Despite how consumers feel about it, politics remains a core part of the social media experience. This report explores how marketers should navigate social in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election.

Livestreaming has become a prominent feature across the social media and digital video landscapes. Here’s how marketers are taking advantage of opportunities within the space.

This report reviews our final 2020 numbers and new 2021 forecast for US time spent with media, highlighting pre- and post-pandemic estimates and expectations. Special attention is paid to TV, connected TV, OTT, digital audio, and social media.

Internet memes are not a new phenomenon, but the events of 2020 have spurred their consumption. Despite their popularity among social media users, marketing with memes can still be a risky business for brands.

From the growth of TikTok and of social commerce to the challenges of brand safety and the cookieless future, 2021 will be another year of big stories for social media.

After a tumultuous year, the social platforms will close 2020 on a high note in terms of ad revenues and users—and with features that closely resemble each other.

Hispanic consumers have endured exceptional financial volatility—mostly bad—during the pandemic. Even in normal times, this population is a moving target, with its diverse components evolving in financial strength, degrees of acculturation, and digital engagement.

TikTok’s user base will increase substantially in 2020. Despite a ban on the app in India and efforts to restrict it in the US, TikTok will continue to expand in many countries in 2021.

In this year’s “Key Digital Trends” report, we examine changes coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2021—including legislation, privacy, entertainment, social media, and more—and why they matter to marketers.

Snapchat will have 347.3 million users this year, up 16.1% year over year. Emerging markets, particularly India, will fuel these gains, while growth in core regions will be more modest.

As with other social networks, Twitter’s user base grew unexpectedly this year as pandemic-driven stay-at-home orders drove up social media usage overall.

The pandemic has fueled greater social media usage worldwide and prompted revisions to our earlier forecasts. We now expect the total number of social network users to rise 8.1% in 2020, to 3.23 billion—equivalent to 80.7% of all internet users.

In 2020, Instagram’s total number of monthly users will hit 1.00 billion for the first time, thanks to a worldwide user growth rate more than double what we had predicted before the pandemic.

In 2020, Facebook’s worldwide user base will grow 8.7%, nearly double the rate we had forecast before the global pandemic began.

Our new forecast for global mobile messaging app users shows that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of OTT messaging services, though not in every country nor to the same degree for every app.

The pandemic has brought an influx of new users for subscription OTT, live videos, and video games in 2020, but other activities such as social networking, mobile messaging, and digital video haven’t seen the same bump.

The Global Media Intelligence Report is a concise yet detailed compilation of data and insights about internet users’ traditional and digital media usage in 42 key markets worldwide. This 2020 edition covers the same range of metrics we featured in 2019, and the consistency of GlobalWebIndex’s methodology enables us to offer precise year-over-year comparisons; these provide vital indicators of exactly where and how quickly changes are happening, and where behaviors haven’t altered much.