Social Media Analysis

19 February 2025

Introduction:

While filing my taxes with TurboTax I quickly felt thankful for their design team's skills which made the tax process fast and easy for me. The navigation was intuitive and enhanced my ability to quickly switch between forms. This got me wondering how large social networks employ designs to enhance, and encourage a user's ability to switch between pages. Let's attempt to understand the various large scale social networks, their features, focus, target audience, among other things.


Facebook:

  • Focus: User-generated media (video, image, text), Social Connection
  • Features: Chat, Stories, Cured Feed, Following/Follower, Live Stream, Comments, Marketplace, Poke
  • Total Users: about 3 billion monthly active users (MAU)
  • Revenue (Profitable): Ads
  • Audience: All
  • Result: Creator economy


YouTube:

  • Focus: Video sharing platform
  • Features: Algorithm, Comments, Subscribers, Voting System
  • Total Users: < 3 billion MAU
  • Revenue (Profitable): Ads
  • Audience: All
  • Result: Creator economy


TikTok :

  • Focus: User-generated content, short video
  • Features: Creative Tools, Cured Feed, Following/Follower, Live Stream, Comments, Voting System
  • Total Users: < 1 billion users
  • Revenue (Profitable): Ads
  • Audience: Young adults
  • Result: Creator economy


Reddit:

  • Focus: User-generated content, Q/A, community
  • Features: Subdomains, Karma (Contribution points), Comments, Voting System, Moderators, Automation
  • Total Users: > 1 billion users
  • Revenue (Not profitable): Ads
  • Audience: Mostly male
  • Result: High quality search


Pinterest:

  • Focus: User-generated content, images
  • Features: Saved Pins, Image Search, Cured Feed, Followers
  • Total Users: 500 million MAU
  • Revenue (Not profitable): Ads
  • Audience: Mostly women
  • Result: High quality search


Tinder:

  • Focus: Matching user profiles, dating
  • Features: Swipe, Chat, Profile Visibility Boosts, Cured Feed based on matching algorithm (Gale-Shapeley)
  • Total Users: < 100 million
  • Revenue (Profitable): Subscriptions + Ads
  • Audience: Singles
  • Result: Love court


Substack:

  • Focus: Visibility platform for writers
  • Features: Paid Subscription, Follow/Following, Audio Play, Likes/Comment/Restack, Subdomains, Chat
  • Total Users: < 30 million MAU
  • Revenue (Non profitable): 10% commission from creators
  • Audience: Writers, readers
  • Result: Creator economy


Common Features:

Multi-media user-generated content

Follower/Following or Subscriber system

Voting system for best comments

Cured feeds


Comment your experiences with these social networks below.