As AI slop, influencer content, and an abundance of ads push Gen Zers into private messaging spaces, brands have a new channel for contact. The majority (86%) of US social media users are comfortable receiving messages from brands within apps like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger, per a Snap and MAGNA survey. As users retreat into these private digital spaces, the marketing playbook must prepare to meet them there. That may require new efforts, such as rebalancing budgets, building new capabilities, and finding what engagement metrics are key. Start small with a few chat-based campaigns to track what resonates.

A dedicated Instagram Reels app could give Meta an edge over TikTok—or fragment its audience. If users resist another app, Instagram’s video dominance could take a hit.

By integrating Reuters content, Meta aims to enhance its AI’s credibility and drive ad revenue while carefully reentering the news domain.

Reddit, unlike most social media platforms, is growing: Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok are seeing engagement drops, per Comscore data.

Meta monetizes Messenger: Brands can now send messages to consumers who opt in, encroaching on SMS messaging platforms' value proposition.

Meta posted Q1 earnings that beat estimates on Wednesday, but its shares slumped on disappointing Q2 guidance as it outlined plans for heavy AI investments.

Meta introduces Broadcast Channels to Facebook and Messenger: The goal is to improve user engagement—but subscribers could get notification fatigue.

Even as TikTok ad revenues tick up, Meta will still account for 75.0% US ad dollars spent on social media this year, according to our forecast.

This year, TikTok will ride the social video wave to become the third social platform with more than 100 million users in the US. But text-based platforms are also set for a revival thanks to Instagram Threads, Bluesky, and even Meta’s Messenger.

Meta gained a strong hold over the US social media app rankings last year, with Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook all boasting the highest numbers of downloads, according to Apptopia. Messaging app Telegram broke into the top 10 this year, as did relative newcomer BeReal.

Francophones in Canada’s second-largest province have been slower to adopt digital devices and services compared with the rest of the country. But the latest data reveals the increasingly digital lives of Quebecois in 2023.

Ahead of its third-quarter earnings, Meta has expanded its ad offerings for Instagram, Messenger, and Reels.

In Q2 2022, Meta’s Messenger attracted 52% of the top 10 US messaging apps’ daily active users, down 6 percentage points from the same quarter two years earlier. Discord increased its share by 7 percentage points over the same period, riding a pandemic surge that has not dropped off.

Two years in, Meta’s latest ecommerce effort fails to resonate: Retailers are frustrated by the lack of basic elements, such as the ability to display products in multiple colors.

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.

The number of mobile messaging app users worldwide will rise by 6.1% in 2021, and new business features facilitate brand-consumer interactions.

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.

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

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.