Top 35 Social Media Platforms (January 2026)

We’ve compiled a list of the top social media platforms.

Specifically, we ranked the most popular social media networks based on the number of users and monthly traffic data.

(Traffic data was obtained using Semrush unless otherwise stated.)

All traffic data is estimated based on the most recent available data.

What Is The #1 Most Popular Social Media Platform?

According to the latest available data, Facebook is now the world's most popular and widely used social media platform. With over 3 billion monthly active users, approximately 37% of the world’s population uses Facebook at least once per month.

However, Facebook is not used worldwide. Social media bans are commonplace, and the platform is blocked in China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uganda.

With 2.58 billion users, YouTube has dropped to the third most popular social network, just behind WhatsApp and Instagram, which both have 3 billion monthly users.

Social media networks that focus on short-form video content are growing quickly. This includes Instagram and TikTok, which sees just under 2 billion monthly active users. Sora 2 is the newest short form video social media app that's been hyped. However, as SimilarWeb reports, its numbers peaked in early November and have since settled back to around 750K monthly active users. 

Messenger applications like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Telegram have also quickly climbed this list over the past few years after adding (or improving) their short-form video features.

Meanwhile, new social startups are always launching. Check out our social startup directory to see the companies with the fastest growth in this space (and explore other industries, too).  

Top 35 Most Popular Social Media Websites

Ranking	Social Media Network	Company	Monthly Active Users (MAUs)	Monthly Organic Traffic
1	Facebook	Meta	3.07 billion	5.5 billion
2	WhatsApp	Meta	3 billion	719.6 million
2	Instagram	Meta	3 billion	5.9 billion
4	YouTube	Alphabet	2.58 billion	17.3 billion
5	TikTok	ByteDance	1.99 billion	1.2 billion
6	WeChat (Weixin)	Sina Corporation	1.4 billion	1.8 million
7	Telegram	Telegram	1 billion	61.7 million
8	Messenger	Meta	942 million	28.6 million
9	Snapchat	Snap Inc	932 million	41.2 million
10	Reddit	Reddit	765 million	2 billion
11	Douyin	ByteDance	728 million	4.3 million
12	Baidu	Baidu	724 million	51.7 million
13	Kuaishou	Kuaishou	715 million	242.1 thousand
14	Spotify	Tencent	713 million	301.6 million
15	Weibo	Sina	588 million	858 thousand
16	Pinterest	Pinterest	578 million	1.1 billion
17	X (Twitter)	X Corp.	557 million	1.3 billion
18	Qzone	Tencent	532 million	13.3 thousand
18	QQ	Tencent	532 million	-
20	Quora	Quora	400 million	305.8 million
20	Threads	Meta	400 million	29.5 million
22	Bilibili	Bilibili	376 million	10 million
23	Teams	Microsoft	320 million	2.9 million
24	LinkedIn	Microsoft	310 million	347.1 million
25	Vimeo	Vimeo	300 million	6.8 million
26	Viber	Rakuten	260 million	3.7 million
27	Twitch	Amazon	240 million	267 thousand
28	Xiaohongshu (RedNote)	Xiaohongshu	234 million	1.6 million
29	Discord	Discord	200 million	43.5 million
30	Line	Naver	194 million	23.6 million
31	ShareChat	Mohalla Tech	180 million	4.4 million
32	Tumblr	Automattic	135 million	15.6 thousand
33	Medium	A Medium Corporation	105 million	44.8 million
34	VK (Vkontakte)	Gazprombank, Sonaz	91.8 million	199.8 million
35	Rumble	Rumble Inc.	47 million	2 million

Figures are accurate as of January 2026.

Sources: Exploding Topics, Semrush, Data Reportal, Statista (WhatsApp, Baidu, ShareChat, Teams, VK, Messenger), GlobalNewswire (Viber), Snapchat, Business of Apps (Line, Threads), Rest of World (Xiaohongshu), AInvest (Bilibili), Vimeo, Spotify, Discord, Rumble, CNBC, Proxidize

Not surprisingly, this list includes many of the big names in the social media space, like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

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Social media tracking makes it easy to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

The dashboard shows subscriber growth and engagement for multiple platforms in one place.

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Next, let's look at how some of the top social sites are trending. 

1. Telegram

5-year search growth: 121%

Search growth status: Regular

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 61.7 million (See the latest traffic data for telegram.org)

Description: Telegram is a freemium instant messaging application that prioritizes security and encryption. The cloud-based platform allows users to share large media files and create groups of up to 200,000 members. Telegram Premium, an ad-free experience, grew to 1 million users within six months after its launch.

2. TikTok

5-year search growth: 85%

Search growth status: Regular

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 1.2 billion (See the latest traffic data for tiktok.com)

Description: TikTok is a short-form video social media network focused on a highly personalized "For You" feed. Unlike many popular social media sites, TikTok's algorithm shows videos based on users' interactions, making it possible for users to go viral without a huge following.

3. Xiaohongshu (RedNote)

5-year search growth: 2,900%

Search growth status: Exploding

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 1.6 million (See the latest traffic data for xiaohongshu.com)

Description: Xiaohongshu (known in English-speaking countries as RedNote or Little Red Book), is a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform that combines the features of Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Amazon into one platform. The company reported a $500 million profit in 2023, compared to a $200 million loss in 2022. After a recent funding round, the social media giant is now valued at $17 billion.

In late 2024 and early 2025, RedNote experienced a surge in new users. American content creators set up RedNote accounts in response to the possible ban on TikTok in the US.

4. Discord

5-year search growth: 18%

Search growth status: Exploding

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 43.5 million (See the latest traffic data for discord.com)

Description: Discord is a communication platform for creating communities and groups for gaming, education, or any other topic. Notably, the company turned down a $10 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft in 2021.

5. WhatsApp

5-year search growth: 8%

Search growth status: Regular

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 719.5 million (See the latest traffic data for whatsapp.com)

Description: Now part of Meta, WhatsApp is a messaging app that allows users to send text messages, voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share media with other users. End-to-end encryption and user privacy controls keep conversations secure and private.

6. Reddit

5-year search growth: 100%

Search growth status: Regular

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 2.2 billion (See the latest traffic data for reddit.com)

Description: Reddit is a social news and discussion platform where users can share content, vote on it, and comment on posts. It is organized into communities or subreddits about specific niche topics. This social media network aims to create authentic human connections online.

Reddit is a hugely valuable SEO resource for keyword research and monitoring brand mentions, given the organic conversations that happen there. It's also a Google powerhouse in its own right, drawing in more than a 1.5 billion views per month from the search engine.

7. Douyin

5-year search growth: 361%

Search growth status: Exploding

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 4.3 million (See the latest traffic data for douyin.com)

Description: Douyin is a social media app for creating and sharing short videos. It’s popular in China and other Asian countries and is owned and operated by ByteDance, the same company that created TikTok. The platforms are nearly identical but operate as completely separate entities.

Innovations will sometimes start on Douyin before making their way to TikTok. For instance, the rising importance of social commerce on TikTok is directly inspired by its Chinese counterpart, which processed more than $200 billion in transactions every year.

8. Pinterest

5-year search growth: 67%

Search growth status: Exploding

Monthly Organic Search Traffic: 1.1 billion (See the latest traffic data for pinterest.com)

Description: Pinterest is a visual discovery platform. Users create and share virtual moodboards for inspiration in areas like fashion, design and home decor. 

Launched in January 2010, Pinterest is one of the older social media platforms, launching months before Instagram. It has shown that it knows how to adapt with the times, optimizing its social commerce offering and introducing AI into its ad platform. 

Key Takeaways

That concludes our list of the world's most popular social media networks.

Big brands like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have all pivoted to short-form video content to keep users engaged, like TikTok. This content and messaging apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Discord are growing and popular and worth keeping an eye on throughout 2025.

Use our free website traffic checker to analyze traffic for any website or social media platform.