Social Media – Past, Present And Future
In this article, we will tell you about social networks - their history, benefits and risks for users and business, as well as prospects for the foreseeable future.
Content:
1. What is social media? The history of their origin and development
2. Popular social networks in 2021
3. Benefits and dangers of social networks
4. What are the business benefits of social media?
5 . The future of social media
6. Instead of a conclusion
Social networks have long been an integral part of the modern Internet. Moreover, we can safely say that today the Internet is one global social network, consisting of a number of popular services, platforms and applications. The recent disruption of Facebook, Instagram and other social networks has clearly shown how much humanity has come to depend on them.
Therefore, we decided to devote our new article to social networks. From it you will learn about when they appeared and how they developed, what popular social networks exist, what are their features and what audience they are intended for. Also here we will talk about the advantages and dangers of such platforms for their users, as well as their benefits for entrepreneurs and methods of promoting business through them. At the end of the article, we will present forecasts for the development of social networks and assessments of how they will change in the near future.
What is social media? The history of their origin and development
A social network is an online platform for communication and other types of interaction of its users. With the help of such services, people can communicate with each other, exchange information and content, search for and offer work, find like-minded people, fellow travelers, etc. Social networks are actively used to coordinate users into groups united by common tasks, goals, interests or problems.
The predecessors of social networks were electronic bulletin boards, which were actively developing back in the 80s, long before the advent of the Internet. In particular, by 1988 their number exceeded 5000. However, the Classmates.com service, which was launched in 1995 in the United States, is considered the first classic social network. By the way, the most famous copy of this site is the popular Russian social network Odnoklassniki.
The era of the social media boom came at the beginning of the 2000s, when such famous sites as LinkedIn (2002), Facebook (2003) and MySpace (2004) appeared. The most popular and massive among them subsequently became the Facebook platform, which had 2.85 billion active users by March 2021. The FB phenomenon is reflected in modern culture, in particular, about the history of the creation and development of this project in 2010, the box-office Hollywood film "The Social Network" was shot.
In 2006, such a popular social network as Twitter appeared, its appearance heralding the beginning of the era of microblogging. In the same year, the social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki were launched, which for many years have become the most popular platforms for the Russian-speaking audience. Finally, in 2010, Instagram was born - the most famous photo and video sharing application with a wide range of possibilities for communication.
Popular social media in 2021
The social media industry does not stand still, but is constantly updated. Some sites quickly reach the peak of popularity, while others are gradually losing their audience. Among the social networks in demand in 2021 it is worth noting:
- Facebook. The largest and most massive social network in the world provides rich functionality for private, professional and business communication. It has a very large and varied audience - both in terms of age and location, interests, occupation and other criteria. All this makes it an extremely effective platform for doing business and promoting goods or services. Facebook has over 65 million registered companies and over 7 million active advertisers.
- YouTube. The most popular video hosting service in the world belongs to Google Corporation. It was launched in 2005 and by 2020 the number of its users exceeded the 2 billion mark. The development of this social network gave rise to a new in-demand profession - video blogging. As for the YouTube channels with the largest number of subscribers, they mainly relate to the areas of entertainment, music and gaming content, as well as personal blogs.
- Instagram. The well-known application for publishing and sharing photo-video content appeared in 2010, and already in 2018 it had over 1 billion registered users. Instagram is especially popular among young people - as of April 2020, most of its users were in the age group from 13 to 34 years old. And in the US, Instagram is considered one of the most popular online services among teenagers, second only to Snapchat.
- Twitter. The largest social network in the microblogging format allows users to publish short posts with a limit of 280 characters, as well as attach photo-video content to them. Twitter has a monthly audience of over 380 million active users who post over 500 million tweets to their accounts every day.
- TikTok. A relatively new Chinese social network for posting short videos was launched in 2018, and in September 2021 its active monthly audience reached 1 billion users. TikTok is extremely popular among young people between the ages of 16 and 24 - over 40% of its users fall into this category. The platform is most in demand in China, India and the United States.
- Clubhouse. Founded in 2020, the social network with communication in the format of audio conferencing has quickly become one of the brightest Internet trends in 2020-2021, largely due to limited access. Registration and entrance to the social network Clubhouse is possible only by invitations of existing members, and each of them can distribute only a few invites. The peak of popularity of the site (more than 10 million weekly active users) came in February 2021, when Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg registered on it.
Benefits and dangers of social media
The essence of social networks lies in their wide possibilities for creating and maintaining social connections between users around the world. With their help, people can conveniently communicate with their friends and acquaintances, publish private and public content (photos, videos, texts, etc.), discuss any relevant topics, cooperate and support each other.
In addition, many social networks provide an unlimited choice of entertaining, cognitive and educational content: films, games, music, clips, books, guides, courses, etc. These platforms also help to quickly distribute news content to a large audience, recruit participants for various mass events, actions, rallies and flash mobs.
Finally, social media is a convenient way of communication between a business and its target audience. On the one hand, they are optimal for promoting brands and their products, and on the other hand, they act as an effective channel for feedback from their customers.
However, social networks can be not only useful, but also very harmful and dangerous for their users. They represent an open source of personal data of millions and billions of real people, which are of considerable interest to law enforcement agencies, corporate security services and cybercriminals. Over the past decades, there have been multiple leaks of passwords from social networks, including such large and well-known ones as VK, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
An equally important problem is considered to be psychological dependence on social networks, which can cause problems with self-esteem (the so-called "addiction to likes") and concentration, lead to problems with sleep and depression. Social media is often used for harassment and bullying, which makes it especially dangerous for children and adolescents.
What business benefits do social media have?
Social networks are not only a popular way to communicate and share content, but also an effective channel for promoting goods and services. Companies and individual entrepreneurs actively use these sites for such purposes as:
- Attraction of leads and growth of sales. Social media provides businesses with a large audience that may well be interested in their brands and products. In the implementation of these goals, business is helped by targeted advertising campaigns with detailed analysis of the target audience and grouping of users in accordance with the specified criteria. Advertisers show ads to targeted audiences and collect leads by channeling them into the sales funnel.
- Promote loyalty. Social networks are optimal for communicating with customers: processing orders, providing information on products, reviewing feedback, conducting marketing campaigns, surveys, solving problems, etc. The functionality of these platforms provides a quick and convenient exchange of information, which helps the business to meet the needs of the audience in a timely manner and thereby stimulate its loyalty.
- Increasing brand awareness. Through social networks, a business can effectively convey information about its new brand or product to the widest possible audience. At the same time, advertiser does not need to use direct mailings; he can get by with viral advertising. In this case, users will independently repost to their pages and send their friends the content that interests them or the product they like.
- Search for employees. In the modern world, employers do not have to seek help from recruiting agencies or pay for posting vacancies on specialized sites. Sometimes, for a successful search for employees, it is enough to publish a post with a vacancy on Facebook or register an account on the social network LinkedIn.
The future of social media
Social networks are developing very dynamically, so it is very difficult to accurately predict their future. However, experts identify several realistic trends, the prerequisites for which are already visible today.
One of the most popular trends in this area is the emergence of a new unified messenger or the integration of existing ones by creating a unified standard for instant messages. The next important forecast is the further spread of video content and a decrease in the number of texts in social networks.
In addition, further integration of social networks with online stores is noted in the list of popular trends of the future. Already, all major sites have built-in marketplaces and allow users to buy and sell goods and services through their interface. In the future, the social networks are waiting for an ever-increasing expansion of e-commerce functionality.
Other likely trends in social networks include integration with search engines, which will allow them to quickly broadcast new content (posts, stories, etc.) from the news feed to search engine results. Another important trend is the further development of services and applications built into social networks. A special place among them is occupied by chat bots, which in the future may well become irreplaceable helpers and assistants of users.
Instead of a conclusion
The modern Internet can no longer be imagined without social networks, they have become such an important part of the online space. These are truly universal and multitasking platforms that effectively "cover" a multitude of needs, goals, objectives and problems of both ordinary users and professionals or entrepreneurs.
It is important that they do not stand still, but are constantly changing, following new trends and content formats. In the 2000s and the first half of the 10s, blog platforms (LiveJournal, LiveInternet) with predominantly text content were highly popular. And nowadays, users are increasingly abandoning long texts in favor of short videos, which brings new platforms, such as Instagram or TikTok, to the hype wave.
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