Instagram's explosive EU audience growth compared with Facebook's slowing momentum means advertisers should follow suit.

The news: A CBS investigation discovered hundreds of deepfake ads on Meta platforms promoting “nudify” apps that create sexually explicit content based on images of real people. The analysis of Meta’s ad library found at minimum hundreds of deepfake ads across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Facebook Messenger, and Meta Audience Network. Our take: The rise of deepfakes on major platforms like Meta emphasizes AI’s potential to erode consumer trust and raise brand safety risks—forcing advertisers to navigate a growing gap between innovation and lagging safeguards.

Instagram won’t change its ad plans unless usage drops: The app is testing ads in stories, a high-engagement placement that could be here to stay.

Meta brings generative AI to Instagram users: Popular instances of consumers using AI for amusement make the app the perfect testing ground.

Instagram has become an essential platform for ecommerce businesses’ social media strategies. Brands that leverage the social platform’s Instagram Story ads can boost their online presence, broaden their audience, and enhance engagement to achieve success.

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

The metaverse may be far away, but video is here and now on social media—and consumer usage patterns are changing fast.

Advertising on Facebook has become more challenging due to Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework in iOS 14.5. Here’s how advertisers are adapting their strategies in the post-IDFA reality.

Facebook earnings: The company's Q2 earnings could shed light on the effects of Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, but it’s still on track to clear $100 billion in revenues by the end of the year.

Here’s how publishers are developing and expanding their ecommerce monetization strategies, and how brands and retailers can partner with them to drive purchases in the affiliate channel.

eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Jasmine Enberg discusses when travel (and travel advertising) will recover and some good and not-so-good examples of how travel advertisers are running campaigns. She then talks about whether Twitter can make a space for healthy conversations, our expectations for WhatsApp, and the significance of social platforms ending the year looking more alike than ever.

eMarketer junior analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch discusses the options that marketers have to utilize Instagram Stories through paid advertising and influencer partnerships. He also talks about measurement metrics that marketers can utilize to determine whether their Instagram Stories strategy is effective.

The pandemic has sparked new use cases for social listening, an underutilized tool in marketers' work belts. But some brands, like Johnsonville Sausage, were already well-acquainted with the concept. Stephanie Dlugopolski, the company's senior manager of PR and social media, said her team has utilized social listening for nearly a decade. It has allowed them to not only monitor conversations about the brand, but also see how consumers react to larger issues.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson and junior analyst Blake Droesch of Insider Intelligence discuss what the US would look like if TikTok was banned. They consider the likelihood of that happening and the company's efforts on its "TikTok for Business" initiative. Later, they discuss what Twitter's new subscription service may be, some metrics for Instagram Stories and influencer marketing's new normal.

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.

Social media stories are growing in importance for consumers and marketers. Here’s how businesses can make the most of stories for organic marketing, influencer marketing and paid advertising.

Influencer marketing remains both fascinating and frustrating for marketers. In this report, 16 creators share how they work with brands and how they view their role in the path to purchase.

eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu examines our social ad spend estimates and why we increased our US forecast for Facebook.

Ads on WhatsApp are to be expected sometime in 2020. And most advertisers we spoke to for our new report on global messaging apps agreed that Status—WhatsApp’s version of Stories—makes sense as a testing ground for ads.

YouTube has been the OG for video creators for years, but now the social properties are making bigger inroads into this popular content format. That’s bringing new ways for marketers to work with creators on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and more.