We just spoke to you all about the importance of social media and how to include your social media platforms on your business’s main website. Today we’ll talk more about some of those social media platforms, looking specifically at four extremely popular ones and their history. Ready for some fun facts!?
Facebook was introduced to Harvard University in 2004 by, then student, Mark Zuckerberg. Quickly, the social networking site grew throughout the prestigious university and even on to other universities in Boston. It was only in 2005 that “The Facebook” became officially known as Facebook.com and was available to all universities across the United States. Next, high schools gained access, and then it became a worldwide phenomenon that any university could utilize as they chose. Then, in 2006 the site moved beyond the educational state of mind and became available to everyone. To this day Facebook has not stopped growing and adding new up-to-date features that keep users coming back after a whole decade has gone by. To stress the point, Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest self-made billionaire ever in 2008.

Insgtagram is the social networking site solely created for those filtered pictures that make the least creative of us professional photographers. This site has been a success story from the go and had 1 million users two months after their launch and 10 million in 2011. Funny enough, though Instagram was founded only in 2010 by two men, it was bought in 2012 by Facebook! Of course, like any other website, Instagram has gone through tons of changes and updates throughout the years that make the photo uploading experience something that most people couldn’t have imagined.

Twitter has become a new sort of Mecca for sharing news and information, opinions, and for viewing celebrity insights among many other topics. What twitter allows is for a short piece of some sort of information to be shared with an extremely large audience and for any one person to share their information, or whatever they want to say, across a vast platform. Many celebrities are simply huge on twitter, having millions and millions of followers that want to know their every move. Businesses have also caught the Twitter bug, many brands have accounts, allowing them to reach their customers in a completely different, and potentially more affective way, than ever before as a two-way, quick and simple form of communication has been offered. Today, Twitter has well over 200 million followers and the company that started with only eight employees seven years ago has grown incredibly.

Pinterest allows for the minds of creative people everywhere to constantly flow and be shared for those, often less creative, to gain new ideas on food, arts and crafts, decorations etc. In 2010 Pinterest had only 5,000 users but only two years later that number skyrocketed to over 17 million. That being said, here we have another site who’s growth has simply been incredible. Founder, Ben Silberman, will explain how, before Pinterest, he had every intention to enter the medical field, but the site took off and became a successful full time job in itself. The hope is to get Pinterest to a successful point where it is considered a multi-billion dollar business.

So, there you have them, tons of quick fun facts about a select few of the major social networking sites that are hot today for both individual users and businesses, meaning that these four sites are also great ways to reach and interact with your customer base! Don’t be afraid to consult someone if you’re still unsure about social media, plenty of people have mastered the art and you can learn from them!
We’ve got more business advice coming your way next time!

Carlson, Nicholas. “Pinterest CEO: Here’s How We Became The Web’s Next Big Thing [DECK].” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 24 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.
“The Complete History of Instagram.” WeRSM We Are Social Media. N.p., 03 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.
“‘Forbes’: Facebook CEO Is Youngest Self-made Billionaire – USATODAY.com.” ‘Forbes’: Facebook CEO Is Youngest Self-made Billionaire – USATODAY.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.
“The History of Twitter.” Socialnomics. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.
Phillips, Sarah. “A Brief History of Facebook.” The Guardian. N.p., 27 July 2007. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.
Written by Chanelle Surphlis