We wanted to celebrate the relaunch of EdelmanDigital.com by producing something of value for our readers. The social media milestones poster puts together some key events that have happened in social media over the years. Some are company related and others, purely societal. We couldn’t fit everything we would have liked—but these are some significant ones. The asset is for you—to put on your office wall, share with friends or enhance your presentations. It’s our way of saying thank you—and also our acknowledgment that this thing we all refer to as “social” is here to stay and has fundamentally shifted how we communicate, connect and create. Special thanks to Edelmanite Heather Grice who helped design the milestones artifact as well as every Edelman contributor.
DEV meet-up UiPath Document Understanding May 7 2024 Amsterdam
Edelman Digital Presents Social Media Milestones
1. social media
MILESTONES
3.22
2002
LAUNCHED
3 MILLION USERS in the first few months.
May LinkedIn January LinkedIn
2003 launched 2011 90,000,000
registered users
August HELLO
Myspace I’m your default “friend”
launched 2003 Tom
YouTube launched & the first video
Feb.
“Me at the zoo”
2005 has had more than 4 million views.
Facebook NETWORK OPENED
13 & up // valid email
09.26
2006
OfficeMax 36 million visits in five weeks
ELF YOURSELF Nov.
2006
following launch.
MARCH @ComcastCares joined and changed the
way businesses provide customer service online.
APRIL
2008
MAY first known rickroll
2007 occurred on 4chan. MILLION AMERICANS
had been rickrolled.
“Oh No They Didn’t!”
January became the first LiveJournal community
to surpass 16,777,216 comments.
2009 delete 10 Facebook friends =
THE BURGER KING
WHOPPER SACRIFICE
The application was disabled after 233,906 friendships were sacrificed. FREE!
winner!
CNNvs.ASHTON KUTCHER
04.16 “Million Followers Contest” on Twitter
2009
JUNE
Flickr
HAD MORE THAN
2009
IMAGES
Pepsi began the 01.13
PEPSI REFRESH PROJECT 2010
to help make a positive impact within communities.
IN LESS THAN A WEEK, 1,000 IDEAS WERE SUBMITTED TO THE PROJECT.
Blendtec
117,105,290 VIEWS
JUNE 15 ON YOUTUBE
2010 became famous for their “Will It Blend?” video series.
Farmville launched 06.19 FASTEST GROWING APP
on Facebook 2009 10 million new users in the first month.
WHAT’S YOUR January
BRA COLOR?
Women posted Facebook status updates to 2010
raise breast cancer awareness.
FEB.
2010 Kevin Smith was removed
from a Southwest flight for being
“Too FAT To Fly”
He took his frustration to Twitter and received
customer support and an apology on the Southwest blog.
May
// BUMPED
Justin BieberTwitter’s Trending Topics
from
[after Twitter adjusted their algorithm to exclude popular topics, that is]
JULY
2010
OLD
SPICE
180
VIDEOS
40 MILLION views in one week
GROUPON 08.19
2010
441,000 puchased
first national deal to GAP in 24 hours
DEC.
Tumblr was down for about 24 hours
2010 due to maintenance errors, FREAKING OUT MILLIONS OF USERS.
EGYPT // YEMEN // TUNISIA
EGYPT January tweets increased
2011
CRISIS from 122,319 to 1,317,233
in one week.
Charlie Sheen (@CharlieSheen)
03.01
2011 25 hours & 17 minutes
Digital
*Disclosure: Edelman clients