Social media platforms are becoming more like search engines and are used by many people as primary search tools. In fact, younger users, especially Gen Z, are turning to social media as a primary search tool. Eight in ten 13-39-year-olds say they’ve used a social media platform to search for content, news, products, and more.
In our latest podcast episode, Rachel and I discuss social media and raise the question of does it really matter? If you’re not a podcast listener (why not?!) you can find all the answers to the question right here in this article.
Social media platforms have several features that are identifiable as features of search engines;
- Search bars – Social media platforms have search bars at the top of the screen that allow users to search for specific terms or hashtags.
- Search features – Social media companies are investing in improving their search features, including advanced filters and geographical search.
- Visual discovery – Some platforms, like Instagram and Pinterest, emphasise visual discovery over text-based searches.
This is exactly why social media optimisation is a thing!
What Is Social Media?
Definition: websites and programs that allow people to communicate and share information on the internet.
History of Social Media
- 1969 – In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was first used, making it a huge milestone in computer networking and the development of the internet. Its initial purpose was to link computers at research institutions over telephone lines. websites and applications that enabled users to participate in social networking.
- 1980s – In the 1980s and early ’90s, the internet’s growth enabled the introduction of online communication services such as CompuServe, America Online (now known as AOL) and Prodigy. They introduced users to digital communication services that we’re used to today.
- 1997 – SixDegrees.com was a social networking site launched in 1997 that is widely considered to be the first social media platform. Users could create profiles, list friends and family, and send messages to others on the site. At its peak, Six Degrees had 3,500,000 registered users.
- 2001 – Friendster. This platform attracted millions of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.
- 2002 – LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. It now has +1b users.
We then had a period where loads of sites launched, succeeded and folded.
- 2003 – Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet, spurred by users’ ability to share new music directly on their profile pages. By 2008, it was eclipsed by Facebook. In 2011, Myspace was purchased by musician Justin Timberlake for $35 million, but it has since become a social media afterthought.
- 2012 – Google’s attempt to elbow its way into the social media landscape, Google+ launched in 2012. A rocky existence came to an end in 2018, after the private information of nearly 500,000 Google+ users was compromised by a data security breach.
The Current ‘Big Players’ in Social Media
- Facebook – 2004 – launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, has nearly 3.7 billion users.
- Reddit – 2005 – launched by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian as a news-sharing platform, its 500 million users have transformed Reddit into a combination news aggregation/social commentary site.
- Twitter – 2006 – founded as a microblogging site, by 2020, 22% of U.S. adults were Twitter users.
- Instagram – 2010 – founded as a photo-sharing site and purchased by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide.
- Pinterest – 2010 – Founded by iPhone app developer Ben Silbermann as a visual “pinboard,” Pinterest became a publicly traded company in 2019 and has more than 522 million active monthly users.
- Snapchat – 2011 – founded by a trio of Stanford students — this video-sharing service introduced the concept of stories and filters.
- TikTok – 2016 – founded by Chinese tech company, this short-form video-sharing site was merged with the U.S.-based mobile app Musical.ly in 2018 and became popular with teens and young adults primarily. As of early 2020, it had more than 1.6b users worldwide.
Who Is Using Social Media?
Before we delve into ‘does social media matter?’, let’s first explore who is using social media. Social media usage has grown significantly over the years, with a 79.1% increase since 2017.
As of April this year, there were 5.07 billion social media users worldwide, which is 62.6% of the global population.
In our podcast episode, Rachel raises the question that nobody really wants to truthfully answer… what is your screen time?
On average, people spend 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media each day.
Social Media Controversies
With all the positives of social media, come negatives. The growth of social media platforms has introduced an array of controversies, some of which way make people question whether social media matters to their business, their lives and society as a whole.
- Trolling
In 2022, 36% of people in the UK said they had been trolled online.
“The spread of misinformation in social media has become a severe threat to public interests.”
The spread of misinformation is a huge contreversy within social media, especially surrounding things like politics (keep your eyes peeled for another podcast episode coming soon about this).
To answer the question of ‘does social media matter’ becomes a little bit more difficult when we take into consideration the amount of opinions and misinformation that is increasing as the popularity of the platforms grows.
- The ‘Dead Internet’ theory.
Definition: The dead internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content to intentionally manipulate the population and reduce organic activity.
Right now, 10% of internet content is already produced by artificial intelligence, but experts predict that 90% of content online will be AI-generated by 2026.
Bots are on the rise across the multitude of social media platforms that continue to dominate the web.
Elon Musk claims that 33% of content on X is bots, however, that is disputed.
So what is the future?…
Despite social media playing a huge role in the dead internet theory growing, which is only set to increase thanks to the dominance of AI and bots across the web, these platforms are still racing to become the ’everything app’, offering everything to its users.
Does Social Media Matter?
Encompassing all the points that we have explored in this podcast episode, we are still left with the key question – does social media matter?
Despite raising concerns about the quickly evolving platforms swarming the internet and the impact it is having on society, in terms of business, utilising social media platforms can have a massively beneficial effect.
Here at GrowTraffic, we offer social media optimisation and management in order to boost shares, follows and engagement, as we know this can create real growth and tangible results for businesses.
Social media plays a huge role in society and can therefore play a crucial part in growing a business.
If you want to learn more about the impact social media can have on your business, why not reach out to our team.
You can listen to our ‘Does Social Media Matter?’ podcast episode on all podcast streaming platforms.
