A Brief History of Social Media: What’s Not to Like?

This week saw Social Media Day and to celebrate, we thought we would take some time to look back on the history of social media and just how far it has come over the years. 

Before we start, let’s look at why Social Media is worth celebrating.

Social media day first came to light back in 2010, with thanks to digital publisher Mashable who felt it was important to take time to recognise the impact that social media has had on all of us. It’s changed how we communicate; with the ability to connect with current friends, make new friends from around the world, facilitate business, market to a wide audience, and grow our networks on a global scale. 

 

The beginning of Social Platforms 

Did you know that the first recognised social media site – Six Degrees – was founded in 1997? Technically it’s classed as the first form of social media because it utilised many of the popular features we see today, such as profiles and friends lists. But revisiting it now, it’s clear that this site is a far cry from what we would consider a platform to be today. 

 

 

2000’s 

A social media Boom!

The early 2000s brought the first globally recognised social platforms to life. 2002 brought us LinkedIn, the business-focused social channel, which we have seen play a huge part in recruitment over the last few years.

Not long after, the first more globally recognised social platform came to life – Myspace.

In the first half of 2005, Myspace gained millions of users and continued to serve over 100 million users a month until its demise in 2008.

At the latter end of 2005, Youtube appeared on the scene. This provided a brand-new way for people to communicate and share videos on a global scale. Approximately 8 million videos were being watched a day at the time of its launch. Fast forward to 2021, that figure is said to be closer to 5 billion!

We couldn’t discuss the first half of the 2000s without paying homage to Bebo. That name will come as a nostalgic throwback for many as it was first launched in 2005 and offered users the opportunity to customise their profile, write on each other’s wall and ‘share the love’. Re-launched in 2021, the new Bebo is unrecognisable as the platform it once was and now operates as an exclusive ‘invite-only’ community platform. 

Skip to 2006, Facebook was born and climbed it’s way to being the current most popular social site in the world.  

Facebook brought along the design of the ‘like’ button at a time where social media predecessor traffic had just begun to slow down. This created a brand-new way to interact with your audience or network online. Within three years, over 350 million users were signed up. As of 2021, that figure is around 2.7 billion. The figures become more impressive when you consider that the platform was conjured up by a couple of university students in their dorm room.  Not only does Facebook provide the ability to keep in touch with friends all over the world, but it boasts an impressive advertising campaign centre too!

Alongside Facebook in 2006, Twitter launched to the public. Much like Facebook’s creation of the like button, Twitter brought their own ideas such as ‘miniature blogging’ and the use of hashtags. Hashtags allowed the connection of social media content to a specific topic or theme which made it easier to discover posts with relevant content and connect with other like-minded individuals or groups. 

 

2010’s 

The visually focused platform and hangout for social media influences always know as Instagram, was launched in 2010. It was later purchased by Facebook in 2012 and is now the fastest-growing social network at 5% growth per quarter. 

Pinterest also launched in 2010 gave users the ability to create ‘boards’ and pin posts. This nook of a site is satisfying for the creative-led, visual minded amongst us. You can read more about why we love Pinterest on our previous blog. 

A short time later in 2011, Snapchat (originally launched as Picaboo) joined the social media scene and offered a new take on video sharing and texting with a disappearing or time-limited content approach. The innovation of the app continued with Snapchat offering users the capability to play games, keep updated with news, and make use of their innovative photo and video editing tools including the opportunity to search and supply new photo filters.

Zoom to 2016, TikTok came along and took the world by storm. Offering users the ability to create short videos with varying effects and filters. Tiktok can be used for pretty much any content you can think of – from baking, beauty tutorials, popular dances to sharing videos of your pets. Most notably having a huge impact on the music industry with artists creating music with Tiktok in mind to ensure marketers and influencers step up and take part in the variety of related dance trends or challenges in the hope of going viral.

The present-day

That concludes our whistle-stop tour of social media! In less than 40 years, we have gone from text-only based social platforms to several platforms with their own unique selling points and abilities.

But what does this mean for the general public and business? On a personal note, social media has brought people together from all over the world – and when used correctly can provide a wealth of knowledge. The growth of social media platforms has allowed business and marketing opportunities that would have been almost impossible previously. Now, they can be used to market and target a wide audience across a number of platforms.

If you are looking to utilise social media more in your business, you can chat today us at: studio@yellowcherry.uk