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.

The number of monthly Instagram users in Western Europe will rise by 17.0% in 2020 to 132.8 million. That’s more than three times higher than the growth rate we had predicted before the pandemic (5.2%) and equates to 19.3 million new users from 2019.

Facebook, including Instagram, will net $33.48 billion in US ad revenues this year, up 12.4% year-over-year.

On July 1, 2020, many advertisers pulled their spending from Facebook and Instagram, and in some cases Twitter, to show solidarity with the racial justice movement and for other reasons. While it got a lot of media attention, the ad boycott did not negatively affect the social properties’ ad revenues.

In recent months, both Instagram and Snapchat have made several changes to their products that are reminiscent of growing contender TikTok. Instagram launched its highly-anticipated feature Reels, which allows users to create short videos set to music, and Snapchat introduced a slew of new features, including adding music and a test for vertical navigation.

Instagram has rolled out Instagram Shopping for its long-form video platform IGTV, part of the company's push to make social commerce more central to the app.

eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Peter Newman and junior analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch discuss how the pandemic affected Americans' social networking behavior and where the major platforms now rank. Then, Blake talks about Facebook allowing cross platform messaging between Messenger and Instagram, shopping on Reels and IGTV, and a Delta Air Lines social media post.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss how to recreate those water cooler moments in the digital world, how much Super Bowl LV commercials are going for, watching Instagram Stories on Facebook, parents' more positive view of devices, the number of Facebook Watch viewers, the difference between frugal and cheap, what you didn't notice about that double rainbow, and more.