Shopify offered a lifeline for merchants during the pandemic. Now, as the ecommerce environment grows more challenging, the company is devising new strategies to help brands expand their reach.

Meta’s going back to basics: The social giant is one of many major companies tasked with focusing on key priorities in the second half of the year.

Energy independence undermined: A group is using propaganda to keep other countries dependent on rare-earth minerals from China. As more disinformation looms, social media companies could help stop it.

This year, US adults will spend 25.7% of their social media time on Facebook, down 9.6 percentage points from 2019. As Facebook’s share drops, TikTok’s will continue to grow. US adults will devote 16.7% of their social time to TikTok this year, up 12.2 percentage points from 2019.

In this report, we look at the most important updates among the leading social platforms in Q2 and how those changes will impact marketers.

This year, 4.0 million Gen Zers (born between 1997 and 2012) will become social network users, up 8.4% over 2021.

Big Tech post-Roe: As tech giants like Google respond to abortion rights loss, they face a quagmire of choices about strengthening digital privacy, censorship, and where to do business.

For companies across an expanding range of industries, community offers a distinct, competitive business advantage in everything from customer acquisition to R&D.

On today's episode, we discuss how much Netflix and Disney+ will make from ads, what Snapchat+ is, how best to prevent customers from leaving you and trading down, Facebook's algorithm change to take on TikTok, why Apple and Google are coming for your car, an unpopular opinion about email newsletters, what the new "Squid Game" game show will look like, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Suzy Davidkhanian and Max Willens and director of reports editing Rahul Chadha.

Amid TikTok’s meteoric rise, many marketers may be wondering whether YouTube is still relevant. The short answer is yes. But YouTube will need to carve its own niche in creators, commerce, and short video to stay relevant in 2022 and beyond.

US social network user growth has slowed to a crawl, and that means the social platforms will compete fiercely for users and engagement. Marketers should optimize their spending to take advantage of shifting consumer behaviors.

Meta on the ropes: Meta shares have dropped, but metaverse adoption is expected to be a $13 trillion industry by 2030 as more players build competing immersive VR experiences.

Total time spent with media is more than 10 hours daily on average in Canada this year. In the years ahead, total time will shrink slightly, but digital formats will continue to steal time away from traditional media.

Tech’s reshuffling makes spending tough for marketers: The industry is refocusing on advertising, which is still shaky from a year of changes.

Among US social network users, those ages 18 and older will spend an average of 1 hour, 40 minutes per day on those platforms in 2022, the same amount as last year. This figure is peaking after pandemic restrictions fueled a rapid rise in social media use over the past two years, and it will decline by 2 minutes next year.

Adults in the UK are spending more time than ever with digital media. Time spent watching videos online, particularly via social, is soaring.

Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta at a crossroads: Departure of No. 2 exec comes as company faces major business challenges.

Meta clashes with Apple over AppTrackingTransparency: The change damaged Meta’s profits, but Apple’s ad business is soaring.

This year, TikTok will surpass YouTube in terms of time spent by their respective adult users in the US. The short-video app will see 45.8 minutes per day from its average adult user, edging out YouTube, at 45.6 minutes.

VR fitness will stick long after the pandemic: We detail how the tech will help make exercise more accessible and reduce preventable diseases.