Social media usage, advertising, and commerce will reach new levels in 2021, presenting big opportunities for brands to engage consumers.

Social networks will reach almost full penetration among adult Gen Zers this year, or 99.0% of users ages 18 to 24. The next-highest penetration rate will be among the 25-to-34 age bracket, younger millennials, at 90.9%.

In 2020, digital video ad spending exceeded TV ad outlays for the first time in Canada. Digital video gained the most momentum of any format amid the pandemic last year, growing by 10.0% year over year (YoY). This includes both in-stream video formats (e.g., YouTube ads) and those outstream (ads appearing in social media feeds).

The adoption of social commerce—the ability to shop and buy, directly or indirectly, via social media platforms—accelerated during the pandemic. The vast majority of social commerce today is within the discovery and consideration stages. However, checkout capabilities are not available from the leading social networks in Canada.

LinkedIn is a fixture for professionals in Canada, as it is in other markets. B2B brands have taken notice and have doubled down with organic and paid promotion to engage a Canadian audience on the platform.

Canada trails only Japan worldwide across a variety of Twitter penetration metrics: About one-fifth of the population (22.1%), a quarter of internet users (25.0%), and more than a third (35.2%) of social network users in Canada use Twitter. Compared with the US, Twitter adoption in Canada is significantly higher.

US and Canada. The US accounts for the lion’s share of Snapchat users. As a result, the decelerating growth in the country means North America, which we define as the US and Canada, will see only a modest increase in the number of Snapchat users, too. This is despite a better-than-expected bump in Canada. Mixed fortunes mean modest growth overall.

CBC/Radio Canada. CivicScience. Ipsos. Media Technology Monitor. Morning Consult. Mozilla.