Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category

Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps [August …

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Heres the graph of top 15 social networking sites in the world. As you can see Facebook is leading the pack with a huge margin in front of Youtube. Then theres another gap of similar size to Instagram on the third place.

NEW: Instagram has now 1 billion users. That is the answer to the question, what will be the next big thing.

Here is the most up to date list of monthly active users for the top social networking sites. If you want the numbers just scroll down. First, youll find top social networking sites followed by top 10 apps.

Always fresh data: just bookmark this page and come back whenever you need new data.The findings are based on latest original research, and we update the numbers as soon as the new data comes in.

Maybe you know the top 3 or even the top 5 social networking sites, but do you know whats happening behind them? We maintain the list of top 15 most popular social networking worldwide.New social media sites are coming and going, but these have stood the test of time. We update this list of social media sites with new data as it becomes available. The data in this list combines global and US social media visitors. The actual numbers of monthly visitors are gathered from different sites. We bring you the latest data out there.

Take a look at the visual size comparison below.

Find out how to build your willpower!

Facebook jumped by 100 million monthly active users from 2.13 billion in December 2017 to 2.23 billion as of June 30, 2018. The rate of growth seems to continue at 15 million active users per month. So, by the end of the year we should see 2.35 billion Facebook monthly active users. Heres the post where Zuckerberg announced the newsabout reaching the 2 billion milestone:

Again, on this graph you can see the three large circles dominating the rest. Only Twitter and Reddit battling it out for the fourth space seem to come close to the top 3. However, in Russia VK has a huge penetration, dominating the Russian speaking world as Facebook does globally.

Take a look at the visualization showing the most popular social networks around the world. The world map of social networks 2017 is based on recent traffic data (January 2017). Check out the world map of social networks

And wait, we have news for you! There is some indication that a new social network might take the to spot. YouTube might be taking over Facebook in unique monthly visitors:

YouTube 2 Compete Rank | 2 Alexa RankFacebook 3 Compete Rank | 3 Alexa Rank

Youtube has added 300 million people to its logged-in audience in less than a year. I believe this trend to continue and Youtube might reach 2 billion people within next 10 months.

If you want to find out more about how powerful video is predicted to become, check out this infographic!

How to work get marketing results from social newtorks? Check out our step-by-step process to create your influencer marketing campaigns.

With the growing popularity of mobile social networking, we have also created a list of 10 leading social apps globally. These apps are in fierce competition with the main social sites already!

The picture here is a bit different if we look at the brand names. WhatsApp and Messenger are in a close race for the top spot. But both of these most popular social media apps are owned by Facebook so the competition may not be as fierce as between completely separate companies. Then theres a lot of Asian apps and then on the sixth spot is Instagram, again owned by Facebook.

Social networking apps are going to grow even bigger as people adopt them into their everyday lives. Here we have listed the mobile-first social media platforms. But the Facebook mobile app would dominate this list with 1.37 billion monthly active users. As smartphones adoption continues, the share of the desktop use of social media platforms will fall .

For a list of social media apps that are smaller check List of virtual communities with more than 100 million active users from Wikipedia.

______________________________Photo credits: Pixabay, Visual Hunt

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Best Social Media Sites for Job Hunters

With the internet buzzing with social media, there are similarly many ways to use social media to network, and eventually find a job. And, not only can you find a job with this medium, but you can also create and cultivate a professional brand using social networking sites and ways to build a strategic online presence to help with your job searching and career building.

Courting passive candidates, those not actively seeking employment, was the main reason for employers tapping social media. Use these top social and professional networking sites below to enhance your career and boost your job search.

LinkedInLinkedIn, with 530 million current users, is considered the top spot for people looking for work. However, many users don't take the necessary steps to maximize their chances, including optimizing their profile, creating their network, joining groups, incorporating work samples, and accumulating endorsements. Make sure that you reach out to first, second, and third-degree connections for information, advice, and introductions to hiring managers. Join professional groups related to your interests and contribute to discussions to enhance your visibility as a potential candidate.

LinkedIn is also a great source for accessing job postings.The search results include a listing of jobs that correspond to your interests and also a list of individuals in your network who might be able to refer you to relevant jobs. Alumni from your college who are working at the employers advertising jobs will also be noted on your results list.

FacebookMany employers will place job advertisements on Facebook. You can find these opportunities by searching for Jobs on Facebook in the search window on the site.However, the greatest value of Facebook is the opportunity to solicit the assistance of your contacts with your job search. Ask if your contacts are aware of any jobs related to your interests and also request that your friends provide referrals to any people who they know in your field for advice and information relevant to your job transition.

Join groups of people with common interests and network with them.Be careful how you proceed if you are currently employed and have Facebook contacts who might report your activity to your employer.

InstagramInstagram is a good way to establish your personal brand while demonstrating your social media skills and enhancing your overall digital savvy. It's also a smart way to glean information and insights about a company where you might want to work. Did an employee post a pic of "massage Mondays" and you're a corporate masseuse?

Does a company showcase "Fajita Fridays" special and you're a Mexican chef? Instagram is a great way to see inside a company to then demonstrate how you'd be a good fit. Instagram also provides a vehicle for you to post visual representations related to your professional or academic projects.

TwitterActive Twitter users can promote their professional brand by posting information of interest to individuals in their field. One benefit of Twitter is the free-flowing communication that allows you to talk directly to recruiters and hiring managers without the need to submit a resume first. Search for #recruiters and other keywords related to your industry.

However, while Twitter is an excellent networking tool, you need to support your efforts with a blog or LinkedIn profile. No one will hire you simply based on a Twitter profile to start they'll need a link providing them with more information about you.

Google+According to Statistic Brain, Google+ had395,250,000 activeusers in September 2017. Job seekers can connect with people that they know and communicate with groups of individuals through "circles" of contacts. Those networks can be tapped for referrals professionals who might share information, advice and job leads.

Users can join communities based on their career interests and view content about trends/issues in those sectors and communicate with individuals who are professionally active in those niches.

YouTubeYouTube is an excellent vehicle for incorporating video samples of your work, as well as evidence of your communication skills or personality into your job search. Of course, musicians, actors, teachers, consultants, and trainers have used the site for years to promote their skills.Many other job seekers can benefit from creating a video profile that showcases their persona and demonstrates their career-related skills.Examples might include an "elevator speech" summarizing your interests and assets targeted towards a career field of interest or a brief show and tell regarding a successful academic or work project.

YouTube toutsa user base of over one billion individuals.Job seekers can post videos on YouTube to attract the attention of employers or link YouTube videos to their job search communications or other social media sites like LinkedIn or Facebook.

PinterestPinterest claims over 125 million active monthly users. The site will be most useful for creative types like interior decorators, artists, and graphic designers who can post visual representations of their work.The site is heavily trafficked by women, so professionals like contractors who wish to promote their services to women are likely to accrue the greatest benefit from the site.

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Best Social Media Sites for Job Hunters

Footnotes & Sources – Social Networking – ProCon.org

Footnotes:

Steve Almasy, "Social Media an Inviting Target for Cybercriminals," http://www.cnn.com, Sep. 30, 2009

Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Oct. 2007

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, "Facts and Statistics," http://www.cmocouncil.org (accessed Oct. 7, 2009)

CNN, "Facebook Nearly as Large as U.S. Population," http://www.cnn.com, Sep. 16, 2009

David Deal, "Think Social Influence Marketing and Innovation During the Recession," http://www.superhypeblog.com, Feb. 10, 2009

Benny Evangelista "Twitter Moving to Larger SoMa Office Space," San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 13, 2009

Facebook, "Statistics," http://www.facebook.com, (accessed Sep. 15, 2009)

Kelly Jackson Higgins, "Report: Social Networking Phishing Attacks Up More Than 240%," http://www.darkreading.com, June 29, 2009

Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin, Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, 2009

Audrey Hudson, "EXCLUSIVE: W.H. Collects Web Users' Data without Notice," Washington Times, Sep. 16, 2009

Christopher Intagliata, "Even Poor Kids Are Social Network Savvy," podcast, Scientific American website, June 26, 2008

International Business Times, "'WhiteHouse 2.0' Embraces Social Networking," http://www.ibtimes.com, May 1, 2009

David Kelleher, "Social Networking at Work: Fear Not Facebook, MySpace and Bebo?," CIO.com, Feb. 17, 2009

Ronald J. Levine and Susan L. Swatski-Lebson, "Are Social Networking Sites Discoverable?," Law.com, Nov. 13, 2008

Marine Corps, "Immediate Ban of Internet Social Networking Sites (SNS) on Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) NIPRNET," http://www.marines.mil, Aug. 3, 2009

Mike McKee, "MySpace Musings Aren't Private, Appeals Court Rules," Law.com, Apr. 6, 2009

Lisa Mercer, "Who Uses Social Networking Sites," socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com, July 29, 2009

National Crime Prevention Council, "What Is Cyberbullying?," http://www.ncpc.org (accessed Oct. 5, 2009)

Nielsen Company, "Global Faces and Networked Places," nielsen.com, Mar. 2009

Nielsen Company, "News Release," nielsen.com, Sep. 24, 2009

Adam Ostrow, "People Spend 3x More Time on Facebook Than Google," http://www.mashable.com, Sep. 17, 2009

PEW Internet and American Life Project, "The Strength of Internet Ties," pewinternet.org, Jan. 25, 2006

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, "PEW Internet Project Data Memo," people-press.org, Jan. 14, 2009

Macon Phillips, "Change Has Come to WhiteHouse.gov," White House blog, Jan. 20, 2009

Nathan Olivarez-Giles, "More Sex Offenders Joined MySpace Than Previously Acknowledged," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 4, 2009

Noah Shachtman, "Marines Ban Twitter, Facebook, Other Sites," Wired, cnn.com, Aug. 4, 2009

Aric Sigman, "Well Connected?: The Biological Implications of 'Social Networking'," Biologist, Feb. 2009

State of Connecticut Attorney General's Office, "CT, NC Attorneys General Say MySpace Response to Subpoena Reveals 90,000 Registered Sex Offenders with Profiles," http://www.ct.gov, Feb. 3, 2009

Robin Wauters, "comScore: Russians Spend More Time on Social Networks Than the Rest of World," uk.techcruch.com, July 2, 2009

Andrew West, "Facebook Labelled a $5b Waste of Time," Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 20, 2007

Zephoria, "Doing the Math on MySpace and Registered Sex Offenders," http://www.zephoria.org, Feb. 6, 2009

The rest is here:
Footnotes & Sources - Social Networking - ProCon.org

Social networking pros and cons: Are social media good …

Most peopleengage in social networking on a daily basis. But do the benefits of social media really outweigh their disadvantages? Do they benefit us?

We owe much to the development and expansion of the Internet. Ithas enabled one of themain technological and cultural revolutions in recent history: the emergence of social media.Over the last 10 years, onlinesocial media have grown extremely fast and become central to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Social platformssuch as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google Plusallow us to communicate with family, friends, and people that we would have never had the chance to meet regularly. Some social mediasuch as LinkedIn, Skype, Slack and Meetup are becoming important tools for our work and business networking. To the extent that many cities are offering free public WiFi to their citiezens.However, although many people spent considerable part of their lives interacting with social media, others refuse to engage withonline social networking. Let's dissect some of the benefits and dangers of social networking.

Social networks allow us tokeep in touch with people that we meet at different points inour lives and reconnect with old friends thatwe may have not seen in years for various reasons. Online social media helpbridgepreviously insurmountablephysical distances. Before Facebook, it was difficult to follow what your friends were doing. You could writeemails, and before that letters, but the sense of proximity that people get by reading comments and things friends share and seing their pictures on the social media is something never achievedbefore.Instant messaging services, such as Whatsapp, and conference call software, such as Skype,add to this new feeling of proximity withpeople that may be leaving thousands of miles away.

Socialnetworks offer their users the capacity to get almost immediate access to information about things happening elsewhere. When something important happens in the world people often find out almost immediately throughsocial media. Just by spendingfive minutes on your Twitter,Facebook or Redditfeed you can learn about global social, cultural and economic events and trends. They even allow to shame the politicians and other people that have done or said something unethical or wrong.

These platforms also allow for global interaction with peoplefrom different backgrounds. Before social media, interacting with people from distant places was almost exclusively the privilegeof those who could afford travelling.Now through social networking siteswe often engage in discussions and can establish friendships with people very different from us. Somesocial media evenfacilitate people meeting face-to-face. For instance, networks such asCouchsurfing allow you tolive for some timewith people you mighthaveotherwise never met. Likewise somesocial networks specialized in datinghelp people meeting others and often establish long term relationships.

Thanks to the social networks some people and small companies can gainvisibilityfortheir products and creationswithout having to invest much in advertising. Social networks canalso very effective ways to find a job, a business partner or an employee.

Finally, social platforms, such as netivist, help to promote public participation and civic engagement. People have new means to express their views and defend causes they find worth fightingfor. Protest movements around the world, such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement and the European Indignados employed social media for the mobilization and organization of protesters. At the same time, the use of social media, such as Twitter or Reddit, by Obama during his campaign for the White House is a good example of how politicians and citizens can interact more directly to the benefit of political participation and democratic processes.

However, social media may also have some negative effects on our lives and the way people interact. First of all, it is argued that social media may insulate us from the people that surround us. Although these platforms makecommunication easier and more flexiblewith those far away, they can have the opposite impacton our relationships with the people we live with. Who has not been in a family orfriends' reunion,where everyone is just looking at their smartphones or tabletsrather than speaking to each other?

Social networks serve to disseminate information, but the validity of this information cannot always be verified. Thus, social media can beused to spread rumors, propaganda, andmisleading information, now often referred to as "post truth" or "alternative facts."Sometimes this information can have negative impact on the lives of people. Apologies and rectifications tend not to reach as many people and travel as fast as flashy erroneous information. Harm is not always undone or compensated.

Social networking distracts us. Social media have become a source of entertainment but also a means of procrastination. With people oftenchecking Facebook, Whatsapp, or Twitterevery five minutes, it is likely that their productivity at work diminishes. We are constantly bombarded with notifications from social media. Many of them are of no use toour lives.Worse even, in many cases social media may turn into an addiction or obsession with negativepsychological impacts on our lives.

Privacy is also at riskbecausesocial media. Pictures and videos of everyoneare circulating through the internet. Even if we try to be careful, there is no way we can prevent other people from posting pictures ofus or our families on Facebook, Twitter or other social media. How many times have you found yourself removing a tag from a somewhat inappropriate picture taken at a party?Social media are also making it more difficult to separate our professional and social lives. We end up being "Facebook friends" with colleagues, and in some cases this maybackfire. Police surveillance and social media monitoring by governments may also make you feel uncomfortable.

Social media platforms store toomuchinformation about us. Potentially this information could be used by governments and corporations to control us. Most networkingplatforms extract large amounts of information from their users. It is difficult to understand the terms and conditions of use of the platforms, usually captured by long and extremely technical legal documents. Moreover, this information collected about us is not always secured. There have been notable cases in which hackers have managed to steal information about thousands of users.

Finally, these platforms have become fertile grounds foroffences and crime. Many people suffer stalking and bullying through social networks. This has led to dramatic cases where users have ended up committing suicide. Social networks have also beenused to collect information about victims by kidnappers and burglars. Many terrorist organizations recruit members and raise funding through social media.

Watch these videos contrasting the pros and cons of social media:

We summarize the main arguments in favor and against social media and online networking:

Pros

Cons

Social networking has drastically changedour lives. These platforms offermanyadvantages butalso have some downsides. Do you think their impact is overall positive or negative for society? Are they beneficial or detrimental toour social lives?

Social networking pros and cons: Do social media make our lives better? Vote and explain why or how do you think they affect your life. Invite others to join and help us making this discussion more interesting

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What is a Social Network? – Definition from Techopedia

Social networking is based on the concept of "six degrees of separation," wherein any two people can make contact by a chain of, at most, five mediators. This means that at any given time, each person in the world is connected through a link of five people, making social networking a very powerful tool for spreading or obtaining information.

Connections are made possible when a person starts to invite people as contacts. When the invited person accepts the request, the inviter can then invite the invitee's personal contacts, further expanding the network as the cycle continues. Through social networking, interrelated cyber communities can be created in order to help individuals find contacts that may be useful to them but otherwise may be very unlikely for them to meet. With the popularity of social networking sites, more and more people can become part of an online community. They will be able to make new friends as well as share their lives online from wherever they're located.

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What is a Social Network? - Definition from Techopedia