MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Telegram, VK and YouTube are the most popular social media platforms among Russians, according to a poll by the Invite blogging agency and Tiburon Research.

The research was carried out on April 6. The sample size was 1,000 respondents aged 18 to 44 living in cities with a population over 100,000, and who used social networks or messengers during the last month. The maximum error with 95% probability is about 1.85%.

"The research reviewed the picture of media consumption among users of social networks in general. The most used social networks over the last month were Telegram (89%), VK (79%) and YouTube (73%). For younger users aged 18-24, the most frequently visited social networks were Telegram and VK both with the same share of 90%," the poll revealed. The 18-24-year-old audience took to VK more often than 25-44-year-olds, as can be seen from the figures: 90% versus 77%, respectively.

A quarter of respondents began to take to social networks and messengers, which had been actively used before, and among the top leaders were Telegram and VK. In addition, 12% of users discovered these platforms for the first time. Another 51% of users remained on their usual social networks.

Netizens ready to follow bloggers to new social networks

According to the poll, a total of 60% of those surveyed among users of social networks and messengers followed bloggers and influencers over the past month. About 57% of respondents said they would be ready to follow a blogger on a new platform in order to continue watching the blogger's content.

"Influencers, like all people, have difficulty in adjusting to the new reality, especially when many of them have lost their bread and butter, that is, the platforms for their activities. Because of it, both the quality and quantity of content suffers. The audience noticed it, given that 39% have expressed their dismay about this. This figure suggests that as far as the audience is concerned, a positive agenda is missing in the information space," said Managing Director of Invite Roberto Panchvidze.

On March 21, Moscow’s Tverskoy Court satisfied the Prosecutor General of Russia’s request and found the activity of Instagram and Facebook, social networks owned by the US-Silicon Valley based company Meta, extremist and banned their operation in Russia. Despite that, citizens and organizations will not be charged for extremism for using Facebook or Instagram.