Whether you’re all for international marketing, or simply need to learn more about how audiences around the globe interact with the web, learning in regards to the top global platforms may be an eye-opening experience.
Below, you’ll explore 17 of the preferred social media platforms across the globe, including TikTok’s origin platform — Douyin.
The 17 Biggest Global Social Media Platforms
1. QZone and QQ
- Owner: Tencent
- Origin: China (Available globally, Chinese language-only)
- Name’s Origin: QZone and QQ were shortened from the unique name, OICQ. The O stood for “open” while ICQ is an quick message term that feels like “I Seek You” when said allowed.
- Reported Users: Over 600 million active users on QZone with 574.4 million monthly users on QQ.
QZone is a social media channel while QQ is a messaging app that links to a QZone account. The 2 apps serve as an alternative to Facebook in countries like China and South Korea, where the U.S. platform is blocked.
The platform’s story began in 1999 when QQ launched as a desktop messaging site. QZone, a social media site and app, launched in 2005.
In 2019, as mobile-first mindsets grew, Tencent transformed the QQ website into a standalone app. QZone still serves as a social media platform while QQ is now just like the Facebook Messenger app.
To assist you higher visualize how people have used QQ and QZone, here’s a fast analogy: When U.S. millennials were children, we raced home from school to message our friends on AIM.
Then, as we reached highschool, we ventured onto Facebook, where we could message people, create a profile, and post updates.
Meanwhile, in China, people in my age group may need messaged friends on QQ’s messaging website as an alternative of AIM. Now, QQ users might use its sister app — QZone — for a social media experience that’s comparable to Facebook. Then, to message friends, they use QQ.
On QZone today, users are encouraged to publish posts, videos, and even music. Like Facebook, they may also connect with friends, see a feed of updates, comment, share or react to posts, and update cover or profile photos.
The QQ and QZone are great examples of social brands that gained traction long before platforms owned by U.S. tech firms. QQ and QZone users are so strong in China likely because young audiences adopted its messaging tool and were capable of enjoy its full social network in a while.
Although Facebook launched 2004, one yr before QZone got here out, Tencent had already captured the millennial demographic with QQ, discovered how one can grow its product competitively with QZone, and continued so as to add features to tug in Gen Z audiences.
While QZone and QQ appear to be Facebook alternatives, their history of growth is fairly parallel. And, as one of the biggest social media platforms globally, QQ is value knowing about when you plan to market in Asian territories with heavy censorship.
2. WeChat/Weixin
WeChat launched in 2011, before competitors like Kik and WhatsApp. The messaging app was rolled out by Tencent, which also created QZone and QQ.
Similarly to WhatsApp, WeChat allows free, text-based chats and voice calls. It also has a “Moments” feature just like Instagram or Facebook Stories. Like many U.S. platforms, you possibly can place fun animated stickers on images or videos sent throughout the app.
To affix WeChat, users have to know someone on the platform and have them scan an activation code that a user receives when logging in for the primary time. Then, they will access WeChat’s messaging feature, send videos to friends, and host virtual phone calls.
Except for using the platform for friend-to-friend communication, users may also benefit from more entertaining features.
For instance, while one feature allows people to play in-app games live against friends, others include filters that may be utilized in chats or video calls.
WeChat also connects to a variety of third-party or Tencent-owned apps in order that a user can tackle multiple tasks. You may hail a ride or pay friends money, directly from WeChat.
At this point, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other major apps are using an analogous strategy, pulling additional features into their platforms to maintain users logged in longer.
For instance, many top messengers allow group video calls, offer in-app games, or let users send money.
3. Weibo (Sina Weibo)
Weibo, also called Sina Weibo, is the most important Chinese microblogging and social media platform. The social channel made news in 2017 when it reached more monthly lively users than Twitter.
Since then the app’s continued to grow. Reports suggest that greater than 30% of Chinese internet users now have an account on the platform.
Whenever you visit the web site, it’s routinely in Chinese. Nonetheless, you should utilize Google Chrome’s translator to convert the text to different languages.
Like Twitter, Weibo offers a central feed where you possibly can see the most recent or highest-performing posts. To toggle through several types of posts, you possibly can click a category on the list within the left sidebar.
On the correct, you possibly can see “Hot Topics” just like Twitter’s “Trending Topics.” In case you proceed to scroll down, you’ll also see a box that permits you to seek for people.
While Weibo’s layout and microblogging mission are just like Twitter’s, the Chinese platform emphasizes videos, photos, and trending content, while Twitter still puts an emphasis on the accounts sharing the content.
Although Twitter also prioritizes trending content, you possibly can easily see which of your followers posted, liked, or retweeted it before seeing the content in a tweet.
This enables audiences to subconsciously deal with the one who tweeted something in addition to the tweet itself.
These barely different layouts may also suggest that the audiences of every platform prefer to eat content otherwise. While Twitter’s audience might prefer the human connection, those on Weibo might need to jump straight to the content.
4. Douyin
- Owner: ByteDance
- Origin Country: China (Available only in China; TikTok is on the market globally)
- Name’s Origin: Douyin loosely translates to “shaking sound” or “vibrato.”
- Reported Variety of Users: 613 million active users
Douyin is the Chinese-only counterpart to TikTok, which is owned by the same company. TikTok specifically is a merger of Douyin and the Musical.ly lip-syncing app. Each social media apps concentrate on allowing users to create, edit, and share short-form vertical video.
After Douyin launched in early 2018, it grew to 150 million active users in year one. ByteDance then purchased an analogous lip-syncing app called Musical.ly and created TikTok, a worldwide app that merged one of the best features from each platform.
Since launching in late 2018, TikTok’s also seen viral growth by gaining roughly 1.2 billion active users. Like Douyin, TikTok also sees numerous international influencers from countries like India.
While Douyin and TikTok are very similar short-video apps and are sometimes confused as the identical thing, they’ve a rather different sets of features, are powered by different servers, and have different levels of censorship resulting from regulations around the globe.
Douyin isn’t accessible for us to preview within the U.S., but news outlets describe it as being much more advanced than TikTok — particularly relating to ecommerce.
For instance, while TikTok rolled out promoting options in 2020, Douyin already allowed users to triple-tap a video with a product featured in it to go to a brand’s ecommerce store. Users may also use the app for virtual tours of hotels, stores, or travel locations.
Douyin also reportedly allows users to geotag themselves at a store or location. This could possibly be helpful for providing brand awareness to local brands.
In relation to what Douyin and TikTok have in common, each are apps where users can share short videos that may feature musical overlays, fun filters, and text.
From photos I’ve dug up online, it looks just like the platform’s design may be very similar with some slight design differences. The screenshots below show a video ad and the platform’s search feature:
As a comparison, here’s what a video ad and the search feature seem like on TikTok.
Each apps are also centered around a feed that algorithmically shows users videos from followers or videos that they may enjoy based on previous content they’ve viewed.
When users enter the app and see the feed, one video will begin playing routinely. To see other videos, users simply swipe up on that feed. Here’s what this looks like on TikTok:
Except for the shared features, each fast-paced social media channels are favored by younger generations. While over 92.39% of TikTok’s audience is younger than 34, it’s also been reported that Gen Z has flocked to Douyin.
Douyin and TikTok’s success story is a terrific example of how one unique international platform can change the best way we eat content in other countries. Prior to TikTok’s launch within the Western hemisphere, many Americans hadn’t seen anything just like it since Vine.
Not only did Douyin and TikTok replace the necessity for Vine, but each apps also catered to Gen-Z and millennials, two mobile-first generations known for brief online attention spans and heavy consumption of video content.
5. Kuaishou
Kuaishou is a short-video app that competes with Douyin. This platform began as a GIF-sharing site called Kuaishou GIF. It was like GIPHY within the sense that anyone could create, post, and share GIFs on the network.
In 2012, Kuaishou dropped GIF from its name and pivoted to a brief video platform. Its interface is now very just like Instagram’s.
Kuaishou doesn’t have a “Stories” feature like Instagram, however it features similarly looking profiles and feeds where users share short vertical videos fairly than photos or other content.
Like Douyin or TikTok, the video features of Kuaishou seem fairly similar in that users can leverage sound bites and basic editing tools of their content.
Like many social media platforms with videos, Kuaishou also allows users to overlay text and stickers on images or videos.
From quite a lot of videos which were uploaded to other sites from this platform, it looks like many users have used this app to spotlight their unique skills and musical talent.
Numerous users have also shared videos that highlight and celebrate aspects of rural China.
In 2019, Apple distinguished Kuaishou as a worldwide app that was defining mobile video storytelling trends. This got here shortly after the app notably added ecommerce and monetization features that enabled creators in poverty-stricken rural China to make money from it.
Except for its short videos, Kuaishou also allows users to live stream content on the platform. Much like the short video feature, the stream has allowed users to film longer videos that highlight their skills.
6. VKontakte (VK)
- Owner: Mail.Ru Group
- Country of Origin: Russia
- Name’s English Translation: VKontakte loosely translates to “in touch with.”
- Reported Variety of Users: 67 million users
VK, the biggest social channel in Russia, is like a combination between Facebook, YouTube, and the 90s illegal downloading service LimeWire. This platform allows users to publish and share text-based posts, photos, video files, and music files with their connections.
In relation to this platform’s user interface, it looks eerily just like Facebook, with some slight tweaks to page layouts.
Except for allowing users to share their very own content, they will allegedly upload and stream copyrighted material, comparable to music and flicks. This has allegedly been abundant on the platform since its launch, but legal steps haven’t been taken against it.
The social platform is owned by Mail.Ru Group, a tech company that owns Russia’s main search engines and OK.RU, a social platform noted below. Reports also suggest that this company has affiliations with the Russian government.
Surprisingly, the majority of VK users are between the ages of 25 and 34.
This popularity could possibly be resulting from multiple reasons, including the platform’s ability to permit users to share audio and video files between friends. The platform also encourages users to expand their social circles and never limit themselves to those they’re already in.
7. Odnoklassniki (OK.RU)
- Owner: Mail.Ru Group
- Country of Origin: Russia
- Name’s English Translation: Odnoklassniki translates to “classmate.”
- Reported Variety of Users: 33.8 monthly active users
Odnoklassniki, or OK.RU, is a web site that makes a speciality of connecting individuals with their past classmates. The social media platform is ready up like a blog, just like Tumblr, where users can share life updates, images, or videos, which then show up in other users’ home page feeds.
Together with their classmates’ content, a sidebar shows users the preferred videos which were posted on the platform.
Below is a have a look at the feed. While the positioning is in Russian, I’ve used Google Chrome to translate it so you possibly can get a greater idea of what persons are posting.
Like Tumblr, users may also click on the name or image of one other user in a post to seek out that person’s profile.
These profiles are just like Facebook’s layout in that they show a canopy photo, a user’s top followers (called “participants”), after which a feed of their very own content.
While this platform is analogous to each Tumblr and Facebook, Russian residents don’t commonly use those two platforms as much as OK.RU.
Moreover, with warnings that Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram could possibly be banned in Russia, it’s not shocking that tech corporations on this region have innovated to create similar alternative platforms.
As we’ve seen with the Chinese platforms above, many global platforms have been inspired by or created as an alternative choice to U.S.-based sites that were censored or banned.
These continent-specific platforms could possibly be a theme we proceed seeing in several areas of the world.
In case you’re a global marketer, it could actually be helpful to discover segments of your audience that may not give you the chance to access the platforms you employ for social media marketing. Then, research any alternatives that you could access to advertise your content in those locations.
8. Telegram
- Owner: Telegram Group Inc.
- Origin: UAE
- Name’s Origin: Named after the telegram system, coined by Charles Wheatstone in 1834.
- Reported Users: 700 million monthly active users
Telegram is a cloud-based messaging platform founded in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who also previously founded VK. Known for its end-to-end encryption and deal with privacy, Telegram tends to grow in popularity each time one other app experiences a security breach.
The app was launched as an alternative choice to WhatsApp when the latter announced it might share user information with its parent company, Meta. Because it serves as a secure alternative to WhatsApp, Telegram’s interface looks quite just like the one we’re used to.
At first glance, you would possibly not give you the chance to inform the difference between WhatsApp and Telegram because they appear very similar of their basic text messaging capabilities.
But Telegram takes WhatsApp’s features up a notch with chat folders that assist you organize conversations, open API that permits you to construct your personal Telegram clients, and no sim sign-up to guard your phone number from public view.
Open API also lets you create Telegram Bots that automate tasks and reply to user messages.
What’s also interesting about Telegram is its “Secret Chat” feature which allows users to send messages set to self-destruct after a certain period and leave no trace on its servers.
The app also permits you to create chat channels with as much as 200,000 members, in comparison with WhatsApp’s current 1,024, and enables you to send media with no limits on size or type.
Previously completely free, Telegram launched its Premium tier in 2022. Features comparable to voice-to-text, doubled limits on channels, chat folders, chats, unique stickers and reactions can be found so that you can explore on Telegram Premium.
Telegram currently has 70 million active users in India, 24 million in Russia, 19 million in Indonesia, and 18 million in Brazil. The app also allows sponsored ads in some regions, so it’s value exploring when you’re all for expanding your presence in these countries.
9. LIKEE
- Owner: JOYY Inc.
- Origin: China
- Name’s Origin: Previously named Like, the founders modified the name in 2019 and added an additional “e” to convey the extra value it offered after it was redesigned and rebranded.
- Reported Users: 150 million monthly active users
TikTok’s rise to fame can have been meteoric, however it’s not the one video-sharing social media platform on the block. Singapore-based Bigo Technologies (owned by JOYY Inc.) launched LIKEE in 2017 as a competitor to TikTok.
LIKEE is a brief video-sharing platform that’s gained huge traction since its launch. It focuses on content from young users and celebrities who use the hashtag challenge feature to create viral videos for the app.
Like TikTok, the app features an AI-powered algorithm that recommends content relevant to every user’s interests. LIKEE also has filters, computer graphics, and tools to assist users create content.
In 2018, LIKEE was one of 59 Chinese apps banned in India resulting from the rising tensions between the 2 countries. Before this, India was the biggest market for LIKEE, where it was available in 15 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, and Telugu.
LIKEE seems pretty just like TikTok on the surface, but what sets it apart is its creator monetization tools.
The LIKEE Official Creator program, for instance, gives creators access to different advantages, comparable to invites to exclusive events and promotions on the LIKEE popular page based on their “crown” level.
The app also focuses on live streaming. LIKEE creates a more immersive live streaming experience by allowing creators to create personalized 3D avatars of themselves and allowing them to create and join online communities.
While TikTok continues to be leading the charge as the preferred short-video-sharing platform, LIKEE is slowly gaining ground and should just be the following big thing.
10. LINE
If there’s a powerhouse app that appears to be doing all the things, it’s LINE.
The South Korean messaging app was launched as a response to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami to assist users communicate with one another despite network outages.
It quickly gained traction, becoming certainly one of the biggest messaging tools in Asia.
The messaging tool integrates with a collection of services starting from payments with LINE Pay, telemedicine with LINE Doctor, and music streaming with LINE Music.
The app’s stickers are their very own cultural phenomenon. They’re so popular that you could actually buy real-life merchandise of them on the LINE Friends Store.
The Creators Market also provides users with a platform to monetize their sticker creations and sell them on the LINE Sticker Shop, LINE Theme Shop, and LINE STORE.
LINE’s primary website is in English. Lots of its subsidiary web sites, including LINE for Business and LINE News, are in Japanese.
LINE’s integration with other points of its ecosystem is a terrific way for businesses to achieve recent audiences and construct loyalty with existing ones.
It also eliminates the necessity for users to change between an array of apps, making a streamlined experience and reducing distractions.
11. Douban
- Owner: Beijing Douwang Technology Co., Ltd.
- Origin: China
- Name’s Origin: Named after a hutong, or narrow lane, in Beijing. The literal translation of Douban is “an embryonic leaf.”
- Reported Users: 300 million users
Douban is a preferred social networking platform originating in China. It was created by Yang Bo in 2005 and has since grown to be certainly one of the most important online social networks within the country.
The platform allows users to speak, share their interests, and rate movies, books, music, and other content. On Douban, users can follow one another, create a profile, post and comment on discussion boards, discover recent content, and get recommendations.
Douban is on the market in Chinese, but here’s a translated preview of its homepage.
Dubbed the “Chinese version of IMDb” resulting from its deal with movies and film reviews, Douban can be known for being certainly one of the few Chinese social networks that enables political discussions, although censorship continues to be enforced.
The platform hosts many events and activities, comparable to meetups, lectures, film screenings, and festivals. It also has a web-based radio station called Radio Douban which allows users to tune in and hearken to music from different sources.
Douban boasts a full of life online community for young and educated Chinese users engaged in literary and film discussions. It’s also proven popular amongst young people because it allows them to specific their views, stay connected, and discover recent content.
In 2022, the app tightened its policies and now requires overseas users to register with a mainland cell phone number or official identity document to proceed using the platform. Briefly, anyone who wants to make use of Douban must prove their identity.
Beijing’s increasing censorship could also be tricky to navigate for brands attempting to tap into this educated and affluent demographic, yet it’s still possible to have success on Douban if done right.
12. Baidu Tieba
- Owner: Baidu
- Origin: China
- Name’s Origin: Baidu Tieba — the word Tieba is just the pronunciation of the Chinese word “贴吧”, a made-up word that translates to “Let’s Post.” The word Tieba has its meaning prolonged to the word “forum” or “group” as well.
- Reported Users: 45 million monthly active users
Tieba is certainly one of the most important Chinese discussion forum networks. The parent company, Baidu, also owns certainly one of the most important search engines like google on the earth, with 3.3 billion searches per day. Established in 2003, Tieba is a forum-style interactive community where users can share content and discuss topics of common interest.
Tieba offers a wide selection of features for users, comparable to customizable avatars, computer graphics, and tools to assist you customize your posts. There are also an in depth array of filters that let you seek for posts by keywords or tags.
Every Tieba, or individual community, has its primary coordinator, normally known as the “administrator” or the “moderator” in English. This coordinator is accountable for keeping the forum secure and orderly.
Tieba’s user-generated, content-driven nature makes it a great platform for businesses to have interaction with their customers, construct relationships, and discover what their customers think.
The platform uses two points — experience points and account level — to evaluate the standard of its users. The more you engage on the platform and interact with other users, the upper the account level and the more experience points you’ll gain.
Baidu Tieba had accrued over 300 million monthly lively users, and its registered users skyrocketed to 1.5 billion by 2015.
By 2021, nevertheless, the Reddit-style platform lost 90% of its users resulting from issues comparable to lack of management and excessive commercialization. With 45 million lively users, it still has considerable potential to determine itself as a serious player available in the market.
The web site is in Chinese, and also you’ll should use Google’s translate feature to access its content.
The central feed displays hot topics and discussions. Users can scroll through these topics to seek out relevant information, take part on existing conversations, or create recent ones.
The feed also displays news at the highest, which you possibly can click on to remain updated with recent events.
13. BeReal
- Owner: Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau
- Origin: France
- Name’s Origin: The name pertains to its deal with users uploading unpolished photos.
- Reported Users: 73.5 million monthly active users
BeReal, a French anti-influencer social media app launched in 2020, only allows users to post pictures and videos which might be unedited and unfiltered to advertise “authenticity.” The app discourages users from curating a version of themselves that’s inconceivable to achieve.
BeReal notifies users to take an image in two minutes using their back and front cameras concurrently with a location and optional caption.
While other users can’t like or dislike a post, they will comment. It’s also possible to react to posts with a “RealMoji,” which is an image of your personal face.
The app is most popular in the U.S., followed by France and the U.K. BeReal’s monthly lively users increased by greater than 300% in 2022.
Gen Z, currently the most important generation on Earth, seems to have a liking for BeReal’s more realistic approach.
In a recent article, Meredith Mueller, a sophomore on the University of Kansas, highlights how, unlike Instagram or Snapchat, BeReal offers a pressure-free experience.
“Snapchat is more such as you’re sending this to at least one person, when you post in your story, you’re attempting to look good,” she said. “Whereas that is like … wherever you’re at, whatever you’re doing, you stop within the moment and all your pals can see it. It’s more like a down-to-earth app. I might say it’s like a judgment-free zone.”
BeReal currently doesn’t offer any promoting or monetization opportunities for brands. Brands like e.l.f. Cosmetics and Chipotle launched brand accounts last yr and built followings with discount codes.
Still, with the app’s spontaneous nature and BeReal’s determination to take care of its philosophy of authenticity, it might be interesting to see how brands adopt it.
What’s clear is that Gen Z loves this authenticity, and types should be revolutionary to create a presence on the platform.
14. Moj
- Owner: Mohalla Tech
- Origin: India
- Name’s Origin: The name is a spin on the Hindi word “mauj,” which suggests entertainment.
- Reported Users: 120 million monthly active users
Thirty hours after India banned 59 Chinese apps resulting from ongoing tensions with China on June 29, 2020, the Indian social media platform ShareChat launched Moj.
The app was designed to copy TikTok, thus offering an analogous user experience with features, comparable to 15-second videos and computer graphics. Inside three days of its launch, Moj amassed 50,000 downloads.
India, the country with the largest population on the earth, has 22 official languages. Moj supports over 15 languages, including English, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam.
Like TikTok, users can lip sync, create digital art, and use AI-powered effects. The app also features interest-based content recommendations and live streaming.
Since Moj is a TikTok replica, its interface looks almost similar to TikTok. It has a house page, which displays trending and up to date videos, and in addition allows users to browse content in several categories.
Users can browse the app without having to register. To begin creating and sharing content, nevertheless, they have to join with their phone number or Facebook account.
“Moj for Creators,” a program launched in April 2022, goals to assist creators earn Rs 3,500 crore by 2025 with recent monetizable features.
These features include performance-based weekly rewards, brand collaborations, creator courses, an exclusive creator club, and a dedicated creator manager to assist creators grow.
Except for this, Moj Live also allows users to earn money and rewards by live streaming their content. Creators can engage with their audience in real-time and send virtual gifts.
Despite its efforts, Indian creators think local alternatives like Moj come nowhere near the extent of recognition that TikTok offered.
Nevertheless, Moj has gained immense popularity in India and offers global businesses a gateway to a various and fast-growing market.
15. Xiaohongshu
- Owner: Xingyin Information Technology
- Origin: China
- Name’s Origin: Xiaohongshu translates to “Little Red Book.”
- Reported Users: 158 million monthly active users
The Chinese answer to Instagram, Xiaohongshu (also often called Little Red Book or RED) is a content-driven, ecommerce platform that connects local and international Chinese consumers to brands.
Xiaohongshu was created by Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao in 2013 and has since grow to be a frontrunner within the user-generated content (UGC) space.
When it first launched, WeChat and Weibo dominated the Chinese social media landscape. Xiaohongshu tapped into the young Chinese urban women’s market by providing a platform for them to read product reviews, share user experiences, and discover recent products.
The app currently focuses on beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and travel. Today, 70% of its user base are women.
RED’s deal with products and shopping makes it popular among the many Chinese elite. Chinese shoppers will make up 40% of all luxury consumers by 2030. The app taps into the buying power of affluent Chinese millennials and provides beneficial insights into their shopping habits.
Xiaohongshu’s essential feed has three tabs: Follow, Explore, and Nearby. Despite the fact that the app is analogous to Instagram, its “Nearby” feature is exclusive and allows users to find recent places, products, and trends around their location.
The app’s post tool also offers more editing features than Instagram, including beautify.
The Explore tab includes categories comparable to weight reduction, manicures, cosmetics, mother-baby, and emotion, showing how RED uses traditionally female-focused topics to create engaging content.
Xiaohongshu allows brands to have their storefronts on the app, which users can access to seek out out more in regards to the brand and buy their products.
RED’s deal with a distinct segment female demographic, ecommerce capabilities, and unique content make it a beneficial platform for brands looking to achieve the Chinese market.
Brands can partner with local influencers to spread awareness, sell products, and have interaction with the audience.
16. Yubo
- Owner: TWELVE APP
- Origin: France
- Name’s Origin: The app was previously named Yellow and it has since rebranded to Yubo.
- Reported Users: 60 million users
One other French social media app that’s rising in popularity amongst Gen Z is Yubo. Launched in 2015 by Sacha Lazimi, Jérémie Aouate, and Arthur Patora, the app goals to create an area for young people to fulfill recent friends and find their community.
Yubo, formerly often called Yellow, was created with an emphasis on safety, openness, and inclusiveness. The app is aimed toward teenagers and encourages users to create groups, share photos and videos, chat with friends, play games, and even live stream.
For a while, Yubo was often called the “Tinder for Teens” resulting from its swipe-based interface. Users can select who they need to connect with based on their interests and profiles.
The platform attempts to maintain its younger and older users separate with two disconnected communities — one for young people aged 13 to 17 and an adult community for people aged 18 and above.
Separate communities prevent users in a single community from interacting with users in the opposite community.
Previously, Yubo faced backlash due to its security issues, including the power of adults to create and use fake accounts.
Nonetheless, Yubo has since implemented measures comparable to partnering with digital identity provider Yoti to assist vet suspicious users and manage ID verification. In 2022, Yubo also rolled out age “estimating” technology to higher discover minors.
Users can use the in-app currency, YuBucks, to make purchases, comparable to adding an additional number of recent friends or boosting their profile to get more visibility. Yubo also features ads, which users can opt to skip or watch in exchange for YuBucks.
Yubo has a partnership with Snapchat revolving across the Snapchat Camera Kit, which allows the platform and its creators to make use of Snapchat’s filter system and features. Yubo also creates game filters you possibly can play with, like on Snapchat.
17. Rakuten Viber
Viber is a free messaging and calling app created in 2010 by two Israeli brothers, Talmon Marco and Igor Megzinik.
Viber quickly gained popularity resulting from its intuitive interface, seamless syncing across devices, encryption, HD audio and video calls, and an in depth array of stickers.
In 2014, Rakuten, the world’s third-largest ecommerce company acquired Viber for $900 million.
Since then, the app has made significant improvements, comparable to introducing video and voice messaging, payments, games, and even its own currency called “Vibes.”
The platform has users in 190 countries, and its registered users have surpassed 260 million monthly lively users. Here’s a preview of Viber’s feed.
As you possibly can see, you furthermore mght have a “My Notes” tab that permits you to write notes and memos.
Viber also has an in depth array of features that make it great for business use. It provides collaboration tools comparable to polls, surveys, and document sharing, amongst others.
Viber Business offers a variety of tools to assist corporations reach their customers, comparable to allowing transactions, offering real-time customer support, and sending relevant messages and promotions.
In January 2023, Viber launched a Business Inbox, which permits you to organize and filter messages from business businesses comparable to delivery services, stores, and banks.
The app’s mobile-focused features, comparable to a fast registration process, easy contact updates, one-tap calling, and integrated mission services, make it a superb option for businesses looking to have interaction with customers on the go.
The Similarities of Global Social Platforms
Despite their critical differences, social media industries around the globe have some fascinating similarities to that of the U.S.
For instance, while a lot of North America’s most distinguished social media apps are owned by Facebook or were created in Silicon Valley, most distinguished global platforms were created by Tencent or other major tech firms based in China. Similarly, the 2 biggest Russian platforms are owned by the identical company.
Although lots of the apps above were created and launched in highly censored areas, they don’t appear to be falling behind on innovation resulting from those regulations.
Because international social platforms have evolved on an analogous timeline as many common U.S. platforms, it looks like these geographies are constructing their very own parallel social media industries, fairly than simply racing to create alternatives to our own platforms.
One thing major difference is that lots of the examples on this list emphasize direct communication greater than content.
Meanwhile, our own platforms emphasize content and user experience. While every social media platform we use today does have messenger with various features, only a couple of of them are or were ever standalone messengers.
For instance, QZone and WeChat built their initial audiences as messenger apps and broadened their features from there. Meanwhile, Snapchat and WhatsApp are the one top platforms that began as direct messengers.
While Facebook Messenger is probably the most distinguished text messaging platforms, it’s an expansion of Facebook’s original News Feed-centered platform.
Going Global
In case you’re all for reaching international audiences, it’s best to concentrate to the social media platforms they mostly use, and what they use them for.
This offers you insight on what kinds of content these groups engage with, what motivates them, and what strategies could persuade buying decisions.
If you ought to tap into a global audience, but can’t access a few of the platforms on this list, you possibly can alternatively consider testing out a campaign on a globally accessible platform like WhatsApp and WeChat.
