Over the past decade social media networks have become an integral part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people. Take the relatively unknown website “Facebook” as an example. Oh you’ve heard of it, have you? Take a second and ask yourself this question then: how often do I check my Facebook? Occasionally? Once a day? Religiously? It’s likely the latter if you fall between the ages of 18 and 34. Around 50% of 18-34 year olds check it as soon as they wake up and then on and off throughout the day.

Statistics also show that the older generation’s participation in the site is growing rapidly too. And it goes without saying that a tech-savvy generation of teens, tweens and teenies are taking to social media like ducks to water. All in all over 700 billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook. And here’s another number to crunch: 57% of people talk to more people online than they do in real life. Social media is here to stay.

Whilst Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are undoubtedly the big players in the social media landscape, a host of new start ups have appeared in the past few years, offering variations on the theme of connecting and sharing online. Here is a quick rundown of some of the new kids on the block:

Pinterest
Everybody is talking about Pinterest. It is essentially an online pinboard on which you can organise and share the things that interest you. It allows users to save images and other media content (known as ‘pins’) and categorise them on different boards (called, unsurprisingly, ‘pinboards’). One of the most popular user categories on Pinterest is craft and home design. As a social network it is a less wordy alternative to Twitter and Facebook. The interface is sleek and accessible.

Quora
Along with image sharing, web-based Q&A services are big business at the moment. This type of site has been around for as long as the internet, but with the age of social media has come a renewed interest. Quora was co-founded by two former Facebook employees, Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever. It allows users to upvote and downvote answers provided by other users on the site. It was initially popular with the technorati crowd and is yet to fully break into the mainstream; however, some commentators have predicted it will become larger than Twitter in the future.

Google +
If anything could take over Facebook’s mantle, you would think Google’s attempt at a new social media juggernaut would have a decent chance. Google + is not the first foray into social networking by the company, but previous projects such as Google Buzz have fallen by the way side. The new Google+ technology allows users to share lots of different kind of content in a variety of ways. Through ‘Circles’ you can organise people into different groups for sharing across a range of Google products and services. ‘Hangouts’ allow users to video conference with ease. But will these things be enough to rival the all-conquering Facebook?

These are just some of the new social media platforms out there. New ones are popping up all the time. So what are you waiting for? Fire up your computer and get your fast broadband motoring: the perfect platform for you might be just around the corner.

Jesse Wallace writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.