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10 Top Social Media Platforms and Sites to Market Your Brand

Social Media Marketing
Mamta May 26, 2024

Over the past couple of decades, social media has been embedded in our lives so seamlessly that we don’t even recognize its extent. From looking up lifestyle hacks to trending news, a huge chunk of the world’s population is dependent on social media.  

To be exact: 62.3% of the global population is now on various social media platforms (with US being the home to third-largest social media audience, after China and India). This makes it crucial for you to have an active social presence to market your brand to the right set of consumers. 

But before crafting an impactful social media strategy, you need to figure out which platforms will best suit your requirements. To make this decision a bit simpler for you, here’s a list of 10 top social media platforms and sites.

Social Media Platform  MAUs (Monthly Active Users)  
Facebook 3.05 billion 
Instagram 2.5 billion  
Snapchat 800 million 
TikTok 1 billion 
YouTube 2.7 billion 
LinkedIn 1 billion 
Reddit  2.3 billion 
Twitter 528.3 million 
Telegram 800 million 
Threads 130 million 

Facebook  

  1. Parent company: Meta 
  1. Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA  
  1. Founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes 
  1. Launched: February 2004  
Facebook website source

If you’ve already watched The Social Network (2010) movie, you’re somewhat familiar with Facebook’s inception and how it rose to popularity. According to the latest Facebook statistics, the platform has over 3.05 billion monthly active users and gets around 22 billion website visits on average.  

Moreover, for the month of August in 2023, 50% of social media visits in the US came from Facebook. That’s how massive the platform has grown over time.  

Currently, more than 200 million small businesses worldwide are using Facebook to reach out to their customers. To succeed on the platform, you need a good understanding of the Facebook algorithm, compelling content, and most of all — consistency.  

Never advertised on Facebook before? Check our How to Advertise on Facebook guide to get started!

Instagram  

  1. Parent company: Meta 
  1. Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA 
  1. Founders: Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger 
  1. Launched: October 2010 
Instagram

If you’re searching for top social media platforms that shape trends and significantly contribute to the creator economy, Instagram will undoubtedly top the list. That’s probably why its user base is about to touch the 2.5 billion mark in 2024.  

On going through Instagram statistics further, you will find that the platform’s 61.8% of the total audience falls in the age range of 18 and 35. That’s good news for brands who are specifically targeting young consumers.  

One sure-shot way to get noticed on the platform is to integrate the latest IG trends in your day-to-day content.  

Snapchat 

  1. Parent company: Snap 
  1. Headquarters: Santa Monica, California 
  1. Founders: Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, Bobby Murphy  
  1. Launched: September 2011 
snapchat

Snapchat was one of the first social media platforms responsible for making vertical format short videos popular. This application has made its way to 800 million monthly active users by offering them a chance to maintain a daily streak by sending snaps (a 10-second video).  

While Snapchat might not be the priority for many advertisers, it is still a great way for companies to reach youngsters and find collaboration partners.  

TikTok 

  1. Parent company: Byte Dance 
  1. Headquarters: Los Angeles and Singapore 
  1. Founders: Zhang Yiming  
  1. Launched: 2016 

Instagram has several new features, but the decision to launch reels was solely to keep you off TikTok. That’s how huge the platform has grown — with over 1 billion active monthly users. (PS: that’s despite it being banned in India)  

To advertise on TikTok, you get a chance to run different types of ads: in-feed, video, spark, TikTok image, playable, shopping, carousel, and pangle. 

Marketing on TikTok is much like that of other top social media apps. The only difference is that you need to shift your focus toward short-form videos.  

YouTube 

  1. Parent company: Google 
  1. Headquarters: Los Angeles and Singapore 
  1. Founders: Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley 
  1. Launched: February 2005  

YouTube serves the dual purpose of a social media platform and a search engine. With over 2.70 billion monthly active users, it is often hailed as the ‘home of video marketing.’ 

Currently, YouTube has over 120 million channels and is heavily populated with influencers and advertisers. Therefore, it is important to focus on YouTube SEO and create content that is liked by the audience in your niche.  

If you’re a brand that has multiple verticals, creating and managing multiple YouTube channels can really help segregate content and increase overall viewership. Moreover, the platform is now suited for both formats: long-form storytelling and short-form curiosity-building videos.  

LinkedIn  

  1. Parent company: Microsoft Corporation  
  1. Headquarters: Sunnyvale, California 
  1. Founders: Reid Hoffman, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly 
  1. Launched: 2002 
linkedin

If you’re still considering LinkedIn to be a mere job search engine, you’re missing out on its actual purpose — professional networking. With over 1 billion users from 200 countries, it has now emerged as a leading advertising platform as well.  

You can advertise on LinkedIn in multiple ways:  

  • Sponsored Content: These are native ads that show up on a user’s feed under the ‘promoted’ tag. You can sponsor different types of content: single image, video, carousel, event, document, and thought leader ads.  
  • Sponsored Messaging: With this option, you can reach out to LinkedIn users directly in their inboxes.  
  • Dynamic Ads: Such ads are tailored for each user based on their profile data like job title, company name, or profile picture.  
  • Text Ads: These ads include a headline, brief text, and image, and appear on the right rail of desktop pages.  
  • Lead Gen Forms: You can easily collect consumer data by attaching a lead gen form with the CTA button.  

Reddit  

  1. Parent company: Advance Publications 
  1. Headquarters: San Fransisco, California 
  1. Founders: Steve Huffman, Alex Ohanian, Aaron Swartz 
  1. Launched: 2005 
reddit

Reddit — also better known as the ‘Front page of the Internet’ — is a diverse platform that attracts all kinds of audiences. From professional networking to sports discussions, you will find everything here.  

Reddit has several niche community forums (also known as subreddits) that cover most topics one could think of. In a way, you can consider it to be a seamless blend of community and content.  

With over 2.3 billion monthly active users, Reddit is an ideal space for advertisers. Here, you can look for communities from your industry and target users accordingly.  

Twitter (𝕏) 

  1. Parent company: X Corp. 
  1. Headquarters: San Fransisco, California 
  1. Founders: Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Noah Glass 
  1. Launched: March 2006 

Twitter was once just a microblogging site and recognised for its iconic blue bird logo. Well, those days are long gone! Since Elon Musk purchased the company, there have been several changes like — platform’s rebranding to 𝕏, removal of verified tick exclusively for celebrities, introduction of 𝕏 premium for everyone, and so on!  

While these changes came as a shock, they helped scale the company to a 528.3 million monthly active user base. 

𝕏’s homepage has a very active ‘What’s happening’ section that includes trending hashtags for different genres like: News, Sports, and Entertainment. Advertisers can run trend takeover campaigns to place their hashtags on that list.  

Telegram 

  1. Parent company: Telegram 
  1. Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates 
  1. Founders: Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov 
  1. Launched: August 2013 
telegram

Telegram is an instant messaging app that allows users to easily share large files and documents (up to 2 GB for each transfer!) with end-to-end encryption. In 2024, Telegram has over 800 million monthly active users.  

Now, you might be wondering — how is Telegram like other top social media platforms when it is a messaging app? Sure, there’s a bit of difference as users can’t scroll a feed or make public posts. But it allows you to post stories and form community groups & broadcast channels for one-to-many or many-to-many communication.  

Marketers can’t run ads on the platform but can utilize it to form customer groups to keep them updated about recent offers or product launches.  

Threads  

  1. Parent company: Meta 
  1. Headquarters: San Fransisco, California 
  1. Founders: Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram 
  1. Launched: July 2023 
threads

Instagram launched Threads as a direct rival of Twitter (𝕏) to give users a better way to share text content. The platform gained 2 million sign-ups in a matter of a couple of hours. Right now, Threads stands at 130 million monthly active users and is in the sights of marketers worldwide.  

Unfortunately, there’s no option of buying ad space on Threads. However, you can always collaborate with influencers and create sponsored content for your brand. In the near future, we can expect Instagram’s ad tools to be made available on Threads as well.  

Wondering what’s the difference between Threads and Twitter? Head to our Threads Vs Twitter: A Comparison of Key Features and Functionality guide to know more!  

Conclusion  

That was all about top social media platforms ruling the world right now! But if you’re just starting out, focusing on everything at once can be quite overwhelming.  

As such, it is crucial for you to know where your audience hangs out and how you can reach them efficiently.  

Once you are consistently posting organic content and running ads, it is time to monitor the account’s performance. With Vaizle, you can get a one-click overview of the latest metrics and periodic data analysis to find when the audience is more actively engaging.  

Vaizle now offers exclusive access to all paid features for $1 only. Sign up for the 7-day trial and explore our range of tools — including social media, ad, and competitive SM analysis. Also, try our newly launched Ads to Google Sheet connectors to make your marketing journey insightful. Cancel or change plans anytime.    

About the Author

Mamta

Mamta

Mamta is an SEO Analyst with 2 years of experience. Currently, she is spending her time on content roadmapping to drive organic growth and engagement for SaaS businesses. Mamta is also an avid cinephile who spends her spare time watching latest action and sci-fi flicks from around the world.

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