Businesses can use social media sites to build a brand, connect with customers, and sell products. There are a variety of popular social media networks to explore, with tools and target audiences that may fit your business.
Here is a list of the top social media sites in 2022. All of these networks have advanced marketing features for businesses. The monthly active user counts are from Statista.
Top Social Networks
Facebook, owned by Meta Platforms, is a social networking site to share stories and updates with friends and followers. Businesses can use Facebook Pages to connect with customers and promote products and services through updates, photos, and videos. Merchants can use Shops to upload a product catalog, tag goods, and even make sales directly in the app. Monthly active users: 2.9 billion.
YouTube, owned by Google, is a video-sharing and social media platform. Create, upload and share videos with others, and follow other creators. Businesses can build a brand on YouTube by creating a channel, producing original content, growing an audience, and developing partnerships with creators. Monthly active users: 2.6 billion.
WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, is a multiplatform app to send and receive text, photos, videos, documents, location, and voice calls. With WhatsApp Business, create a catalog to showcase products and services and connect to customers with tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages. Monthly active users: 2 billion.
Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms, is a free photo and video-sharing app to create, edit and share images and videos publicly or to a select group of followers. Businesses can set up a business profile and access analytics on audience views, reach, impressions and demographics. Merchants can use Shops to upload a product catalog, tag goods, and even make sales directly in the app. Monthly active users: 2 billion.
WeChat is a messaging and social media app for chatting one-on-one or a group of up to 500 members, voice and video calls with up to nine people, real-time location sharing, video blogging, third-party Mini-Programs, games, WeChat Pay, and more. Monthly active users: 1.3 billion.
TikTok is a short-form video-sharing app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. TikTok launched in 2017 as the international version of Douyin. Originally TikTok was an app for lip-syncing videos. Now TikTok is a popular platform for content creators and brands, with ready-to-use templates to create campaigns. Monthly active users: 1 billion.
Messenger, from Meta Platforms, is the social networking app for group video chats, voice calls, unlimited text messaging, and more. Connect with your Instagram and Facebook calls right from Messenger. Choose who can reach you and where your messages are delivered. Customize your reactions and chat themes. Record and send audio and video messages. Send and receive money securely. Monthly active users: 1 billion.
Douyin is TikTok in China, the short-form social video platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Videos range from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. Monthly active users: 600 million.
QQ is an instant messaging app and web portal from Chinese tech giant Tencent. Along with instant messaging, QQ features microblogging, group and voice chat, social games, music, movies, and shopping. Monthly active users: 574 million.
Sina Weibo, or ‘Weibo,’ is a microblogging and social media platform from China. Launched in 2009 by Sina, Weibo has a 140-character limit for each post. Users follow individuals and can read or share posts without being followed back. Monthly active users: 573 million.
Kuaishou is a short-video-sharing app, effects editor, and content community out of China. Kuaishou began in 2011 as an animated GIF editor. The platform also features live streaming, as well as ecommerce and mobile games. Monthly active users: 573 million.
Snapchat, owned by Snap Inc., is a multimedia instant-messaging app that lets users create and exchange image and video Snaps. Users can alter images with lenses, filters, and emojis and watch Stories and original shows. Businesses can create ads and launch advertising campaigns with advanced targeting. Originally an app for mobile, Snapchat now has a web app. Monthly active users: 557 million.
Telegram is a messaging app connecting people via a distributed network of data centers around the globe. Access your messages from all your phones, tablets, and computers simultaneously. Everything on Telegram is encrypted end-to-end, including chats, groups, and media. Telegram also supports group chats and self-destructing messages. Monthly active users: 550 million.
Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas and sharing inspiration. Content is saved with Pins and organized on Boards. Pins can be images, videos, or products. Product Pins are enriched with metadata and formatted to let people on Pinterest know they’re shoppable, with pricing info, availability, product title, and description. Monthly active users: 444 million.
Twitter is a microblogging and social media network for real-time news and content. People post Tweets, which may contain photos, videos, links, and text. These messages are published to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search. Monthly active users: 436 million.
Reddit is a social platform for news aggregation, content rating, and discussion. Registered users submit content, which is then voted up or down and organized into user-created boards by communities. The more upvotes, the higher the content appears. Monthly active users: 430 million.
Quora is a collaborative platform to share and grow the world’s knowledge. Quora is a place to pose a question and get an answer. It’s also a place where experts can demonstrate what they know for the benefit of all. Monthly active users: 300 million.
Skype is a communications app to chat and call, one-on-one or with a group. Skype features audio and HD video, smart messaging with reactions and @mentions, screen sharing for presentations, call recording, live subtitles, and more. Skype is part of Microsoft. Monthly active users: 300 million.
Microsoft Teams is a workspace platform for real-time collaboration and communication, meeting, and file and app sharing. In July, Microsoft unveiled Viva Engage, a Facebook-like social network for the workplace, within the Microsoft Teams platform. Monthly active users: 270 million.
LinkedIn is a social platform for professional networking and career development. LinkedIn has over 850 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide. LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft in 2016. Monthly active users: 250 million.