Marcus Johnson (00:04):

Hey gang, it's Monday, January 12th. Minda and Max, and listeners, Welcome to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer video podcast. I'm Marcus, and joining me for today's conversation, we have two people who cover social media for us. Senior analyst, living in New York, Minda Smiley.

Minda Smiley (00:19):

Hey, Marcus. How are you?

Marcus Johnson (00:20):

Hello there. Very good. Thank you. Yourself?

Minda Smiley (00:24):

Doing well. Happy new year.

Marcus Johnson (00:26):

Same to you. Principal analyst living in Philadelphia, Max Willens .

Max Willens (00:32):

Yo.

Marcus Johnson (00:33):

Happy New Year, Max. Today's fact.

(00:39):

Why do barbershops have that red, white, and sometimes blue pole sign thing outside every shop? Well, it originated from medieval times when barbers performed minor surgeries, be thrilled to learn, tooth extractions and bloodletting, as well as a textured crop. They'll also put together a haircut for you. The white of the pole represents white bandages, the red represents blood, arterial blood, and the blue represents the non-oxygenated blood in the veins. Always added because it's the same colors as the flag, one of the two. But that's why, that's why they have it outside.

Minda Smiley (01:29):

Wow. That is a shocking medical fact.

Marcus Johnson (01:35):

Revelation. I know.

Minda Smiley (01:35):

I would've never guessed that.

Max Willens (01:38):

I love that somebody in England got their hands on a pair of scissors and were like, "What else can I use these for?" Thus, the first surgical practice was born. It's amazing any of us is here today to talk about anything.

Marcus Johnson (01:56):

As unhygienic as this does sound, it gets a 10 for convenience, doesn't it? Because you'd be like, "Gary, I'll take a filling, a pixie cut and a hip replacement." All in the same place. So, maybe they're onto something. Anyway, today's real topic. The great behind the numbers bake off, takeoff, social media trends to watch in 2026.

(02:23):

All right. In today's episode are takers or bakers. We'll be cooking up some special, they're not special necessarily. They might be social media trends.

Max Willens (02:31):

Mine is.

Marcus Johnson (02:32):

Some special media trends to watch.

Minda Smiley (02:35):

Mine's not.

Marcus Johnson (02:39):

They both are. They both will be, social media trends for 2026. Three rounds. One, signature take. Two, the how it will technically play out challenge. And three, the show stopping argument. Let's meet the contestant's predictions. The rather unspecial, apparently, prediction from Minda is what, Minda?

Minda Smiley (02:56):

Yes. I am... My 2026 trend is one that's actually somewhat personal to me, as a parent of a toddler. It is around the fact that I do think 2026 will be the year that we start to see a fundamental shift in how kids use social media.

Marcus Johnson (03:14):

Okay. Very nice. And Max, what do you have for us?

Max Willens (03:18):

So, my prediction is that advertisers will begin to figure out how GEO works and doesn't work through creators on social.

Marcus Johnson (03:26):

Generative engine optimization. Okay, very good. We move to round one. And round one is, of course, as I explained, signature to take. Our chefs will have one minute to explain the premise of their trend. We start with Minda, talking about how kids using social media is going to be changing because of laws and regulations and things like that. Minda, what are we talking about here?

Minda Smiley (03:53):

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I've been covering this space in different capacities for about a decade now, and it does seem like ever since I even started, there was always, even back 10 years ago, people were talking about how can we make these platforms safer for kids? And the platforms are doing things that people kind of question to what extent it's actually moving the needle and regulation and all that. And so, this is certainly not a new topic in terms of social media and looking at how kids use it. But I do think we are hitting a tipping point of sorts, I guess you could say this year, because we're just finally seeing some real tangible changes.

(04:31):

I think in the past, a lot of what was happening felt a little more abstract or a lot of smoke and mirrors. I do think we're seeing things play out in a more specific way, and which I'll get into. But yeah, some of it is regulatory, some of it is legislation, some of it is more cultural even. And just parents and caregivers and teachers and even kids themselves to some extent, just kind of hitting a point where the way that social media is viewed and used is going to change.

Marcus Johnson (05:06):

Yeah. Max, you were talking about how brands are going to be using creators to begin to figure out generative engine optimization. What do you mean by this?

Max Willens (05:17):

So, thank you for spelling out GEO. I forget to do that sometimes. But yeah, as you say, generative engine... So, generative engine optimization is broadly the practice of optimizing your content and advertising strategy so that your brand and product appear favorably in the results and conversational replies of LLM chatbots. That can mean anything from an answer that ChatGPT gives you when you're talking to it, or Gemini from Google or even the chatbots that are appearing inside of social networks, inside of brand websites even. And GEO is a huge area of interest for brands right now because you've got about a quarter of the US population using ChatGPT at least monthly. We think that's going to rise to closer to one in three over the next couple of years.

(06:13):

And with this increasing adoption, brands are just obsessing over how to make sure that they appear in the right light in these new environments and contexts. And my prediction is that creators will be the kind of main raw material that they use to figure this out because of how favorably creator content is treated by lots of social networks, to a certain extent by search engines as well. And also frankly, because that same creator content can also be used for lots of other different, more pressing marketing priorities as well. So, it's sort of killing multiple birds with one stone. So, that's why I predicted it.

Marcus Johnson (07:00):

A massacre of birds with just the one pebble, but it sounds really interesting. We're going to come back to that one in round two, which we will begin this very second.

(07:13):

Round two is of course how it will technically play out challenge. Our chefs will explain in more detail how they expect the trend to manifest itself throughout the year. We'll flick back to Minda's trend, looking at kids and social media use and why, as you mentioned, Minda, this year, it could be a tipping point. How do you see this trend playing out this year?

Minda Smiley (07:36):

Yeah, for sure. So, there's sort of different lanes I'm viewing this through. And I think the first, and to me, one of the biggest is classroom cell phone bans. We've really seen those pickup steam over the past few years. It's all happened pretty quickly. And I think 2026 will be the first year where there's been enough of them that we're going to kind of be able to tell what's working, what isn't. I think states and schools will adapt as needed. And so, I think that is going to be one really important factor of all of this. And I think also...

Marcus Johnson (08:08):

Folks, really quickly, just for folks who aren't paying as close attention to this, you know in your research on social media trends 2026, you have a report out, you know in there in this particular trend that most states have some kind of a ban, cell phone ban in schools at this point, which you call a bell-to-bell, or they're called bell-to-bell bands as well.

Minda Smiley (08:27):

Yeah, it's interesting. They all have their own little different flavors, but I think one that's becoming popular is this idea of a bell-to-bell ban. You truly just do not use your phone throughout the school day. Some are a little more relaxed. But yeah, at this point, most states have either a full or partial ban. And so, and I think one aspect of this too is this is really one of the few bipartisan issues we have left in this country, at least when we're talking about the US. And so, I think that's probably why we've seen these bans really pick up steam pretty quickly. And yeah, so that is one aspect of it. And then, that is going to have a ripple effect or a trickle-down effect too. As kids are on their phone less in schools, they're going to be interacting more, and then that probably will kind of lead to behavior changes outside of school as well.

(09:13):

And so, that is one aspect of it. Also, Australia's social media ban, that's only one country, of course, and it is a small country when you compare it to places like the US. But really, the impact that it's had in terms of inspiring other countries to really think, "Oh, is this something we could do? We can try." So, just to give a little bit of context, Australia's ban for kids under 16 went into effect in December. It's still very new. There's probably-

Marcus Johnson (09:40):

Social media ban as well, right? No smartphone ban.

Minda Smiley (09:42):

... Oh yeah, sorry, I should say social media ban. Not cell phones in general. I should be clear. Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee yet. Yes, it is a social media ban. There's been a lot of debate too around which sites are even considered social media. I won't get into that as much, but the big ones, Meta, etc., are part of that. And so, yeah, I think that is going to have an effect in Australia, but we're already seeing other countries, Denmark, France, or a few that I know of that have voiced that they want to enact similar bands. And again, it's just going to embolden other countries to pretty quickly follow a similar legislation. So, that's an aspect of it too.

(10:18):

And another few points that I think also contribute to this trend are social media companies in the US are facing pretty big litigation coming up soon. They're facing trial for accusations over how they've harmed kids' mental health. Those haven't started quite yet. They're coming up soon. Again, Meta, Snapchat, all the big ones are a part of it. And depending on the outcome of this legislation, that could also have a major impact on how kids use social media moving forward. And then, I think something that shouldn't be overlooked is the cultural aspect of it all. Something that we're paying a lot of attention to, like Max and I cover a lot is just this idea that even adults, a lot of people are just trying to be more mindful of how much time they spend on social media, how much time they're on their phones. That's why we're seeing companies like BRIC and other companies that are just really geared toward getting you off of your phone pick up steam right now.

(11:07):

So, yeah, I mean, as people, especially parents and caregivers, they're just trying to spend less time on their phone. Again, that's going to have a trickle-down effect to kids as well, ideally. And so, I think to wrap this up, we're just seeing these shifts kind of play out in all different ways. And I do think when we look back one day, 2026 will kind of be a pivotal year for a lot of this.

Max Willens (11:30):

Yeah, I know it's better for the podcast if this is adversarial and we disagree with each other, but I think that the points Minda makes are really persuasive. I mean, it's really amazing how widespread all of the signals around social media have turned in this kind of negative direction, right? It's not just a couple of shrill parents at the PTA meeting. It's state and local governments, it's parents, it's academic research, all kind of sounding alarms and saying, "We need to take a much closer look at what it means that children are spending, in some cases, hours a day doing this, and we have to think harder about it." And so, on some level, I feel like that may add a little twinge of excitement for a certain kind of young person, but I do think that over time, the impact is going to start to become quite apparent pretty quickly.

Marcus Johnson (12:36):

Because it's not just time spent, the concern over time spent online, right? It's the exposure to harmful content. There's also content that's violent, misogynistic, promoting eating disorders, suicide, some really serious things studied by the Australian government noting one in seven kids reported experiencing grooming type behavior from adults or older kids, older children, and over half said they'd been a victim of cyber bullying. So, some pretty serious issues here. How the ban works, just go into it a bit more. So, anyone under 16 can't set up a new account, and existing profiles are being deactivated as well.

(13:17):

Children and parents won't be punished for infringing the ban. It's social media companies who will be on the hook for it. They'll face fines for serious or repeated breaches unless they take reasonable, "reasonable" steps to keep kids off their platforms. Things like multiple age assurance technologies, although critics have said that the collection of all that data about age verification for young people could also be an issue. So, yeah, there's a-

Minda Smiley (13:42):

Yeah, for sure.

Marcus Johnson (13:43):

... Please.

Minda Smiley (13:43):

And it's funny, I think everything you're saying speaks to the fact that this is a really messy space to try to regulate. Kids are obviously going to be able to work around some of this stuff. It's kind of... There's just a lot of issues in terms of... And yeah, even as you were saying earlier, social media is not black and white. There is a lot of benefits for kids on social media in terms of being able to interact with different people that they might've not met in real life. So, in terms of finding community and stuff like that. So, there's a lot of gray area. I do think that it sort of feels like we're building the plane as we fly it situation when we look at these laws.

(14:21):

But I think the bigger picture is people are just looking at Australia, they're like, "Oh, this country's actually doing something." They know it's not going to be perfect. They know they're going to have to make changes along the way, but just to see them come out and take a bold stance and try to address an issue that has become such a major concern for people and parents, I think is going to just really have an impact globally.

Marcus Johnson (14:42):

Yeah. Yeah, the common line's been the world is watching and I think that's a very fair statement. It seems that a lot of the headlines have been quite alarmist. How could you do this? How's it going to work? Is this a bit too extreme? But YouGov poll suggested three in four Australians actually supported the ban. So it does have, at least the Quantis One study does have support in the country, even though it does have a lot of critics.

(15:05):

And then Minda, as you mentioned, and Helen Livingston of the BBC was noting European countries have planned initiatives of their own. There's Denmark, they have a social media band for under 15s. Norway has a similar thing. There's a French parliamentary inquiry for maybe a ban for under 15s, and a curfew, social media curfew for 15 to 18 year olds. The Spanish government has something going. The UK is looking into it. Even the US state of Utah tried to ban but was blocked under 18 from using social media without parental consent. So, there's a lot happening here, a ton to watch.

(15:35):

Max, let's move to your trend for round two. Brands, to just remind folks, brands are going to use creators to begin, to figure out generative engine optimization, GEO. Tell us more about how this plays out.

Max Willens (15:48):

Yeah. So, what's helpful for me is that to a certain extent, this basically involves brands continuing to do what they're doing. And the reason for that is at the moment, GEO, or excuse me, generative chatbots like ChatGPT, like Gemini, they really, really like using social content, or what my colleague Nate Elliot calls community content, in determining its responses to questions, right? So, yeah, using similar web data, they found that basically, if you looked at the top 10 domains that were baked into responses by ChatGPT, 3 of the 10 most commonly cited domains were social networks. Reddit was number one by a very large margin. I think it was 40% of the replies incorporated Reddit information in some way, and that number 3 in 10 was tied with Maps as a data source.

(16:47):

But if you add in Google, which is a kind of a, I would say side door to some social content because public Instagram posts are indexed and can be surfaced through ChatGPT queries, that kind of puts social networks over the edge. And brands are also spending on creator content to already satisfy a bunch of different strategic imperatives, right? They're using them to drive discovery and consideration and even conversion in the case of using them for affiliate, for example.

(17:27):

But I think what's going to change really is not so much the spending in the channels, but the sort of nature of it. So, one of the things that's distinct from GEO as opposed to SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is that there needs to be a kind of stair step up in the level of volume of associations that you need to create, right? So, where in the SEO days, this is a very oversimplified example, but to keep things quick, in the SEO days, you might've basically just wanted to rank for, let's say you are a camping brand and you want to, an outdoor wear brand and you want to rank for best hiking boots for under $200, and current SEO technology or SEO approaches are going to help you rank for price and maybe camping.

(18:19):

When it comes to GEO, you need to sort of take that connection and apply it to lots of different contexts, right? So, it's not just the best hiking boots under $200, it's the best hiking boots under $200 that are great in mud or that are great in the desert or that are great, or that come in lots of different colors. And so, to do that, you need a significantly more scaled approach to generating this kind of content. And so, one of the things that I think is going to happen is you're going to start to see brands try to take a much more sort of programmatic approach to creator content. And we'll talk a little bit about this more later, but there are a lot of risks associated with taking that kind of approach. And I think we're going to see a lot of messiness as brands calibrate between the kind of scale needs that they have as they think about GEO and their brands and the kind of authenticity question that is one of the main reasons why creator content is so alluring and effective in the first place.

Minda Smiley (19:24):

Yeah. Well, actually, that's something I wanted to ask you about, Max, is what are you hearing and seeing? And just what are your thoughts on what does this mean for creators and how they're working with brands and the content they're putting out? I'm curious how they might react to some of these changes.

Max Willens (19:38):

Yeah, I mean, I think that in the early going, it's not going to change too much. I mean, the one thing that may occur in the near term is a sort of uptick in outreach from brands. One of the things that I think is going to facilitate this playing out is the fact that there have been a lot of advances in technology that allows for matchmaking between brands and creators, right? One of the reasons that this was something that didn't take up a ton of budget in the early going is that it did feel like a very old-fashioned matchmaking kind of a job. It's very different from programmatically buying banner ads on a website where you basically allow software to distribute everything. And unless the advertiser is some highly objectionable source, something that's selling something that's illegal or racist or dangerous, it's usually pretty easy to buy inventory if provided you can bid high enough.

(20:46):

With creators, if you are someone who's worked really hard at building your own brand and identity, at cultivating and nurturing an audience, you're not just going to shill any random product that offers you a couple of bucks. You want the thing that you're hawking to be something that you believe in, that you are delighted by, that you enjoy, and that makes that process much slower, right?

(21:13):

But the advances, particularly in AI actually, AI has proved to be a very good researcher and gatherer of creator accounts for brands. And so, it results in outreach that's a lot more targeted and a lot more effective. And so brands, excuse me, creators may notice more of an uptick in targeted outreach, and the briefs may start to get more specific too, right? But I think that in the very early going, it's not going to result in some deluge or anything, but I'm excited to see how that evolves over the next 12 months.

Marcus Johnson (21:50):

Yeah. All right, folks, we move of course to round three.

(21:57):

So, last round, it's the show stopping argument. Our chefs will pull out their best closing arguments as to why their trend is most likely to happen. Let's go, 20 seconds if we can. Minda, we'll start with you, going back to how kids are going to be using social media fundamentally shifting this year. Go.

Minda Smiley (22:14):

Yeah. I mean, I think the reality is none of this is happening in a vacuum. As I outlined, we're seeing this happen culturally, we're seeing it happen from regulations, cell phone bans, parent parental concerns. I mean, there's just all these factors at play that I really think are contributing to a tipping point, as I said. And I do want to be clear quickly, I don't want to insinuate, even though I do want to be optimistic as a parent about where we're headed, I don't want to paint too rosy of a picture. I think, yes, maybe some of this will lead to some changes, but that doesn't mean that kids won't go onto other sites or they won't fall into other behaviors that are concerning. Teenagers in general can be a difficult generation for many reasons.

(22:55):

So, just because we might be making strides, getting them off social media doesn't necessarily mean that won't present other concerns and issues. But as I said, I do think this has been a major concern for people for quite some time, and it does seem like we're hitting a point where we are seeing some more substantial change.

Max Willens (23:09):

I think that Minda's point about the kids just going somewhere else is absolutely worth keeping an eye on. I mean, our colleague, Pow, has some really interesting research, which one of the things that she's unearthed in her research is this idea that a lot of Gen Alpha, so the generation that whose eldest members are just eligible for social media accounts, a lot of them have essentially ported the kind of behavior and socializing that social media was originally intended for, over to video games. And so, a lot of this stuff is now happening in Roblox and Fortnite, in other things that I'm too old to know the names of. And so, it's entirely possible that we'll have similar conversation playing out in a couple of years about figuring out how to keep children from bullying and tormenting one another in video game chat rooms and so on. So, I think that that's a really important thing to keep an eye on.

Marcus Johnson (24:12):

Yeah, yeah. Games and platforms that weren't on this ban list in Australia as well, Roblox in particular. So, even though-

Minda Smiley (24:22):

Yeah. It's sort of like whack-a-mole.

Marcus Johnson (24:22):

... Yeah, absolutely. And because video games no longer contained big online, multiplayer, open worlds. And so, yeah, I think that's a really good take. Max, your showstopping argument for your 2026 trend about brands, creators, GEO?

Max Willens (24:36):

Yeah. So, I think that the main reason that we're going to continue to see this unfold is, I teased this at the top of the show, but to a certain extent, brands can just kind of continue to do what they're doing. And what you see in the way that brands are spending their budgets is they are already using creators to attack upper, mid and lower funnel KPIs. And GEO, I think even though it is still nascent, again, we're talking about something that is going to be relevant to just about 25% of the US population, even though it's growing, that's going to continue to grow and evolve. But I think the other reason that this is going to be something that brands pay a lot of attention to is that a lot of times the referral traffic that results from these conversations, when it does lead to referral traffic, is it winds up sending consumers back to platforms where creator content is integral, right?

(25:40):

So, there was some research done by Similarweb last May, I think, where they looked at the referral traffic that resulted from Gen AI conversations and a plurality of those conversations' referral traffic led to YouTube where creators, essentially like the first home for creators, if you like. And so ,this is important for brands, not just because it sort of helps them execute against existing marketing strategies, but it also winds up sending people to really have their consumer opinions shaped still further by creators. And so, it's going to be really important for brands to think more about how creators are knotted up in the new kind of consumer journey that's beginning to emerge as LLM chatbot use continues to grow.

Marcus Johnson (26:37):

Very nice, folks. All right, that is the end of the competition. And I can announce that today's winner is, Minda wins today's with her prediction about social media usage changing for kids because of so many things happening. Max, I think yours is fascinating, but to use your word, nascent, I think it is early days, and I think that in a year's time, this might be, or maybe in the two years, this might be hitting the same kind of stride as where Minda's is because we've been talking about it for a long time, starting to see some things actually happen. So, Minda, congratulations to you.

Minda Smiley (27:12):

Thank you. I'm going to go treat myself by eating all the leftover black and white cookies in my kitchen from the holidays.

Marcus Johnson (27:18):

Well played.

Minda Smiley (27:19):

What an honor.

Marcus Johnson (27:22):

That's because we don't give out a real presents, so she has to go find her own. For the full-

Minda Smiley (27:24):

I know. I have to give it to myself.

Marcus Johnson (27:25):

... For the full report and even more social and creator trends, ProPlus subscribers, connect to emarketer.com and search for social trends to watch. In 2026, brands will face dawny issues related to AI, user fatigue and regulation. The link to the report is also in the show notes. That's all we have time for today's episode. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you first to the winner, Minda.

Minda Smiley (27:47):

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (27:48):

And a very close second, Max.

Max Willens (27:50):

Always a pleasure, Marcus. Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (27:52):

Yes, indeed. And thank you so much to the production crew and to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer video podcast.