Best 50 Leading Social Networks Worldwide
“Beyond Facebook: 74 Popular Social Networks Worldwide” is my list the leading social media sites. But much has changed since then, with thousands of new sites having been launched.
Social Media Sites
01.Facebook
Facebook is the world’s largest social network with over 1.4 billion members and annual revenues exceeding $12 billion. There are apps available that allow retailers (or even consumers) to sell to this community. Facebook is available worldwide.
02.QQ. (New)
QQ is a social network primarily focused on instant messaging and has over 800 million members. It was launched in China but has grown and is now offered in six languages: English, French, Japanese, Spanish, German and Korean. QQ offers some commerce functionality by using virtual money called “Q coin.”
03.LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. It has about 350 million members. LinkedIn is available globally in 20 different languages and is used by the recruiting professionals for hiring the right candidates.
04.Google+.
Google+ is Google’s social community with over 300 million members. It offers a popular video conferencing feature called Hangouts.
05.Instagram.
Instagram is a photo-sharing and video-sharing social network with over 300 million members. It is part of the Facebook family. Instagram gained rapid adoption because of its ability to easily apply multiple filters to a photo, which can post to different social networks, like Facebook and Twitter.
06.Baidu Tieba. (New) Baidu Tieba uses search to enable its users to create a new social network for a specific topic or join an existing social network for that topic. It has over 8 million such small social networks that are also called bars. Total active users are over 300 million. It is offered internationally under the brand name Postbar.
05.Twitter.
Twitter enables its just under 300 million users to send and receive 140-character messages that are called tweets. Twitter is available worldwide and also offers commerce features for shopping directly using tweets.
06.Tumblr.
Tumblr is a micro-blogging social network with over 200 million members. It allows users to post blogs that others can follow, making it a good option to announce new product introductions and promotions.
07.Sina Weibo.
Sina Weibo is a micro-blogging social network with over 150 million active users. It is one of the most popular sites in China.
08.VK.
VK, previously known as VKontakte, is one of the largest Russian social networks with over 100 million users. It offers features very similar to those on Facebook.
09.Reddit.
Reddit is a social network with over 100 million active users. It allows its members to submit content and then vote to move the submissions up or down. Content is organized by areas of interest that is called subreddits.
10.Taringa!.
Taringa! provides a means for over 75 million members to express themselves on the site by sharing content, information, and experiences. It is one of the largest social networks in Latin America.
11.Tagged.
Tagged is a social network that encourages dating amongst its users. It acquired another social network, Hi5, in 2011 to grow its community. It now has about 25 million active users.
12.Badoo.
Badoo is a dating-focused social network with a presence in almost 200 countries. It is popular in Latin America, Italy, Spain, and France and has about 20 million active users.
13.StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon is a social network that enables discovery of content that has been personalized to a user’s interests. It is also offered as a browser toolbar. It has roughly 10 million active users.
14.MeetMe.
MeetMe is a social network focused around making new friends. It renamed itself from myYearbook in 2012. It has several million users that are under 18 and is a good target for retailers who want to sell to the younger consumers.
15.Meetup.
Meetup is a social network that enables a group to meet offline to discuss a specific topic. It was originally created for politics but has now expanded to cover any topic like fashion, games, and movies.
16.Skyrock.
Skyrock is a social network mainly targeted towards the French speaking community. The site offers members space to create their profiles and blogs. The social network is also available in English, Dutch, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.
17.Delicious.
Delicious allows sharing of bookmarks by having the users tag them with any keywords.
18.Kiwibox.
Kiwibox is a social network for teens and young adults. It also offers an online magazine and is primarily used by its members to show off their interests and skills, such as writing, photography, and technical tasks.
19.Snapfish.
Snapfish is the largest photo sharing social network that provides its members with unlimited space to upload their photos.
20.Flickr.
Flickr continues to be a popular social network among photography enthusiasts. It has millions of photos uploaded to the site on a daily basis.
21.Photobucket.
Photobucket is another photo sharing network with its photos being used for personal and business purposes. It is also the default photo-sharing platform for Twitter users.
22.DeviantArt.
DeviantArt is a photo sharing site that showcases user-made artwork. It encourages its members to provide feedback on the uploaded artwork and is considered to be the largest social network of this kind in the world.
23.Fotolog.
Fotolog is a photo blogging social network with members in 200 countries. Most of its users are based in South America.
24.Pinterest.
Pinterest is a photo sharing social network that allows photos to be pinned — i.e., shared — from other sites for access by the members of the network. The site is more popular with women.
25.Last.fm.
Last.fm is a music discovery service that gives personalized recommendations based on the music the user listens to. It has a system that tracks user activity to recommend the songs the user might like.
26.Flixster.
Flixster is a social network for the movie enthusiast, to connect with individuals with similar taste in movies. It also runs a leading movie review site called Rotten Tomatoes.
Gaia Online. Gaia Online is an anime-themed social network with avatars, virtual worlds, gaming, and many other features.
27.VampireFreaks.
VampireFreaks is an online community for the Gothic–industrial subcultures and has grown over the years to have millions of members.
28.Nextdoor.
Nextdoor is a social network for neighborhoods in the U.S. It allows it members to connect with their neighbors and has gained significant adoption in the last few months.
29.Cellufun.
Cellufun is an anonymous social gaming community that can be accessed from any mobile device. Users create avatars to represent themselves.
30.YouTube.
YouTube is a video sharing social network that enables its users to upload, view, and share videos. It is available worldwide and is one of the most accessed sites on the web.
31.Youku.
Youku is a YouTube clone based in China and has roughly 500 million active users. Youku is only available in Chinese.
32.FunnyorDie.
FunnyOrDie is a comedy video site that allows users to upload, share, and rate videos. It has a large following in the celebrity community.
33.Tout.
Tout is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and view 15-second videos, known as “touts.”
34.Vine.
Vine is a short form video sharing social network that allows its users to post 6-second videos. The service integrates with other social networks to allow the videos to be watched from other networks. It is owned by Twitter.
35.Classmates.
Classmates connects high school friends and also allows for the uploading of high school yearbook(s).
36.MyLife.
MyLife is a different take on social networking, as it helps people find their friends, family members, and business associates for a fee. The site used to be called Reunion.com and Wink.com before it was renamed to MyLife.
37.MyHeritage.
MyHeritage enables discovery, sharing, and preserving of family history. Users can create their family tree and search historical records to find ancestors. They can also build connections with new relatives that are discovered using the site. The site supports 42 languages. MyHeritage acquired Geni, another similar site.
38.Viadeo.
Viadeo is a social network for business people mostly in Europe. It is offered in seven languages and has over 50 million members.
39.Ryze.
Ryze helps expand professionals’ business networks by connecting them with industry professionals and like-minded individuals. It also offers sharing of practical advice, tips, and resources between members.
40.Xing.
Xing is a business network similar to LinkedIn but with the ability to create closed groups to enable private discussions within a company. Most of its users are in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
41.WeeWorld.
WeeWorld is a social gaming company for teens and tweens where the users create avatars to interact with each other.
42.Habbo.
Habbo is a gaming company for teenagers that allows them to pick their avatars and design hotel rooms, meet new friends, chat with other players, and so on. The site has presence in roughly 150 countries and is also the largest social network in Finland.
43.Tuenti.
Tuenti started out as the “Spanish Facebook” but has now expanded to support 14 languages with a mostly younger user base. After acquisition by Telefonica, it has started offering mobile operator service.
44.Xanga.
Xanga hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles for its millions of members.
45.Solaborate.
Solaborate is a social network and collaboration platform dedicated to technology professionals and companies to connect, collaborate, discover opportunities, and create an ecosystem around products and services.
46.Plurk.
Plurk is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates through short messages or links, which can be up to 210 text characters. Most of Plurk’s traffic comes from Taiwan.
47.LiveJournal.
LiveJournal allows its users to maintain a blog, journal, or diary. Several prominent public figures use this service — especially in Russia, where it partners with an online newspaper. It is offered in 32 languages.
48.Douban.
Douban is a Chinese site that serves both registered and unregistered users. Registered users can create content and connect with others while the unregistered users can search and review the ratings of books, music, and movies.
49.Odnoklassniki.
Odnoklassniki helps the Russian community find classmates and old friends. It is offered in nine different languages.
50.NK.
NK is a Polish social network with a focus on attracting high school and college students.
Netlog. Netlog is a Belgian site targeted at the global youth demographic. The site supports roughly 20 languages.
