On today's episode, we discuss Clubhouse's content and competitors, how the pandemic changed social media, the future of social networking, the potential of Instagram Lite, Facebook launching a kids' version of Instagram, some eerily accurate predictions about 2021 from 100 years ago, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts Jeremy Goldman and Debra Aho Williamson, and forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Peter Vahle.

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.

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.

Social network ad spending has substantially rebounded since the early days of the pandemic. In 2021, the biggest issues social media marketers will face are in the areas of brand safety, ethics, and privacy.

eMarketer principal analysts Mark Dolliver and Sara M. Watson, vice president of research Jennifer Pearson, and junior analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch discuss the pivotal decision of Facebook's Oversight Board to ban former President Donald Trump, private search engines making a push, whether social media damages teenagers' health, whether baby boomers will want to shop online post-pandemic, Apple's reported paywalled podcast platform, what happens to astronauts when they're in space, and more.

Augmented reality (AR) is becoming more widely available on social platforms. It’s mainly been a tool for entertainment and brand awareness, but the pandemic is pushing marketers to explore new use cases.

eMarketer principal analysts Mark Dolliver and Sara M. Watson, along with junior analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch, discuss the true power of the social media giants, how Gen Z viewers like to consume sports, Twitter leaning into audio, news use on social platforms, how the pandemic has reshaped children's screen time, why people get "red eye" in photos, and more.

Well into the pandemic, consumers still say they are spending more time with social media. Activities like live streaming, video chatting and gaming are drawing some of them in.

As with every other aspect of our lives, COVID-19 is impacting social media usage and advertising. Some of those changes, along with other important ad product launches, will continue to affect advertisers once the pandemic ends.

Many people turned to social media in recent months to stay connected with friends and loved ones and to share information. But the pandemic didn’t increase the number of people using social networks or messaging apps.

As more people cut the cord, viewers are increasingly tuning in to live digital video services.

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.

eMarketer principal analysts Mark Dolliver and Nicole Perrin, junior forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam and senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Oscar Orozco discuss what the coronavirus pandemic has and hasn't done to print media. They then talk about racial diversity in ads, millennials in decision-making roles, and American teens' favorite social media platforms.

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 led to many upward revisions of our UK digital user forecasts. Some changes (podcast listeners) will be permanent, while others will be temporary (digital gamers). Our social network user numbers, meanwhile, didn’t change much at all.

eMarketer junior analyst Blake Droesch and principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson, Mark Dolliver, and Jeremy Goldman discuss how social media might change as a result of the continued spread of misinformation on the platforms and general negative sentiment surrounding them. They then talk about the best way to use Stories, influencer ad disclosure, and which consumer group has increased its social media usage the most during the pandemic.

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.

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.

With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.

The coronavirus pandemic boosted social media usage around the world, as many people stayed home for weeks or months. In 2020, there will be nearly 150 million more social network users worldwide than we expected before the pandemic—more than the entire population of Russia. That will lift the total to 3.23 billion, well ahead of our predictions in November 2019 and June 2020. As a result, nearly 81% of internet users worldwide will be social network users.

Social listening is helping businesses take the pulse of their consumers and make faster marketing decisions during the pandemic. It’s still not a perfect analytics tool, but right now the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

TikTok’s growth in 2020 has been, in a word, extraordinary. While the pandemic helped stoke user gains for all the major social platforms, it lit a particularly large fire under TikTok.