prompting the need for additional comparative studies. However, empirical research comparing social media platforms according to active user volume is limited. In particular, little comparison among social media platforms has been made in regard to mobile user volume, despite the recent trend toward mobile.
Methodology Global Ranking of Social Media Platforms by Active Users
We first present the global ranking, according to the number of active users, of social media apps or platforms, which allows for an immediate identification of such platforms. In the next subsections, we describe the sources of information, the selection of social media apps and platforms, their definition and a discussion of active users. Our global ranking includes the main social media apps downloaded from the Google Play store and available in their Apple version, which can also be downloaded worldwide. The rest of the apps are user-oriented websites, not downloadable on Android and iOS in contrast to the rules and recommendations of these two platforms.
For mobile apps, we use data on the number of active users and sessions published by a leader in App Store optimization. These data, allowing the identification of the volume of user engagement, are reported for the first quarter of 2023. The mobile app monitoring platforms comprise more than 5 million apps and mobile games connected to both Google Play and the App Store. We complement this information with the available monthly data provided by an important app analytics provider, to better identify the monthly active users of mobile apps. For websites, we rely on a service that provides quantitative statistics on the volume of web traffic over a given period of time. It shows the estimated number of visits, visit duration and pageviews as well as world and country rankings. Moreover, we manually check these user totals in the case of some major websites of social media.
Overview of Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are defined as the programs that enable the development of virtual communities and networks. These platforms allow users to share content, interact with others, and build relationships with different groups and communities. As technology evolves, business people and marketers join social networking programs to learn about and explore their client’s behavior. In doing so, they hope to strengthen their bond and amplify the profitability of their business. Today, many types of social media platforms are available to users while new ones are still evolving.
Social networks are social media venues designed specifically for linking people’s interests and business ideas. There are four classification categories for social networks: (1) the audience of the network, (2) the purpose of the network, (3) the type of content featured, and (4) the type of structure. The audience of a social network primarily relates to type of users and when they join the network. Some social networks aim at a specific target group while others have an open policy. The purpose of the network relates to objectives such as religion, business, and social. The type of content relates to what can be uploaded by users: photos, video, and text. Finally, the type of structure relates to whether the social network is organized by professional skills, the recommendations of other users, or where a user lives. Based on this classification, it is estimated that there are over 800 distinct social networking platforms available around the world. However, there are many other service types, such as blogs or microblogs, video sharing, and social bookmarking, where social networking is a component of each service’s overall functionality.