US adults will spend 7 more minutes per day with media in 2024 than they did in 2023, confounding expectations of a post-pandemic reduction in screen and audio time.

The ad spending winter of 2022 and early 2023 was mild and short-lived, as we predicted. And after a solid H2 2023, things are looking up across the board for 2024.

Marketers may be obsessed with reaching younger consumers, but that doesn’t mean that baby boomers aren’t worth their time. Next year, 11.3 million consumers ages 55 to 64 and 10.8 million consumers 65 and older will make a purchase via social media, per our forecast.

Gen Z’s attention is split across social media for shopping and search: The cohort’s use of multiple social networks spells opportunity for platforms and advertisers.

Which platforms are Gen Z’s top choice for key social media activities? Our proprietary survey sheds light on how they spend their social media time.

TikTok’s addictive videos add up to a huge amount of time spent on the platform. It’s already the No. 2 social app in daily minutes and will top the list by 2025.

Daily social network time is reaching a plateau, as the explosive growth in social video is approaching a saturation point. Even growth in time spent with TikTok is slowing, a sign that there’s a limit to how much social video people want to consume daily.

By 2027, there will be a combined 135.5 million Gen Z and millennial social network users in the US, over half of total US social network users, according to our forecast.

The greatest amount of growth will come from Gen Zers as they enter adulthood, but millennials are still a force to be reckoned with due to the sheer size of their user base.

US adults will spend 1 minute less with media this year than in 2022, although the longer-term topline trend is stable. Among formats and platforms, CTV is grabbing share, mobile is approaching a plateau, and Netflix and TikTok reign supreme.

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.

With user penetration nearly complete and time spent starting to plateau or decline on many platforms, social networks have run out of easy paths to incremental budget among their advertisers.

Ad spending is looking shaky for many of the legacy formats across digital and traditional. New channels have arrived, however, and there are bright spots. This year could be rough, but 2024 is looking better.

Social listening is considered by nearly 61% of US businesses to be part of their social media marketing strategy, according to a May 2022 report from Social Media Today and Meltwater. But many aren’t using the technique to its full potential. Here’s how marketers can avoid four common misconceptions.

Marketers are on the prowl for the next big social media platform. They’re eyeing names like BeReal, Lemon8, and Zigazoo, but so far, no platform has gained users the way TikTok did. “Understanding why certain apps surge and why some ultimately fizzle is vital to keep up with changing social user trends and behaviors,” said our analyst Jasmine Enberg. We took a closer look at what marketers are watching.

Musk gave advertisers a reason to leave Twitter. He exacerbated long-standing issues and created new ones. Six months into Musk-era Twitter, most brands aren’t ready to resume spending, largely because they don’t trust the man in charge.

The influencer landscape is more crowded than ever, even as creator funding dries up. Leveraging smaller influencers will help your brand focus a limited budget toward a targeted audience. “We’ve had sleeper hits [with] micro-influencers,” said Fernish CMO Evelyn Krasnow, speaking at eTail West 2023 in March. Finding the right influencers is “going to be trial and error,” said Krasnow. Here are tips for finding smaller influencers who can reach niche, targeted audiences.

The South by Southwest festival returned to Austin, Texas, in full force this year, with discussions on the future of technology, brands, and marketing. Here, we lay out the top trends and takeaways.