TikTok continues its ascent, but Instagram is still king.

In 2021, we expect more major marketers will pull or severely restrict their ad spending on social media platforms due to brand safety or ethical concerns.

Consumers’ growing willingness to get their financial services from non-FI providers is spurring consumer brands to embed financial elements in their products and services. But this new form of finance will mean dramatic changes for incumbent and startup FIs.

Many social media platforms have started making measurable gains in social commerce, but according to a June 2020 Bizrate Insights survey conducted for eMarketer, there’s still a ways to go.

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.

Never in the past two decades of social media history have the features, ad formats, and other business initiatives of the four major social platforms looked as similar as they do today.

It’s no secret that consumers in Latin America are notoriously heavy social network users; 87.1% of the region’s internet users will use a social network at least once a month in 2020, more than those in any other world region. Now, TikTok is benefiting from that love of online socializing where its blend of music, dancing, and video is attracting a fast-growing audience.

Hispanic consumers have endured exceptional financial volatility—mostly bad—during the pandemic. Even in normal times, this population is a moving target, with its diverse components evolving in financial strength, degrees of acculturation, and digital engagement.

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.

Justin Rosenberg, CEO and founder of honeygrow, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov about flipping its dining-in model to 100% mobile app orders with the help of third-party delivery providers.

Steve Lesnard, CMO and global vice president of product creation at The North Face, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov about responding to shifts in consumer behavior trends, such as increased online searches for outdoor activities, and more.

TikTok’s user base will increase substantially in 2020. Despite a ban on the app in India and efforts to restrict it in the US, TikTok will continue to expand in many countries in 2021.

The number of monthly Instagram users in Western Europe will rise by 17.0% in 2020 to 132.8 million. That’s more than three times higher than the growth rate we had predicted before the pandemic (5.2%) and equates to 19.3 million new users from 2019.

In 2020, Facebook’s worldwide user base will grow 8.7%, nearly double the rate we had forecast before the global pandemic began.

In 2020, Instagram’s total number of monthly users will hit 1.00 billion for the first time, thanks to a worldwide user growth rate more than double what we had predicted before the pandemic.

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.

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.

On July 1, 2020, many advertisers pulled their spending from Facebook and Instagram, and in some cases Twitter, to show solidarity with the racial justice movement and for other reasons. While it got a lot of media attention, the ad boycott did not negatively affect the social properties’ ad revenues.

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.

The COVID-19 outbreak undermined many of our pre-pandemic US forecasts. Insight can now be gleaned by examining the difference between what we thought would happen as of February 2020 vs. what our forecasts now show.