Parikshit Vivekanand | The News Minute| December 20, 2014| 4.44 pm ISTWhat is a social media website worth? How is the global economy driven by social media? If these were questions that were constantly ringing in your head then you are already part of the global phenomenon. In an attempt to answer these questions the News minute decided to understand the global valuations and market shares of popular social media platforms.According to report by Social media examiner, 92% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business which is up from 86% from 2013.Google+ has shown the most amount of interest in 2014 with 54% marketers already using the platform and 65% wanting to learn about it while another 61% planning on increasing their Google+ activities, according to the report.The report also says that Facebook and LinkedIn have proved to be the most important social tool for marketers in 2014.These numbers tells us that the world is moving towards being more social media oriented, but what are these companies that once originated from some small dorm rooms in B-schools valued at?FacebookMark Zuckerberg’s Facebook which had humble beginnings in the dorm rooms of Harvard Business school as of September 2014 is valued at more than $200 billion, according to report on CNN. It generates 62% of its total advertising sales from mobile advertising. The year 2014 was also the year where Facebook witnessed 40% growth of its daily users on the mobile platform.Companies like Facebook understand the importance of expanding their presence so as to be on top of their game. For that very reason Mark Zuckerberg has been on a shopping spree with multiple acquisitions in 2014 like Whatsapp for whopping $19 billion and virtual gaming headset maker Oculus VR in March for $2 billion. These deals with the previous acquisition of Instagram in 2012 puts Facebook in the lead position in terms of being a social media giant.TwitterA company that originated from the simple idea of using SMS service to communicate with a small group, now has a market cap of 13 billion much behind the social media leader Facebook. The company which was founded in 2006 was the first to carve a new niche of being the first micro-blogging website. A mind blowing 300 billion tweets have been sent since their inception. Twitter has become the fastest way to break news. The company which went public in November 2013 opened at $26 and closed at $44.90 on its first day of trading.InstagramInstagram, now a part of Facebook, after the latter bought it for $1 billion in 2012 is valued at $35 billion according to report on New York Times. The photo-sharing app with 30 million users had no revenue during the time of the acquisition and two years later Facebook made sure to make it into a billion dollar company. The number users have also increased since the acquisition to a whopping 300 million. LinkedInIn 2014 the professional social media networking platform expects to earn revenues in the range of $2.02 billion to $2.05 billion, according to report on Forbes. At over 300 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has proven itself to be long-lasting social media platform for professionals since its inception 2003. The site is a stockpile of individuals with virtual professional profiles inclusive of work history, networking opportunities and other information valuable for employers and businesses that desire specific skill sets.Google+The only social media website which has the potential to counter Facebook’s popularity is Google+ as posts on Google+ count towards search ranking which is highly important in terms of being noticed as a business. With a growing database of 500 million users and Google as the parent, Google+ is a total communication social network. The company is valued within the Google family which is valued at $400 billion hence the exact value of Google+ is not known. It is definitely a part of the race between Apple and Google to reach a trillion dollars. Messaging Applications in competitionWhatsappRecently acquired by Facebook for a whopping $19 billion, Whatsapp provides a key way for the social network to expand its global, mobile reach. With Whatsapp, Facebook will become the biggest messaging company in the world as it handles as much text as the $100 billion text messaging business. WhatsApp has nearly twice Twitter's monthly active users, and about three times its daily active users. And unlike Facebook’s other acquisition Instagram, which is slowly and tenuously rolling out a business model, WhatsApp has already proven how it can make money.SnapchatSnapchat recently acquired a huge round funding from one of the most powerful Silicon Valley investor, valuing the social network at $10 billion. The app which is yet to prove itself profitable has reportedly turned down a $3 billion buyout option from FacebookTweet