Are you wondering what are the most popular social media networks of the moment in the world? Here is a complete list updated in 2022.
Facebook, although it is the number 1 most popular social media network in the world in the number of active users, is far from being the only one to share the market share of social media in 2022. Not to mention all the new small social networks which are born every day, what are the most popular social networks in the world? Here is a list of the 30 most important and most used.
If all the social networks in this list are not familiar to you, that’s completely normal. Indeed, many are known only in their countries of origin or only in their region of the world. However, we have decided to list here some of the most used and popular social networks around the world.
Whether they allow the sharing of videos, photos, articles, music, stories, or even information, all social networks have one thing in common: their objective is to connect people with each other and to help to interact together.
Whether dedicated to professionals or individuals, each social network was created for a specific purpose. For example, there are social networks that allow their users to ask each other free questions, share videos, short messages, audio files, etc.
Table of Contents
The 30 most popular social media networks around the world.
1 – Facebook (Meta), the social network with more than 2.2 billion active users | Most Popular Social Media Network
With more than 2.2 billion monthly active users worldwide, Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social media network that the web is currently known for.
For individuals, it allows you to share photos, videos, messages between friends, but also to follow the news of your friends. Businesses can rely on Facebook to communicate with their customers (sharing of photos, videos, Live, etc.), to make targeted advertisements, to sell their products, or to serve as a customer service platform.
At the end of October 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta, in reference to the new Met-averse social network that Mark Zuckerberg’s company is developing.
2 – YouTube, the social media dedicated to sharing and watching videos | Second Most Popular Social Media Network
YouTube, owned by Google, is the number 1 social network for sharing and watching videos.
Whether it’s music videos, humorous videos, corporate videos, or even tutorials, live videos, YouTube has been able to federate a community of more than a billion people since its launch in 2005.
For the past few months, the platform has been offered in two versions, a free version accessible to the general public, and a paid version, for which advertisements are removed.
3 – Twitter, the microblogging platform where hashtags are king | Third Most Popular Social Media Network
Specialising in sharing Tweets, short messages of up to 280 characters that can be illustrated with photos, gifs, videos, and links, Twitter boasts more than 326 million monthly active users worldwide.
The social network is now mainly used for sharing news, following what is happening in real-time on a subject, or sharing short statuses with its community.
Inventor of #hashtags, Twitter remains to this day a widely used social network all over the world, although the number of users has been struggling for a few years.
4 – Linkedin, the most professional of global social networks | Fourth Most Popular Social Media Network
With more than 546 million accounts, Linkedin is the leading social network dedicated to professional relations. Allowing you to create an online CV and connect with other professionals, the social network is also known worldwide to be very useful when looking for jobs or employees.
It is now widely used to share professional news, feedback, or even discuss topics generally related to the professional environment.
Launched in 2002, Linkedin allows the enhancement of its experiences and skills.
It is also possible to follow influential entrepreneurs and share your own articles.
5 – Instagram, the social network that is soaring | Fifth Most Popular Social Media Network
Instagram is a mobile application for sharing photos, image carousels, and videos.
The social network launched in 2010 has made a name for itself thanks in particular to its filters and photo editing options that allow anyone to make their photos more attractive before sharing them.
Even more popular since its takeover by Facebook, Instagram has taken inspiration from a competing social network (Snapchat) to develop a feature now widely used by some of its 1 billion users: stories.
6 – Pinterest, the source of inspiration | Sixth Most Popular Social Media Network
This social network is also dedicated to sharing photos and videos, but this time, on a thematic board: the boards.
You can pin your favorite photos on a board corresponding to a theme of your choice: cooking, fashion, home…
Although this network is mainly used by women, more and more men consult it to find ideas and sources of inspiration for decoration, the garden, and DIY.
Founded in 2010, Pinterest now has a global community of over 250 million users. On the advertiser side, you can sponsor pins and also drive qualified traffic to your website through organic posts.
7 – TikTok, short music videos | Seventh Most Popular Social Media Network
Launched in 2016, TikTok is a mobile application allowing its users to take short videos and attach music, film/sketch recordings, or sounds to them.
The application allows, like Snapchat and Instagram Stories, to add filters and effects to videos.
The application made the buzz in 2018 and is also widely used in Asia.
In 2020, the application already claims more than 800 million monthly active users. It is really one of the social networks that are currently experiencing the most growth and therefore to be watched closely if you are an advertiser.
8 – Clubhouse, the social network for discussions, conferences, and audio chats | Eighth Most Popular Social Media Network
The clubhouse is a “more human on the internet” social network, where people come together for good audio-only conversations.
The app is home to hundreds of thousands of discussions on every topic, business, online marketing, real estate, scuba diving, fashion, hiking, meditation, and more. and much more. Everything happens in real-time from all over the world.
9 – Snapchat, the ephemeral at all costs | Ninth Most Popular Social Media Network
Snapchat is a free mobile app for sharing photos, short videos with filters, and even chatting without leaving a trace.
10 – Sound-cloud, music first | Tenth Most Popular Social Media Network
Sound-cloud is a social network dedicated to podcasts and music. Launched in 2007, this online platform allows anyone to listen to free music from more or less well-known artists.
For artists who want to make a name for themselves and test feedback with an audience, Sound-cloud allows them to share their music for free.
11 – Periscope, live or nothing | Eleventh Most Popular Social Media Network
Periscope is a mobile application acquired by Twitter and allows to broadcast of live videos on any subject. Accessible to anyone with the application, Periscope is widely used for sharing live images during events or demonstrations.
12 – Flickr, the social network for photo enthusiasts | Twelfth Most Popular Social Media Network
With its tens of billions of shared photos, Flickr is none other than the largest social network dedicated to sharing photographs.Very popular with amateur and professional photographers to find inspiration, Flickr is also often used as a royalty-free image bank.
Anyone can create an account there to share/store photos and videos while having access to the stock of images on the site.
13 – Vimeo, the most confidential video sharing network | Thirteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
Competitor of YouTube, Vimeo is a platform launched in 2004 allowing private or public videos to be shared with users of the platform. Anyone can also use this social network to store their videos privately and share them with a limited number of people.
14 – Dailymotion, the direct competitor of YouTube | Fourteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
YouTube’s leading competitor in the world, Dailymotion is a platform for broadcasting and watching an impressive number of videos shared by influencers, brands, and anonymous people.
Just like on YouTube, it is possible to download any video posted on Dailymotion.
15 – Reddit, the upvote social network | Fifteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
Reddit is a website for sharing links, statuses, memes, photos, and videos that make the buzz and the news.
Very popular in the United States, Reddit allows its users to “upvote” for the elements that make them react the most.
Its users can put their links there and vote for the links of others.
16 – Twitch, the social network dedicated to gaming | Sixteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
When it comes to gaming, Twitch is a social network. Dedicated to sharing gaming videos of all kinds, Twitch also allows you to broadcast live parts of almost any game played online on a computer or via game consoles.
Players and their followers can interact with each other via a chat system integrated into each video.
Although this social network originally specialized in gaming, many companies and media have invested in it to broadcast live and react to live broadcasts.
17 – Discord | Seventeenth Most Popular Social Media Network
Created in 2015, Discord was originally a platform designed primarily for video games. It allows players to chat with each other in voice and in writing. Over the years, Discord has evolved and now it’s a social network like any other. Discord works by “servers”, anyone can create a server, invite friends to join it with an invitation link. In the server, you can find chat rooms, if for example the server you have joined is dedicated to video games, you will therefore be able to discuss a lot of subjects related to the theme of the server.
With the confinement, Discord experienced an explosion in terms of popularity, especially in France where teachers gave their lessons on the platform. Today Discord has more than 250 million unique users.
18 – WhatsApp, the social network dedicated to conversations | Eighteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
Acquired by Facebook, WhatsApp is a free mobile application allowing you to make calls and send messages for free when you have an internet connection, from and to any country in the world.
Very popular, the application is also very secure and allows you to interact with your contacts by sharing Status.
19 – Line, the Asian competitor of WhatsApp | Nineteenth Most Popular Social Media Network
The line is a free mobile application for exchanging messages, videos, and voice and video calls for free.
A direct competitor to WhatsApp because it offers essentially the same functionalities, Line stands out with its many galleries of emoticons and animated emojis that are all the rage in Asia.
20 – Tencent QQ, the Chinese Skype | Twentieth Most Popular Social Media Network
Tencent QQ is now used in China by students under the age of 21 to create discussion groups and exchange with each other. Today, QQ brings together more than 900 million users on its messaging platform every month.
An advanced messaging system first launched in 1999, Tencent QQ stands out from its competitors with clean and very powerful features like a one-click translation of received messages.
21 – WeChat, the Chinese competitor of WhatsApp | Twenty-first Most Popular Social Media Network
Going beyond the framework of a simple instant chat mobile application, WeChat now allows you to order a taxi, shop online, reserve a table in a restaurant, etc. All while making payment via the application.
It is now a very practical application and one of the most used by the Chinese with nearly a billion active users per month.
22 – Qzone, one of the biggest Chinese social networks | Twenty-second Most Popular Social Media Network
Founded in 2005, Qzone is the largest social networking platform in China. It allows users to upload photos, post videos, and live stream, write blog posts, keep diaries, play games, and decorate their own space.
Among the main features, Qzone Album records record daily downloads of 650 million photos and a total of 2 trillion photos downloaded since its launch.
In the first quarter of 2017, Qzone had 632 million monthly active user accounts.
23 – Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter | Twenty-third Most Popular Social Media Network
Weibo is none other than Chinese Twitter. It allows Chinese Internet users to communicate and open a public or private discussion with a more restricted contact circle.
To date, this Chinese social network has more than 500 million subscribers.
24 – Little Red Book (XiaHongShu), the highly e-commerce-oriented Chinese social network | Twenty-fourth Most Popular Social Media Network
Little Red Book (XiaHongShu) is a Chinese social network with a strong e-commerce dimension allowing its users to publish opinions on products and discover new ones.
The users, since they are mostly active women between 18 and 35 years old, can discover new trends and share ideas and tips with each other.
It also functions as an e-commerce search engine and is remarkably successful in China with already more than 60 million users.
25 – Vkontakte, the Russian Facebook | Twenty-fifth Most Popular Social Media Network
Vkontakte is the most used social network in Russia with no less than 276 million users. It has many features similar to Facebook but also has additional music and multimedia platform. It is used daily by millions of Russian Internet users.
26 – Odnoklassniki, the Russian social network to find old comrades | Twenty-sixth Most Popular Social Media Network
Founded in 2006, Odnoklassniki is a Russian social network created to help Internet users in the country find their old classmates and exchange with each other.
It is now used by more than 150 million Russians to find their former comrades from school or military service.
27 – Byte, the replacement for Vine | Twenty-seventh Most Popular Social Media Network
If you have known Vine, you will surely like Byte which is none other than the replacement for this famous application that allowed you to record short videos that play in a loop.
28 – Xing, the leading professional social network in Germany | Twenty-eighth Most Popular Social Media Network
If Xing could make you think of a Chinese social network, it is actually a German professional social network created in 2003. Pronounced “crossing”, this social network competes with Linkedin and has members in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein.
29- Mastodon, the social network without ads and similar to Twitter | Twenty-ninth Most Popular Social Media Network
The Mastodon social network wants to be 100% free and independent. With over 4.4 million users worldwide to date, Mastodon allows anyone to share links, images, text, and videos, all on an ad-free community platform.
You have 500 characters to express yourself on each post. You can adjust the vignettes of your photos with focal points. You can use custom emojis, hide items behind spoiler warnings, and choose who sees a given message. You can delete and rephrase for quick fixes.
30- Odysee, the free social network similar to YouTube | Thirtieth Most Popular Social Media Network
Odysee is a free video-sharing platform, similar to YouTube and created in 2020 by Jeremy Kauffman, an American libertarian.
We find there many classic contents as we can find on YouTube, the social network has specific categories for conspiracy theories, paranormal phenomena, and so on.
The video-sharing community platform is based on the decentralized peer-to-peer protocol LBRY.
This list is not complete, a number of other social networks could complete it such as:
1) Quora
2) Yelp
3) Google My Business
Frequently Asked Questions
1) What do social networks (social media) mean? What is a social network?
Answer – A social network, or social media, is quite simply a website (or a mobile application) that consists of and allows users to exchange with each other, share content, discover photos, videos, sounds, or information about topics.
On social networks, you can often share photos, videos, comment on various publications, like content, etc.
2) Social networks belong to the social media family.
Answer – If you want to have a good presence on social networks and stand out, you have to learn how to generate engagement organically, without having to carry out advertising campaigns on different social networks.
Is personal data secure on social networks?
For the most part, no.
Very few social platforms are currently end-to-end encrypted so the personal data shared by users there is mostly not secure.
Moreover, the simple fact of using a social network in a public manner is sufficient to make personal data publicly accessible and therefore in an insecure manner.
The best way to secure your personal data on a social network is therefore above all not to share it.
3) What are the different types of social networks?
Answer – Social networks can be categorized into 3 main types: professional social networks like Linkedin or Xing, entertainment social networks like TikTok and Snapchat, and social exchange networks like Discord or Twitch.
Conclusion
The listicle that you have just read was a list of 30 most popular social media networks in the world. If you want to be a master of social media marketing on the top performing social media platforms in the country, you can choose to enroll in our online digital marketing course.