Top 20 Most Popular Social Media Platforms [2023]

Social Media and musical chairs have grown so similar, considering the periodical introduction of new platforms that at once trigger a sensation. Rightly so, as every platform is keen to elbow out the other by bringing out the best they can give. In the middle of whims and fancies, it is important to understand how tech-savvy Top Social Media Platforms have become for digital marketers.

Their global reach is an obvious parameter that helps to implement your social media marketing strategy. A far-sighted approach with deep introspection is important to choose a network as a way to market your products.

When you feel for a certain platform to go further, you should equally consider additional options. Since you want to associate yourself with a marketing platform that isn’t just ‘popular’ but equally registers immense ‘growth’.  

What Are Social Media Platforms?

Social Media Platforms are an entity that serves the public to share their views, and information through messages, photographs,  audio, videos, etc online. Social Media Platform refers to organizations as well as their officers or employers who are designated by the esteemed organization to maintain transparency and sanctity concerning Content Modulation.

Social Media Platforms are extensive. They help to disseminate information through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Google, NextDoor, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Wikipedia, WeChat, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook Messenger, Weibo, and many more. Social Media Platforms are technology-driven platforms that empower users to ‘network’ through apps and blogs as well.

Why Was Social Media Created?

Social Media was initially created to connect with family and friends in early 2000. They were the reason why youth in the beginning started to connect digitally with colleagues and like-minded individuals around the globe. They brought excitement as youth liked how an online world can bring everyone closer so quickly.

Due to such a refreshing and pleasant change, social media started to gather popularity. The proven track record of MySpace in 2004 with million active users per month is still fresh. It has set the base for companies to use it for marketing as part of their promotional strategy.

20 Top Social Media Websites in 2023

Let’s now take a look at the Top Social Media Platforms in 2023 that gives you a complete walk-through of sites that will help you to decide professionally:-

1. LinkedIn

• Headquarter- Sunnyvale, California, United States
• Launched – May 5, 2003
• Monthly Active Users – 774 million
• Founders – Reid Hoffman, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Konstantin Guericke, Allen Blue
• Revenue – $11.5 billion revenue in 2021

LinkedIn is designed for professionals to connect and grow together. The professional networking site offers a sense of belonging for everyone to enhance B2B marketing. It helps you to improve your brand, generate leads, make connections, enhance professional relations and drive traffic while sharing content.

In short, it has become a proven marketing platform for many entities based on the quick potential to expand and grow. It lets you connect with experts in the industry and collaborate when needed. Considering the charm, LinkedIn offers, it is an obvious platform for many job seekers who are advised to be active as well.

LinkedIn generates greater results by 227% more effectively when compared to Facebook or Twitter. So, professional outreach excluding this platform is unavoidable, even though Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are highly competent. LinkedIn allows you to display ads and publish blogs for a more effective reach and growth.

2. Facebook

• Headquarter -Menlo Park, California, United States
• Launched – February 2004
• Monthly Active Users – 2.89 billion
• Founders – Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz
• Revenue – $117.9 billion revenue in 2021

Facebook has become an inevitable and unstoppable platform for marketing. It has certainly come of age right from displaying the images of dining or family vacations. Now, this social media platform has become a prime reason for the popularity of brands.

It has been greatly active on the local front towards popularizing small businesses as well. The process of selling products through Facebook Shops and using Facebook Ads to promote the brand has become its integral feature.

Through Facebook Marketing, your brand will get the right exposure and awareness by way of online users that will generate leads. Facebook marketing can both be organic and paid where text, photo, or video content can help to popularize the brand. In short, Facebook has entered new horizons which were unthinkable before like selling products through chatbots or hosting 360-degree videos.

3. Instagram

It offers a niche market of its own where you can customize your blog, as part of the micro-blogging service it offers. Visuals have an additional charisma of popularity and Tumblr just heavily deals and centers around using images and art to visually captivate your company. You can keep track of the audience base, as it can integrate with Google Analytics.

• Headquarter – Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States
• Launched – October 6, 2010; 12 years ago
• Monthly Active Users – 1 billion
• Founder –  Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger
• Revenue – $47.6 billion in 2021

Amongst the Top Social Media Platforms, Instagram is an obvious choice for influencers who consider it for brand promotion and it is for a reason. Through a business account, one can popularize the products with the help of live videos, photos, and hashtags. It offers massive opportunities for the brands to quickly create a place of their own, with interactions and exchange of thoughts that guide them. It gives a sense of belongingness to users. There are Instagram Ads that can seemingly enhance brand promotion and sales as well. Similarly, this platform empowers you to use technical features and tools such as Top Connection, Engagement, and Sales Tools to your obvious advantage.

Instagram Stories further give a spark to attract viewers than traditional posts. They create vibrancy as you can use text, live or recorded videos, photos, etc.

4. Reddit

• Headquarter – San Francisco, California, United States 
• Launched – 23 June 2005, Medford, Massachusetts, United States
• Monthly Active Users – 430 million
• Founders- Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz
• Revenue – $350 million in 2021

Reddit is a place where marketers can engage with customers and gain the necessary exposure. A Reddit user is like a close-knit association where you need to contribute first. However, spamming by using links will downvote your work. There is a sea of opportunities waiting where you can contribute through your discussions, and experiences and guide the novice. Thanks to the dedicated forums and subreddits dealing with specific niches. Reddit works with a motive to selflessly work together like a community and then derive the benefits and not the other way around. There is Reddit advertising that can promote your business altogether.

In short, Reddit favors businesses to join, but with a prime focus to establish relationships and then benefitting from it. Businesses have a conducive platform, thanks to the authentic content that is associated with it.

5. YouTube

• Headquarter – San Bruno, California, United States
• Launched – 14 February 2005, San Mateo, California, United States
• Monthly Active Users – 2.3 billion
•  Founders – Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen
• Revenue – $28.8 billion in 2021

Ask any content creator about the Top Social Media Platforms. to show their creativity and many will agree that it is YouTube. It is heaven for them and rightly so, thanks to being a comparably old and safer option. It is second only to Google as a search engine that has become a promising YouTube advertising tool for sharing content globally.

Follow their community guidelines as you create a YouTube channel that gives a centralized platform where viewers can engage. As not only you will get love from the audience, but you can also monetize by placing products on your videos that give loads of exposure.

Unlike many platforms that need you to create an account for viewing content, YT is an exception. However, you need one at the time of uploading your favorite informative videos and engaging with the audience.

6. Twitter

• Headquarter – San Francisco, California, United States
• Launched – 21 March 2006
• Monthly Active Users – 353 million  
• Founders – Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, Biz Stone
• Revenue – $5.07 billion in 2021

Even though Twitter has fewer users, that doesn’t make it insignificant. It is influential as it helps the users to accordingly decide whether they want to go with a certain brand or not. It is an obvious platform for users to get in touch with the latest, in terms of knowing popular TV shows, trends, conversations, etc. Twitter gives you an impetus to be in touch with what’s going on.

Even brand owners have just to generate basic technical knowledge to get an active following. Big brands have used Twitter to flourish the base of users by engaging the audience, creating a community, and providing awesome service to customers. 

A sense of popularity can be better related to around 3,50,000 tweets being sent per minute. It has such charisma that is enough to draw the attention of the audience while you accomplish marketing goals.

7. WhatsApp

• Headquarter – Menlo Park, California, United States
• Launched – January 2009
• Monthly Active Users – 2 billion
• Founders – Jan Koum, Brian Acton
• Revenue – $8.7 billion in 2021

No one knows the extent of popularity that a particular social media platform can gather in due course. For example, WhatsApp which was entirely based on connecting near and dear ones has taken a turn towards generating business due to its popularity.

After in-person restrictions on shopping recently, it has given further pace to business. Brands can use this as a medium to address the queries of the customers after showcasing their catalogs to the users. It offers a personal touch to consumers.

In other words, conversational marketing is rising thanks to tailor-made solutions. A global reach of a popular messaging app has given an easy way of engaging with prospective clients and is now considered one of the Top Social Media Platforms.

WhatsApp is free to be used globally unlike SMS which comes with its charge. It equally connects with customers in real-time thus creating a personal rapport and retaining customers and thus boosting sales.

8. TikTok

A relatively new social platform, TikTok has certainly crossed new horizons in the form of getting a huge base of users. It attracts younger audiences more as considering the craze, some videos often become viral. TikTok has seen an explosion where users can create short music-focused videos that when needed can use filters and lenses along with AR features.

Considering the business that it is generating which is projected at $110 million monthly, it has rightly become a hot non-gaming app. The brands are even exclusively targeting younger audiences for reaching their specific products. It has shown how engagement marketing can better be used to popularize the brand. Besides entertainment content, there is also educational and informative content that has been used by brands.

9. Quora

• Headquarter -Mountain View, California, United States
• Launched -2009
• Monthly Active Users – 300 million
• Founder – Adam D’Angelo
• Revenue – $20.0M annually

Quora is a popular site that deals with user-generated content developed through Q&A sessions. Thanks to over 300 million active users, it is no wonder that it promises an exceptional reach as you link back to your blog from the answer you have written on Quora.

It is like bringing value to the platform by answering queries based on the specific niche you know of.  You will get a high amount of traffic. It is one of the Top Social Media Platforms that places promoted answers high on the search engine result page, about “Upvotes”.

Experts continue to answer queries and over some time can easily be promoted with the likes of experienced writers who are serving Quorans. The “Views’  you get on your answers continue to increase with time, so creating awareness about your brand is something you can earn while contributing to the platform and getting recognition in the process. One can also use Quora to quickly promote content and products.

10. Medium

• Headquarter – California, United States
• Launched: 15 August 2012
• Monthly Active Users: 60 million
• Founder: Evan Williams
• Revenue – $40 M

Medium is a platform to share your writing for the world to see. This gives an insight into the company and products and gains exposure on the way. Anyone is free to write after creating an account. It is a marketing mechanism where your writing helps to achieve the required popularity. It can be anything like just teasers or full posts, short to long-form etc. You can simply cover anything.

Writing has a special appeal that creates a likewise chain of people or networks. Medium takes the fact very creatively as being a blogging platform it also comes with a social networking fusion. Brands can publish the articles and gain exposure through traffic. They can also sell the articles to the platform for generating extra income.

11. Facebook Messenger

In 2011, Messenger got to be a standalone app disassociating itself from Facebook. Businesses have found loads of ways to popularize themselves as advertisers create chatbots to serve customers, thus saving time. Advertisers can equally send newsletters and display their products. The messenger being one of the Top Social Media Platforms has given businesses a host of options to bring popularity and engagement to customers. One can understand the importance, as roughly 40 million businesses are currently engaged with their audience through this mechanism. 

12. Snapchat

• Headquarter – California, United State
• Launched- 8 July 2011
• Monthly Active Users – 514 million
• Founders:- Developer: Snap Inc., Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel, Daniel Smith, David Kravitz, Leo Noah Katz
• Revenue – $4.1 billion in 2021

In an age where short videos have become a rage, Snapchat which is a social media platform invites people to share short and temporary videos or photos. They have to be brief, lively and engaging to make them worthwhile. Brands can opt for marketing their products by way of Brand filters, lenses, and geotags. They can use traditional ads for greater results. The messages are not accessible after they are opened. Being centric only on mobiles, it lacks a high amount of traffic though.

Although it is a great tool, businesses should check it based on the target audience they want and expect. For example, if your audience is older, in terms of 34+ then it may not be an ideal choice, considering 70% of adults are below 34 years of age. One can view the location of friends through the feature Snap Maps.

13. Telegram

• Headquarter – London Revenue – one million U.S. dollars in October 2022
• Launched – 14 August 2013
• Monthly Active Users: 500 million
• Founders:- Pavel Durov, Nikolai Durov
• Revenue – $9.4M

Telegram is another social media tool which is also referred to as an instant messaging app that is seeing an increase in the user base continuously. This is possible, as it relies on interactions while creating groups and channels for marketing products and services. It also uses bots to automate certain tasks thus easing manual work to an extent while providing customer support.

It broadcasts messages to the audience and interacts with them for a more convincing approach aimed at creating a sense of relief.  Brands know that they have the facility to create a wide number of groups numbering even 20,000 aimed to enlighten the masses with information about launches etc. Its enhanced security coupled with cloud-based infrastructure safeguards the sensitivity of certain information while safely reaching the maximum audience. It is no doubt an innovation that has been greatly taken over by brands to market their products.

14. Pinterest

• Headquarter – San Francisco, California, U.S
• Launched – January 2010
• Monthly Active Users – 454 million
• Founders- Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp, Ben Silbermann
• Revenue – $2.5 billion revenue in 2021

Pinterest is an application that gains popularity and exposure by way of sharing images, GIFs, and videos. It is a virtual pinboard app that helps you to gain the necessary traffic. Thanks to the smart search capability, it lets you show your creative side in terms of marketing your business. When you use a specific keyword in your Board Title, then that indirectly helps the users to find you, while they search. Hence, selecting a category for each board helps to get closer to the target audience.

Similarly, spacing the pins help avoid a content outburst. Pinterest is now known to be a visual search engine that has attractive and captivating images, graphics, and links for literally anything or everything that you are searching for.

15. Discord

• Headquarter – San Francisco, California.
• Launched – 13 May 2015
• Monthly Active Users: 140 million
• Founders Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy
• Revenue $130 million revenue in 2020

The real-time chat platform of Discord can be similar to a get-together that you have in person with your near and dear ones. Yes, it has gamers and influencers that have been a part of building the community and can fully engage and connect through group chats. It is a platform where teens have great prominence and significance as they abound on the platform.

It is a popular chat app that uses voice, text, and videos. At the time of launch in 2015, it only had a test and audio communication, and two years later i.e in 2017,  it got two more that is the ‘calling’ and ‘share screen’ options.  

16. Twitch

• Headquarter – San Francisco
• Launched – June 6, 2011
• Monthly Active Users – 140 million
• Founders – Justin Kan; Emmett Shear; Michael Seibel; Kyle Vogt; Kevin Lin;
• Revenue – $2.6 billion revenue in 2021

When hearing about Twitch you know that it is a video-based live streaming platform that empowers the creators to host a session dedicated to a specific audience. The creators hold a one-to-one session with their viewers in a live stream through Twitch chat.

The whole scenario is lively and engaging and creates a positive vibe for brands to showcase and popularize themselves. Established in 2011, the brands are generating leads through paid ads as well which helps to generate quick leads apart from using influencer marketing for the same. The creators generate money by way of showcasing ads and through affiliates.

During its initial days, it used to broadcast only video games, but soon its popularity expanded to further areas of providing tutorials on different topics, ad music, cuisine-related shows, and many more.

17. Clubhouse

• Headquarter – San Francisco, California
• Launched – April 2020
• Weekly Active Users: 10 million
• Founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth
• Revenue – $1 billion in December 2020.

The clubhouse is a relatively new tool. However, right at its launch in 2020, has generated over 10 million users. The application gives you a platform to enter a world full of audio-chat rooms to engage and converse “Live”. The app only has audio and requires an invite code to start. Networking indeed gives fruitful results as it offers the exchange of different views and invites suggestions.

This application offers a hub of networking opportunities for brands while you visit virtual rooms for initiating conversations. It is free from ads and you can start to engage in various available Clubhouse rooms that give you a world to network with. However, brands do have to look for other mechanisms for leads, since it doesn’t support DMs.

18. Goodreads

• Headquarter – San Francisco
• Launched – 2006
• Monthly Active Users – 90 million
• Founders – Otis Chandler, Elizabeth Khuri Chandler
• Revenue – $5.0M annually

Goodreads offers a virtual world of books that invite like-minded individuals to connect. This is a platform to bring enlightenment and knowledge through such a noble act where users can recommend books and reviews etc and link back to their blogs.

To enlighten your followers with upcoming news or releases, writing a blog post or simply a status update can help. As they will get the required information right in the newsfeed

It offers the authors to enter its Goodreads Author Program which is meant for promoting their books. The authors get hold of various promotional tools that scale the base of readers. Even giveaways act as a promotional tactic to create awareness and to draw the interest of the people in your books with the available community of readers running in millions.

19. Tumblr

Tumblr is hard to be ignored or overlooked, even though it lacks the oozing base of clients that associate with Facebook or Twitter. However, it is now becoming a hub for posting business blogs, videos, or photos while crossing the usual practice of sharing memes, GIFs, etc. As you visualize the platform, you realize that it abounds with blog posts and charismatic images that force you to host a business page and make sales instantly while running ads.

20. Flickr

• Headquarter – California, U.S
• Launched- 10 February 2004
• Monthly active users- 60 million
• Founders – Stewart Butterfield, Caterina Fake
• Revenue –  $94.1M annually

It offers a platform for sharing a wide genre of emotions in the form of videos and photos that can visually impact the audience. Yahoo owns it and for small business owners, it is a dedicated tool to promote products and services to customers. Considering the extent of visualization, it is an obvious fact that graphic designers and photographers have a greater inkling of the website. 

Visuals indeed have a natural charisma that everyone is at once attracted to. Rightly so, as the platform lets the users share their high-quality images that have to be original though. Also, being a social media site, it offers a network to connect with groups and their people. Your business tends to popularize itself thanks to increased search engine optimization. Based on the likes your photos generate, your business will have better exposure thanks to the high-end frequency of search queries

FAQs

Is YouTube considered social media?

Yes, it is considered social media, in fact, its popularity is sky-high. Yes, this video-sharing website has a whopping base of active users numbering over a billion. It has become an integral part of people who are spending a part of their time online.

On which social network should you share content most frequently?

Twitter is a social network that has a huge base of users and it deals with frequent content sharing. Therefore, the platform which already abounds with fresh content naturally becomes a preferred medium for content to be shared.

Is Whatsapp social media?

Yes, Whatsapp is undoubtedly considered social media. It is truly a social networking platform that relies on engagement or conversations which is the main characteristic.

What was the first social media platform?

Many don’t know that the first ever site to come into existence has been SixDegrees.com way back in 1997. It was a social networking site that helped you to send messages within your network. All you have to do was to create a profile and make a list of connections, that’s it.

How many social media platforms are there?

There are roughly 128 social media platforms that can be considered amongst the list of platforms that you can use in 2023. This will help you to strategize effectively by developing networks and connections.

How many Facebook users are there?

There are 2.96 billion users regarding the data released by parent company Meta as of Q3 2022. This showcases a slight increase with respect to the previous quarter by 0.82%. While considering the whole year, it has registered a 1.6% year-by-year increase.

What year was Instagram started?

The Instagram app gained quite a lot of prominence right on its first day of coming into being. It was launched on October 6, 2010, and registered 25,000 users. 

How many people in the world use social media?

Social Media has gone deep into the lives of people as the numbers are continuously rising. In 2021, 4.26 billion people were using and it is expected to become 4.89 billion in 2023

Conclusion

Finally, after reading the aforesaid Top Social Media Platforms in 2023, you know the immense importance of social media platforms. Now, you have even greater options to promote your brand with customers while delivering the best service and products through engagement and delivering as per their taste. In short, you can make the maximum use of social marketing strategy with the presence of these platforms.

No doubt, they are the reason why brands cement relations with customers further, by getting feedback and improving further on the way.

I am Afzal Zaheer , a freelance content developer with over 13 years of experience. ‘Choice of Words’ are important to bring the exact meaning and I am passionate to bring the ‘best’ for binding the interest of readers. I always aim to guide the budding content developers as a way of giving back to the love and respect I have got in my journey.