Twitter’s plateauing user growth has been evident for the past few years. But its user base is stable and ticking upward. We expect it to maintain its substantial influence worldwide as a platform for political discourse and real-time events coverage.

For this update, we look at Instagram's test to remove likes, the launch of Facebook Pay, Twitter's new feature that allows users to hide replies and Snapchat's new longer video ad format, as well as an update on political advertising. It also includes a preview of our latest social network user forecast, which will be discussed in detail in our upcoming social network users report collection, publishing on December 12.

eMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin and vice president of content studio Paul Verna face off on the topic of social media and how much it is to blame for our increasingly divided society. Then junior analyst Blake Droesch discusses social video content, how to reach young people in the morning and a new partnership between Verizon and Snapchat.

One in ten internet users is now on content aggregation site reddit. Its continued growth is primarily being fueled by an increasing percentage of people who use the app through mobile, though that figure still lags Facebook’s and Twitter’s, according to latest eMarketer estimates.

In this year’s Key Digital Trends report, we identify what changes are coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2020 and why they matter to marketers.

Advertisers are making significant investments in connected TV as the TV landscape becomes more fragmented.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar presentation featuring Smartly.io's Alex Walkowski, senior customer success manager, and Andreas Stenman, head of ecommerce and disruptor brands. They broke down three powerful Facebook Advertising insights for a successful 2020.

Advertisers are embracing the popularity of connected TV by allocating more money to streaming platforms.

Programmatic transactions for digital display account for 86.4% of the market in Canada this year, even though global privacy reform and device tracking protections are making it more challenging to execute.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Rini Mukhopadhyay shares our usage numbers for WhatsApp in Brazil and what’s behind its successful adoption.

Programmatic buys will account for 86.0% of spending on digital display ads in France this year, or €1.69 billion ($1.99 billion). Double-digit annual growth will boost spending to €2.29 billion ($2.70 billion) in 2021.

This report collection explores programmatic digital display ad spending through 2021 across Canada, China, France, Germany, the UK and the US. Reports include breakdowns by device, transaction type and more, and explore the factors driving investment.

Programmatic ad spending will account for 90.0% of total UK digital display ad spend this year, or £5.81 billion ($7.75 billion). Of that proportion, programmatic direct will make up 65.5%, with social media spend underpinning that figure.

Programmatic advertising will account for 83.5% of all US digital display ad dollars, or $57.30 billion, this year. Growth in social, connected TV and over-the-top (OTT) advertising will drive programmatic display to almost $80 billion by 2021.

eMarketer global director of public relations Douglas Clark explores our usage estimates for Facebook Messenger and its popularity in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

As more games hit the market, it becomes harder for publishers to get noticed, which has made proactive user acquisition strategies more important. That’s true of casual games, which have found a huge following on mobile, and more complex games that have found ways to integrate advertising that doesn’t detract from gameplay.

Mobile video viewing habits are evolving, and along with that comes a variety of opportunities for creators and publishers to monetize their content—and, in turn, for marketers and advertisers to reach audiences.

We look at how digital tools like smartphones and social media fit into (or distort) the lives of teens, who are the core of Gen Z.

This is the first installment in an ongoing series of monthly updates on the major social media platforms. The goal of each update is to provide a summary of key developments and what they mean for marketers.