From the rise of Meta Threads to the potential fall of Twitter, the
Uswitch.com mobiles team has dived into data to reveal the most-searched-for social media platforms of the last few years to see which are falling in and out of favour.
The rise of Meta Threads?
Meta Threads is the most recent player in the popular apps game. Released on July 5th, Threads has broken records for acquiring active users and is being heralded as a Twitter-killer.
Threads recorded a massive two million downloads in its first 2 hours of launch, making it the fastest platform to reach 1 million users ever (a title previously held by Chat GPT after securing a million users over 5 days).
Threads CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on to claim a staggering 10 million active users in just the first 7 hours of the platform’s launch. This is the fastest take-up of any social media platform ever.
Threads is already being accused of being too similar to Twitter. Meta executives even pitched the app as a “friendly Twitter alternative”. Twitter’s Elon Musk is not happy with Meta Threads, tweeting that “competition is fine, cheating is not”, and threatening to sue Meta.
But why is the so-called Twitter Killer so popular?
“The main reason for Thread’s success is that the app is essentially piggybacking off the billions of preexisting users Meta has on their other apps like Facebook and Instagram. You need an Instagram to be able to sign up for Threads. This generates a ready-made list of followers and followed accounts making Threads much more effortless.
“In addition, the app has been praised for coming off much cleaner and smoother in how it operates. Apps like Twitter and Mastodon have been criticised for their clunkiness, so Threads could feel like a breath of fresh air to platform hoppers.”
The Uswitch mobile experts have also revealed the platforms seeing the biggest decrease in searches from their peak:
Assessing the difference between today’s searches for popular apps compared to when they were at their highest can show us which platforms have seen the most significant decrease in popularity since their peak and identify particular app trends.
The social media platforms seeing the largest decrease in their popularity since their peak:
|
Rank (biggest change from peak)
|
Social Media App
|
Peak Searches Date
|
Peak Searches
|
Current Searches (June 2023)
|
Change From Peak Searches
|
|
1
|
Mastodon
|
Nov 2022
|
4,090,000
|
673,000
|
-83.5%
|
|
2
|
BeReal
|
Oct 2022
|
1,220,000
|
368,000
|
-69.8%
|
|
3
|
BlueSky
|
Apr 2023
|
1000000
|
368,000
|
-63.2%
|
|
4
|
Discord
|
Oct 2022
|
45,500,000
|
30,400,000
|
-33.2%
|
|
5
|
Facebook
|
Jan 2021
|
1,380,000,000
|
923,000,000
|
-33.1%
|
|
6
|
Twitter
|
May 2023
|
185,000,000
|
151,000,000
|
-18.4%
|
|
7
|
LinkedIn
|
March 2023
|
68,000,000
|
55600000
|
-18.2%
|
|
7
|
TikTok
|
March 2022
|
83,100,000
|
68000000
|
-18.2%
|
|
9
|
Whatsapp
|
Oct 2021
|
151,000,000
|
124,000,000
|
-17.9%
|
|
10
|
Facebook Lite
|
June 2023
|
13,600,000
|
13,600,000
|
0.0%
|
|
10
|
Instagram
|
June 2023
|
338,000,000
|
338,000,000
|
0.0%
|
|
10
|
Pinterest
|
June 2023
|
83,100,000
|
83,100,000
|
0.0%
|
|
10
|
Snapchat
|
June 2023
|
11,100,000
|
11,100,000
|
0.0%
|
|
10
|
Telegram
|
June 2023
|
24,900,000
|
24,900,000
|
0.0%
|
-
Mastodon, the open-source microblogging platform similar to Twitter, saw its popularity peak in November of 2022, achieving a massive four million monthly searches. This impressive monthly search volume is more than six times what Mastodon sees today. As of June 2023, Mastodon saw just 673,000 searches each month, an 83% reduction from its peak. Mastodon is not out of the game just yet though and is indeed seeing its popularity gradually recover, recording a 49.56% increase in searches over the last month from 450,000.
-
BeReal saw next to no searches in October 2021 before seeing a dramatic rise to its peak of 1.2 million in October 2022. This rapid rise has since been met with a rapid fall, as BeReal’s monthly search volume has shrunk 70% down to 386,000 searches in June 2023.
