So, true story this, but I recently came across this post on Google+ and it got me thinking – have we hit peak social media?
Spurred on by the notion I started the search to find out how many users are on social media sites currently. Most social media managers can all rattle off some of the more popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc but I wanted to get a broader set of data. And, thankfully, expandedramblings.com had a monster list of social media sites and their user bases and it was last updated July 2013 – schwing!
After finding this data I then smashed it into a spreadsheet (all 226 of them), sorted by size, stripped away sites that weren’t relevant (like Google Chrome, iTunes, Gmail, Yahoo mail for example) and came up with the Top 25 Biggest Social Media Sites in The World!
| No.# | Name | Users (in millions) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1115 | Surely you’ve heard of FB? | |
| 2 | YouTube | 1000 | ..ditto for YouTube |
| 3 | 825.4 | Chinese social media network | |
| 4 | QZone | 611 | Chinese social media |
| 5 | Sina Weibo | 503 | Chinese social media site |
| 6 | 500 | ..tweet tweet.. | |
| 7 | WeChat/WeiXln | 400 | Originally Chinese, now global |
| 8 | Google+ | 343 | bigger than you’d think |
| 9 | Tagged | 330 | probably should have heard of this one |
| 10 | 225 | Social media network for business | |
| 11 | Gree | 190 | Japanese social media, sushi pic heaven |
| 12 | Badoo | 186 | Russian owned, dating social network |
| 13 | Renren | 178 | Chinese real name social network |
| 14 | Line | 150 | Japanese study social network |
| 15 | Youku Toudou | 150 | Chinese YouTube |
| 16 | 130 | Pictures with filters, billions of ’em | |
| 17 | Tumblr | 108.9 | Everyday we tumblin’ |
| 18 | VK.com | 100 | Russian social network site |
| 19 | Netlog | 94 | Founded in Belgium, now global social media network |
| 20 | MyHeritage | 75 | Family orientated social network |
| 21 | 70 | Pin the tail on the.. | |
| 22 | Odnoklassniki | 65.3 | Russian social network |
| 23 | MyLife | 60 | Social media site aggregator to find friends |
| 24 | ClassMates | 55 | School based social network |
| 25 | Sonico | 55 | Latin America focused social network |
7.1596 Billion Users For Top 25 Social Media Sites in the World!
So, the benchmark is set, the top 25 Social Media sites in the world currently have 7.1596 BILLION users or accounts created to date. Being honest, I’ve never heard of a few of them like Netlog and MyLife for example – you surprised by some of them? Anyway, for those of you who like stats, the total amount of users for all 226 social media sites on the list is 16.9222 billion. And, to break things down percentage wise, that means the top 25 sites have 42.3% of all social media accounts created.
Have We Hit Peak Social Media?
Have We Hit Peak Social Media? – List of Social Media Icons
Now, the question is, is that figure ever going to get much bigger or have we hit peak social media?
Will all the recent news about Edward Snowden, the NSA and Operation Prism have a detrimental affect on social media use? Sites like Facebook which have been directly linked to the news might, at the very least, notice a decrease in new users or an increase in deactivated accounts.
And, what about future generations of social media, tomorrows Pinterest or Instagram for example? Will people be more hesitant to try new social media sites in general now given the negative publicity social media is getting in relation to spying?
Those who are currently on the fence about using social media will more than likely fall to the logout side rather than the login.
In my humble opinion I think social media use may decline in the medium term but its decline will be slow. The user base that will persist will be diehard users which will sustain the platforms. Those who are currently on the fence about using social media will more than likely fall to the logout side rather than the login. The next wave of tech savvy kids, who are using iPads and Androids from the cot, will probably be using something and a lot cooler than what we have now or can imagine (although “we’ll” probably struggle to “get it” when it does come to fruition) and will probably shift social networks as we know them into a different direction.
Anyway, that is jus tmy thought on the matter but what I want now are your thoughts on the matter? Have we hit peak social media or will that 7.15 billion and something figure continue to grow? Leave a comment below with your thoughts and press one of those share buttons of you please – the more feedback and global insight the better so that we can try answer the question – have we hit peak social media?