This is the first installment in an ongoing series of monthly updates on the major social media platforms. The goal of each update is to provide a summary of key recent developments and what they mean for marketers.

For this update, we look at Q3 earnings for the major social networks, Facebook's cryptocurrency ambitions, the launch of Threads by Instagram, Twitter's ban on political advertising and our new forecast for worldwide social network ad revenues. It also includes findings from a new eMarketer survey conducted by Bizrate Insights.