Difference Between Social Media Platforms
Even if you have been living in a hole for the past 15 years I am sure you have heard at least something about the wonderful world of social media.
The problem is that today the internet is saturated with so many social platforms to the point where it can be hard to differentiate each one. That is why I wanted to cover the top social media platforms so you can familiarize yourself with their purpose and the role they can play in establishing your online presence.
At the end of this article you will know:
- An overview of 10 popular social media platforms.
- The basic features of each platform.
- What platforms are best for growing your online presence.
Table of Contents
Active Users: 2.38 billion/month
What was once an exclusive social networking site only for college students has now become the worldwide phenomenon that is Facebook.
Facebook is a social network platform that allows users to connect with family, friends, businesses and more. Users build their profile and add their personal information including birth date, relationship status, etc.
Communication between users is in the form of posts, comments, images, likes, links and much more.
Ideally, Facebook is a social media platform that any business can benefit off of. With such a wide range of users throughout the globe, you have access to just about every audience.
The downside is how time-consuming it can be to establish your brand. Facebook has cracked down on organic visibility making it difficult to build an audience organically. However, with Facebook ads manager, you can allocate a small portion of your advertising budget to the platform in an effort to get your name out there.
If you want to begin running Facebook ads check out the difference between a boosted post and Facebook ad.
Active Users: 321 million/month
Twitter is a social networking site where users communicate with one another in the form of tweets. Tweets are short messages a user can send out that can be viewed by their followers or discovered through hashtags.
Tweets can consist of text, images, videos and links. As a user, you also can favorite, quote and retweet other user’s tweets which will then appear on your personal Twitter feed.
The catch, however, is that tweets are limited to 280 characters. The idea was to appeal to a generation plagued with a short attention span. On Twitter, you can easily get to know anyone and find information with as little as a glance.
On Twitter, information is meant to spread fast and has become the hub for trending topics.
From a business perspective, Twitter could be a difficult place to grow your business/brand if you are not constantly monitoring it. As previously mentioned, Twitter is meant for fast information. You need to be standing by ready to respond to trending topics or mentions if you wish to see your account acquire followers.
Active Users: 1 billion/month
Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform where you can create your own account and follow other users whose photos and videos will populate your Instagram feed. Users have the ability to like, comment and share photos/videos on the platform.
Other key features on the platform include Instagram stories, live Instagram videos and face filters.
With a young user base, Instagram is ideal for reaching audiences under 35 years old. It is a heavily visual social platform that rewards authenticity and creativity. It gave birth to the growing marketing trend that is influencer marketing.
Businesses that are in industries such as fashion, travel or design tend to benefit more off of Instagram opposed to other industries that struggle to produce visually appealing content.
Instagram is also a subsidiary of Facebook. Any advertisement you make and manage for Instagram will be done through the Facebook ads manager.
Snapchat
Active Users: 310 million/month
Another social platform that is widely popular with younger audiences is Snapchat. Snapchat can be described in a way like how text messaging works. However, instead of sending texts users can send photos or videos back and forth between one another.
The photos and videos will “self-destruct” after being opened for a certain amount of time. Users can set the time they want their photos to be viewed up to 10 seconds.
Snapchat is also popular for its face filters and the ability to create groups where you can send photos or videos to multiple people at once. Snapchat stories is another feature similar to Instagram where you can upload a photo/video to your personal profile and have it stay active for up to 24 hours.
In regard to business opportunities, Snapchat offers you the ability to create advertisements which will appear when viewing your friend’s Snapchat stories. The problem is that every Snapchat is skippable, creating the risk of not cementing your message in the user’s mind.
Success on the platform comes from repetition and through building a following.
Active Users: 260 million/month
LinkedIn is a networking platform for users who have an interest in developing their professional career. Similar to how Facebook operates, users, create their profile by including information such as their work experience, career objectives, skill set, etc. In a broad summary, it is basically a platform to display your resume and connect with others who are active in your industry.
As mentioned, LinkedIn is all about networking. Instead of sending “friend requests” you “connect” with other users. LinkedIn feeds typically consist of informative articles, job updates and anything else involving career development or industry trends.
LinkedIn also serves as a platform for job searching. Businesses can upload job opportunities in which users can apply to directly through the platform. LinkedIn also offers premium learning services through Lynda, where you can learn just about any subject you are curious about.
The platform is best for B2B companies. Business professionals connect with other business professionals in an effort to grow each other’s business. If you haven’t already, take a look at these LinkedIn Company Page tips to jumpstart your LinkedIn presence. Any business can advertise on the platform through text ads, sponsored InMail or sponsored content.
Active Users: 291 million/month
Pinterest is all about sharing and discovering new interests through posting “pins.” Instead of seeing what your family or friends are up to, Pinterest is used to collect and “pin” anything you are interested in, which can then be viewed by your followers.
Pins can be images or videos and usually have a link that references back to a website. Users can upload their own pins to what is called Pinterest boards. Pinterest Boards often follow a theme and consist of pins relating to that theme.
Users interact with pins in the same fashion as every other social platform. You can leave comments, likes and add any pin to your own Pinterest board.
Pinterest is very popular among women who are typically under 50. However, it is still a growing platform despite being around since 2009.
Pinterest is a great platform for anyone looking to build their own brand. It is also a great channel for anyone looking to drive traffic from Pinterest to a blog. Similar to Instagram, success comes from uploading content that is visually appealing. It has to be interesting enough for other users to want to “pin” and share it to their own boards.
Advertising on Pinterest is similar to promoting posts on Facebook. You choose what pin you would like to promote and then set your target audience.
YouTube
Active Users: 1.9 billion/month
Coming in behind Facebook, YouTube has the second largest monthly users and is showing no signs of slowing down. It also considered the second largest search engine just behind Google. YouTube brought online videos into the mainstream. YouTube users can upload their own videos which can be viewed by billions throughout the globe.
Since the beginning, the platform has evolved from the result of being monetized, but the concept is still the same as it was back when first launched in 2005.
Users can search for videos, create their own channel, like/comment on videos, upload their own videos and subscribe to other channels.
The platform is influencer central and popular YouTuber’s can bring in millions of dollars through product promotion, donations and advertisements.
Tumblr
Active Users: 50 million/month
Tumblr is a blogging website which substitutes short posts in the place of traditional long blog articles. Users can post written entries, photos, videos, audio and web links.
Similar to YouTube, Tumblr users can subscribe to other accounts to view content whenever it is uploaded. Users have the option to like, reply, reblog and leave notes on uploaded content.
Tumblr has faced backlash from many issues concerning pressing topics such as cyberbullying and adult content. Previously, almost everything uploaded to Tumblr was deemed okay, but more recently the company has begun censoring inappropriate content.
If you want a platform where you can openly upload any content you want, Tumblr is for you. It is a great platform to begin building your online presence and interacting with followers.
TikTok
Active Users: 500 million/month
Known as Douyin in China, TikTok has made its way to the United States and is widely popular among younger audiences with 60% of their users being under 30 years in age. The app is sometimes considered a predecessor of the once very popular social media platform Vine.
TikTok is a social platform where users can upload 15-second videos of themselves lip-syncing to a selection of songs provided by the app’s library. The platform also is used for creating short comedic skits using a selection of sound effects or audio bits. The app pushes collaboration and users can create 15-second videos together.
If this app sounds very similar to the once growing platform Musical.ly that is because TikTok is the result of ByteDance (Chinese tech company) who bought and rebranded Musical.ly into TikTok.
Being a new platform, there really isn’t a whole lot of information on what this social media platform can do for your brand or business. Currently, advertisements are still in a “beta” phase as the company is testing advertising formats and their effectiveness.
Active Users: 330 million/month
If you spend a lot of time online, you more than likely have heard or seen references to Reddit.
Reddit is an online community consisting of a large variety of discussion forums where users can share content, photos, news, images, links, etc.
Think of Reddit as the world. Within the world, there are millions of communities consisting of people sharing, uploading and interacting with one another. Those communities are called subreddits. Users can join a multitude of communities and can become part of the conversation.
However, the subreddits you join are made from other users, whom of which have full control of what is posted on their subreddit. Typically, each subreddit follows a set of guidelines and is monitored by subreddit admins.
Along with joining in on conversations, Reddit users can post their own comments and can upvote or downvote certain posts. The more upvotes a post has, the more visible it becomes.
Reddit can be very strict with what you post on subreddits. You will most likely be booted from a community for spamming the subreddit with unrelated or promotional content. It isn’t exactly the best place to advertise your business or build your brand.
Reddit should be used only as a reference to what is trending throughout the globe and what people are saying about certain topics.
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This is really awesome!!! I love how you framed every social platform, i needed the information. Thank you.
Thanks for the description and summarization of these popular social media. I was not familiar with the two at the end of your list.
It’s so useful to really understand these different platforms, how to use them, and what can be accomplished with them. Thanks for sharing!
Such a nice and helpful article especially for bloggers and influeners Social Media is one of the best tool for digital marketing and great platforms.
This is a great post and I got to know so much about the social media I use every day. Thanks for sharing!
This is a wonderful guide to all the major social media platforms. I am only on a few of them mainly because i cannot keep up with all of them. I just concentrate on those that i can and so far it is working out fine, i will eventually join more platforms.
Such a great breakdown of each platform and very informative!
Great read especially for those who just wonder into the world of social media, or never thought of these differences.
So many social media platforms, I’m positive there will be another one big thing in the next year to come.
I might be alone in this, but my favourite community online, by a landslide, is Reddit. There’s just so much to learn there!
This would be really helpful for the new social media user. Perhaps I’ll send this to my mom!
I still enjoy the first two leading social media sites. But it’s great that there are a lot of others that has great concepts too. LinkedIn and Pinterest sounds very interesting.