They are everywhere, we cannot do without them … and there are many! We are obviously talking about social networks, tools for connection and global sharing that have now become part of our daily life.
Social networks are platforms aimed at people who have already conquered some 3.8 billion people, with an increase of 9.2% from 2019 to 2020.
Social media have revolutionized the way people communicate, they have made sharing information easy and intuitive, and they have developed particular functions to stand out among the numerous competitors.
That’s right, there are many social networks, more than you might know, and new ones pop up like mushrooms every year. The need for online aggregation has practically become a primary need, and each platform seeks to expand its subscriber base by placing itself as “the new one that advances” or by offering more innovative features than those who preceded it.
Facebook is the social network par excellence and one of the most used in the world (it has at least 2.5 billion monthly active users!).
It is aimed at a general public and uses intuitiveness in sharing textual posts, images and videos as its strong point.
The platform is used both by individuals and by companies with specific professional profiles, both to communicate with others and to promote themselves.
Users can gather in thematic groups around certain topics to share opinions and contents around their passions.
The platform offers numerous options to try to capture the attention of the public as much as possible. In fact, we can create graphically evident posts from our profile, quizzes to make our followers interact, videos, images, as well as the possibility of sponsoring paid posts to make them more evident.
LinkedIn is a “social network of work” and members use it to demonstrate skills and work quality. It has at least 303 million active users.
The platform acts as a virtual place to communicate the supply and demand for work. Professionals can report their work experiences and get in touch with other subjects, based on more or less wide circles of connections.
The Linkedin profile is a sort of digital resume made up of work experience, examples of jobs, skills and references.
Also in this case we can follow company profiles and subscribe to thematic groups. There are paid membership plans for services such as Premium Sales Navigator and Premium Career.
TikTok
TikTok was born as a platform for sharing short-term music videos.
It proves to be one of the most popular social networks of the moment: it ranks seventh among the mobile apps with the largest monthly active users, and already has 500 million users.
Just download the appropriate application available for ios and Android and create an account with your email. TikTok allows you to upload 15-second music videos, change their speed and add filters. Unfortunately, the lack of a clear definition of the privacy policy makes it a platform that is discussed and not appreciated by everyone.
Instagram is a visual social network that allows you to share images and videos and edit photos using special filters. It is a very widespread platform, which already has a billion users.
Originally born as a stand-alone application, it later became part of the suite of applications related to Facebook
We can add to the images a caption containing up to 2,000 characters and up to 30 hashtags (a term that collects content related to the same topic).
In recent years, Stories are also available, contents that disappear after 24 hours and that can be highlighted and divided into categories.
Posts on Instagram can also be sponsored to increase their visibility.
Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows you to share (tweet) messages up to 280 characters long, including images, videos, or links. Users can also share what others have posted (retweet).
Compared to other platforms, it aims more to offer lightning updates about one’s thoughts and activities. It is used for example by public figures, influencers and politicians to update their audience, as well as by companies to share flash offers and news of the moment. It has at least 326 million active users.
Pinterest is a platform for sharing images, photos and videos, which can be organized like a real virtual whiteboard. In fact, we can pin the images that interest us with symbolic pins, even those coming from other boards.
Compared to other visual platforms such as Instagram, it focuses more on wanting to convey inspiration and is used by creatives and fans of a given topic to find new ideas.
From a promotional point of view, the pins have the advantage of being linked to the websites from which the content comes, so by clicking on them users are redirected to the original source. Business accounts offer Analytics features and sponsored content and has at least 250 million active users.
Youtube
Youtube is a real social network, sharing platform and video search engine, second only to Google in importance. Users can upload their own videos and see those of others, share them, embed them on websites, leave a Like or Dislike depending on whether or not they liked the content. It also proves to be a useful promotional platform for business purposes. . which allows you to produce targeted advertisements based on gender, age, preferences.
Users can subscribe to a paid service to watch videos without the ad breaks and access additional services such as Youtube Music streaming.
Twitch
Twitch stands as a Youtube competitor dedicated to the world of online gaming.
It is a streaming platform that allows gamers to broadcast their games online, as well as host live shows on various topics such as music, entertainment and current affairs.
Users can subscribe to the channels they watched and comment on live shows.
The Prime Gaming service offers additional features such as the availability of exclusive chats and increased participation in streamer activities.
Reddit is a news social network where users can aggregate by subject areas, post images, texts and videos on various topics. Users can comment and vote on the content of others, create new discussions in specific sub-categories, called “sub-reddit”.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows you to post textual and visual content as if we were in the presence of a blog space. The registered user can post texts, music, images, videos, which once online can be shared by others.
Whatsapp is undoubtedly the most used messaging app in the world, with 1 billion and 500 million users.
WeChat in China is what Facebook is for the rest of the world: it boasts more than 1 billion and 100 million users! WeChat is a messaging and social media app that allows you to call your friends, read the news, play games and use paid features.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a platform that cannot boast record numbers (287 million users) but that has an undoubted hold among young people.
This application allows you to send text, images and videos that can only be viewed for 24 hours.
What are your favorite social networks? Let’s talk about it below!
