The universe of social media in 2022
For a while, life in the social media universe was uneventful. Consider these spicy (at the time) titles:
Looking back, the years leading up to 2016 were downright drowsy compared to what was to follow. Donald Trump’s meteoric rise to the presidency thanks to tweets. The Cambridge Analytica scandal. Congressional hearings on privacy and bias. TikTok at the center of deteriorating US-China relations. Each new day brought a fresh wave of controversy to the shores of once-foolproof social media platforms.
Now the honeymoon phase is long over and the mess of running a global social platform is now on full display. Nowhere is this more evident than Twitter during Elon Musk’s current transition period, but more on that later.
For now, let’s explore the universe of social media in 2022.
Mapping the universe of social media and messaging
In 2022, the social universe seems more crowded than in previous years.
The scale of Meta platforms still dominates thanks to their global reach, but there are a number of smaller networks battling for market share. Here is an overview of popular platforms, organized from largest to smallest active user base:
In the meantime, here are the top 10 social media and messaging platforms by monthly active users publicly available:
| Rank | Platform name | Head quarter | Primary function | Monthly active users |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Metaplatforms | Social network | 2.9 billion | |
| #2 | Youtube | Alphabet | Video content | 2.3 billion |
| #3 | Metaplatforms | Messaging | 2.0 billion | |
| #4 | Messenger | Metaplatforms | Messaging | 1.3 billion |
| #5 | Metaplatforms | Video content | 1.2 billion | |
| #6 | Tencent | Messaging | 1.2 billion | |
| #seven | ICT Tac | ByteDance | Video content | 732 million |
| #8 | Telegram | n / A | Messaging | 700 million |
| #9 | Douyin | ByteDance | Video content | 600 million |
| #ten | Tencent | Messaging | 595 million |
YouTube is the only real competitor for Meta scale and reach. Alphabet’s video content hub with social features has over two billion monthly active users. YouTube’s embrace of the creator economy pushes the platform further into pure social media territory with the introduction of “handles”.
As the visualization above shows, China has its own ecosystem of major social and messaging platforms, the largest of which is WeChat.
The only platform in the top 20 that isn’t based in the US or China is privacy-focused messaging app Telegram. The Dubai-based company has a single story. It was created after the founders of Russian social network VK left the country after resisting government pressure to release data about the social network’s users in Ukraine.
Today, there are also a number of smaller special interest rigs. OnlyFans, for example, focuses on adult content creators. Parler and Truth Social appeal to users who want fewer constraints on the content they post and consume. BeReal aims to create more authentic moments by inviting users to post a photo at a random time each day.
Below, we dive deeper into a few of these platforms.
Big problem in Little Metaverse
Having a figurehead CEO is a double-edged sword. When all is well, the market rallies around the successful leader. Concrete example, Mark Zuckerberg was named Time’s Person of the Year in 2010. Even in 2016, Glassdoor named the Facebook founder the “Most Admired Tech CEO.”
On the other hand, when the tide turns, it turns fast. After a series of controversies, Zuckerberg took a multi-billion dollar gamble by renaming his entire company Meta and focusing on the burgeoning idea of a metaverse. Meta’s New Horizons platform is rumored to have peaked at around 200,000 active users, which is disappointing for a company that still reaches a significant chunk of humanity with its other services.
Part of Meta’s short-term success is that VR headsets are a hot giveaway this holiday season. Meta’s cheapest headset is $400, which might be a tough sell in today’s economic environment.
Of course, it’s too early to know if Zuckerberg’s gamble will pay off. As always, all is forgiven once a business unit takes off and becomes profitable.
Microblogging with macro expectations
Twitter has a complicated history.
The company was launched in the shadow of Facebook’s massive growth and struggled with expectations that were hard to meet. Although Twitter has an engaged and influential audience, it has failed to monetize them across Meta platforms (for better or worse). The introduction of Twitter Blue in 2021 failed to resonate with users at the scale the company hoped, and “fleets” were essentially written off as a failed experiment.
Additionally, Twitter attracts criticism and debate around freedom of expression, in part because of its central place in political discourse.
These issues are directly related to the recent sale of the company to Elon Musk. At the time of this article, Twitter is in the midst of a painful and very public internal restructuring.
If reports of a talent drain and advertising dollars are to be believed, then the future of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms could be in jeopardy.
ICT Tac
Social media has always been dominated by Facebook and its associated apps. When a new challenger arrived, Facebook either acquired it (Instagram, WhatsApp) or “acquired” its features (Snapchat). ICT Tac is the first challenger to maintain its momentum and growth, even though Instagram has rolled out very similar features.
TikTok is also a rare case of a Chinese tech product crossing into Western markets. TikTok’s ascendancy has not been without controversy, however. Suspicions about the Chinese access to user data continues to be a problem in the United States and other major markets around the world. TikTok has been banned in India since 2020.
Despite these headwinds, TikTok remains hugely popular. The short video platform was the first app downloaded on the planet, and it remains A favorite of the very important demographic generation Z.
We will watch
In recent years, neighborhood social networks have emerged and gained ground. The next door used physical letters sent to adjacent addresses to accelerate its growth, while Neighbors relied on the popularity of Ring’s doorbell cameras. Although members post about more benign topics such as lost cats and where to find a good plumber, crime is also an increasingly common topic.
Apps like Neighbors and Citizen focus more openly on crime and security. While the growth of these apps reflects a clear interest in crime prevention, critics point out that the ubiquity of personal surveillance equipment and forums built solely around public safety fosters a culture of suspicion in communities.
This type of social network is still fairly new, so it remains to be seen if they remain niche communities or become something bigger.
chaos and opportunity
It was Sun Tzu who said, “In the midst of chaos, there are also opportunities.”
That’s the risk and the opportunity in the world of social media today. With their massive networks and high switching costs (e.g. customization, library of existing posts), the biggest platforms have created moats that make life difficult for new brands looking to replace established platforms. On the other hand, controversy on platforms like Twitter and Facebook may cause some users to consider new options.
The multi-billion dollar question is dissatisfaction with mainstream temporary platforms, or will emerging networks like Mastodon or BeReal reach critical mass and become new go-tos for people going online . Time will tell us.
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