Social Media Landscape in India

As this is a digital era, the number of internet users is increasing day by day in both the urban as well as rural areas. In the past five years there has been a subsequent increase in the number of internet users all over the world. Now let us know the number of internet users of the past five years

• In the year 2015, there were only 259 million internet users in India.
• In the year 2016, there has been an increase in the number of internet users and this figure reaches 296 million.
• In the year 2017, there were 438 million internet users in India.
• In the year 2018, there were almost 483 million users of the internet.
• In the year 2019, this figure reaches 560 million internet users.
• And by December 2020, it is expected that this figure in India will cross 639 million mark.

After China, India is considered as the second largest online market. India has a majority of mobile phone internet users who take several benefits of cheap substitute of expensive and costly broadband/ Wi-Fi connections that essentially require laptops, PCs, etc. Every month an average of 11 gigabits of data are consumed by Indian mobile data users. India is the highest in global markets from the markets of China, the US, France, South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Spain. 

As internet users in India have increased subsequently over the years, there has also been an increase in the number of active social media users. India has 330 million active social media users in the year 2019. And by the year 2023, it is expected that this figure will reach 483 million means in the year 2023, there will be almost 483 million active social media users in India. Out of 330 million active social media users, almost 290 million active social media users have access to various social networking sites through their mobile phones, i.., smart phones only. India’s median age is 27.1 years. The main contributors of social media use in India are Millennials and Gen Z. Millennials are responsible for almost 52.3% of social media results followed by Gen Z which is responsible for 28.4% of social media conversations and the rest 15.1% came from those people who are aged between 35 to 44. Almost 97% of Indians who have access to the internet watch videos online. In India, Facebook and YouTube are the most popular and famous social media networking sites in India followed by amazon and flipkart which are the most famous and most used online shopping sites in India. The most downloaded app of the year 2019 was Tiktok which has been banned now. When WhatsApp entered into India’s digital market, it has boosted usage of apps. In recent years, it has almost doubled the usage of apps in rural areas. Apart from Facebook and YouTube, the other popular and most used social networking apps are Tiktok and Instagram. In the year 2019, social video app Tiktok has reached 1.5 billion downloads all over the world on the play store and google play. Almost 2 in every 3 Indians who have access to smartphones or those who are using smartphones are on some kind of social media sites. As data packs are getting cheaper by time, it is now more accessible to people which make smartphones a primary use for Indian customers. For 35% of the internet users in India, these smartphones are considered as a primary source of getting news for them. Recent studies show that an average of 2.4 hours in a day are spent on different social media sites by Indian users.

Collapse of social networks: from Myspace, Orkut to Tiktok

Social networking is a platform where people can communicate with one another and be in touch with them through various social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, etc. without physically available at a time. It allows like minded people or individuals to interact with other individuals and get in touch with them using several websites and web based applications. Social networks refer to new technologies which are subject to rapid and fast changes. In today’s world, social networks are generally defined by natural classification and gradual or perfect popularity of people among the public. Users of various social networks can freely connect with each other. Also with the help of several social networks, they can share something in common between them. Let us understand this concept by one example. There are two users who know each other personally. They want to share common interests among them. Meanwhile these sites are built to assist a lot of users. For example:- Facebook is a social networking platform and it alone has more than two billions of active users. These are the two attributes used by internet marketers as a golden opportunity to utilize their prospects and capabilities. It is simply the use of internet-based or web-based social media platforms or sites to stay connected or to communicate with family, friends, colleagues, customers, etc. It has become an outstanding platform for marketers who are in search of engaging more customers for their company. Social networking sites or platforms are used by marketers to increase their brand recognition and also for encouraging their brand loyalty.In spite of some tough competition, Facebook has been the largest and most popular and famous social networking platforms with more than two billions of active users. 

As this is an internet era or web based era, this internet time has been moving a lot faster than time in any other industry. In the year 2005, social networking site Myspace was occupied by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp by beating rival Viacom to the deal. MySpace was occupied by Rupert for $580 million. At that time, Tom Freston who was the chief executive of Viacom’s had lost his job against the botched purchase offer. In the year 2006, a 900 million dollar deal was signed by MySpace giving permission to Google to show circumstantial and provisional advertising on their social networking site. At that time MySpace was at its peak with over 100 million users and simply became a focal point and centre for independent musicians and various filmmakers to showcase their talents through this platform. In spite of its strong presence in the United States, MySpace was not able to expand overseas after trying for several years also. At that time only, it disastrously underrated a growing network of college students through online platform Facebook. And when the year 2011 started, news was circulated among the public that MySpace had released 47% of its employees or simply 500 employees. This was a result of the deal that MySpace had with Google as well as it was the result of the reduction in its active user base. The inspirational story of Facebook and it’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg rose at the top at that time which has now been commemorated by Hollywood. In the year 2007, tech journalists of the United States were rambling about the services provided to them which inspired and motivated Godrej to start something somewhat similar to like them only. This was an example of a second life. Nowadays, second life is a cartridge and grenade of what it was before three years. India has an example of Google’s Orkut. In recent times, as Orkut has an appreciable number of active users, then also it was beaten by Facebook several months ago in both aspects either number of active users or user connectivity. The battle of social networks took place five years ago in which Facebook was the winner and MySpace was the loser. In this digital space or era, there are several spaces and places for Indian entrepreneurs. Meanwhile the country adopts data driven mobile networks through which they can easily take advantage of it. While social networking platforms like facebook work on how to increase its functionality and how to improve its social networking experience so that people can easily access its benefits. At the same time MySpace doesn’t update any kind of functions in it and it also continues to act like a portal that only delivers entertainment and music based content to its users. Another reason for the failure of MySpace was the presence of an enormous number of advertisements and promotional contents on MySpace that made this social networking site look unappealing and disgusting. The presence of various types of advertisements also made this site to work slow. Apart from it, at that time when third party apps and games were drawing it’s attention towards new active users to other social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace was completely dependent on in house web and app developers who made various kinds of apps. Also these app and web developers were not comparable to the app and web developers on Facebook. In the year 2011, MySpace was just sold to a particular and distinct media for an inadequate and insufficient 35 million dollars. Popstar Justin Timberlake with his ownership stake was also one of the parties to buy MySpace. Again in the year 2013, social networking platform MySpace was one again relaunched as myspace with a new and unique design to attract more number of users than before. Also after relaunching it has a single focus on music streaming and playbacks. In the year 2014, Google made an announcement regarding the shutting down of Orkut in September 2014 after several years of struggling with Facebook. It appears like it was an appropriate and relevant time to look after some of the other big names of social networks that generally dashed or blazed at that time. Nowadays, short form video with some twists is very much popular among all age groups whether youth, old age people, etc. Tiktok contained features that make sharing fun or people. The active users of Tiktok was spending an average of 52 minutes per day on this app. In the year 2019, seeing it’s massive growth among public, the Tiktok company in the United States spent a total sum of around 1 billion dollar for its advertisements. The most downloaded app of the year 2019 was Tiktok which has been banned now. In the year 2019, social video app Tiktok has reached 1.5 billion downloads all over the world on the play store and google play. Before the social networking app Tiktok was banned in India, this app was primarily considered as an indoor platform. It also acts as a mediator for exchanging knowledge among people and acts as a source of positivity during tough times. This social networking app has also opened several paths for both users and fans to make several donations to their favorite charities. This social networking app also enables large marketing prospective for all kinds of business. Before this social networking app was banned, it had almost 500 million active users on a monthly basis from all over the world. That’s why in the year 2019, this app was among the top 10 list of most popular social networks. Apart from the growing users of tiktok, this social networking app also poses the characteristics of a vastly untouched social networking platform. Earlier, it was mainly used by private people, influencers, and various celebrities only. Later on it became popular among all the segments of population. This social networking app was previously known as musical.ly, a social networking platform for making, discovering and sharing short videos along with several music videos. It was simply used by people or youth to express themselves through a video by singing, dancing, facial expressions, comedy, lip-synching, etc. or it was used by them just for fun or as an entertaining experience or activity.