As with every other aspect of our lives, COVID-19 is impacting social media usage and advertising. Some of those changes, along with other important ad product launches, will continue to affect advertisers once the pandemic ends.

Mobile ad spending in the US was up 23.0% last year, we estimate, reaching $87.30 billion. That translated to just under two-thirds of all digital ad spending in the country.

The influx of political content and ad dollars for the upcoming US presidential election will inevitably impact commercial advertisers on social media. Understanding the political ad cycle and consumer attitudes toward political content can help brands better reach their audiences.

Twitter’s user growth has been plateauing for years, as social media users gravitate toward newer platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. But among the countries included in our forecast for Twitter user growth, seven of the top 10 are in Asia-Pacific—a regional trend also evident with Facebook and to some extent, Instagram.

Instagram has been working on several initiatives to enable commerce directly within the app. Last year, it made big moves that bring creators closer to that process.

The media’s obsession with Gen Z and TikTok is ever-present, but whether or not penetration levels are as high as the frenzy would indicate is debatable. Three charts paint a clearer picture of what usage and popularity currently looks like among Gen Zers.

Brands have sought after millennials since the segment was identified as a demographic phenomenon reminiscent of the boomers. There’s been heavy investment in the creation of products and services that fit within an evolving consumer culture, one increasingly defined by this influential cohort. Growing independence and earning make this group the most digitally connected of all.

eMarketer vice president of forecasting Monica Peart hosts senior analyst Jasmine Enberg and junior analyst Blake Droesch in a discussion of TikTok's user forecasts, business model and place in the social media spectrum.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson and junior analyst Blake Droesch recount their experiences interviewing 16 social media creators about how they approach brand partnerships, which platforms are working for them and influencers' role in the purchase process.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver and junior analysts Blake Droesch and Lucy Koch discuss the importance of online reviews, Facebook's suggested EU regulations, WhatsApp reaching 2 billion users, another potential Snapchat redesign, Apple's augmented reality shopping, which country's national animal is a unicorn and more.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson discusses Twitter's and Snapchat's Q4 2019 performances. She then talks about how much money Instagram supposedly makes Facebook and the seriousness of the big tech antitrust investigations.

This report will take a look at the key digital habits and personas across age groups in Canada.

In June 2019, former Snapchat chief strategy officer Imran Khan set out to shake up the marketplace landscape, including Amazon, when he launched ecommerce platform Verishop. We recently spoke with Khan about how Verishop is helping direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands scale, as well as its ongoing efforts to give consumers a new way to discover products.

Retailers across Western Europe are pioneering the use of AI to boost digital sales, and new options for delivery and returns are emerging. Yet Europe’s main markets have been slow to embrace social commerce.

Pinterest surpassed Snapchat as the third-biggest social media platform in the US in 2019, and it will continue to stay ahead in the coming years, according to our latest social user estimates.

This report looks at how digital technology fits into the daily lives of US kids—digital natives who, compared with teens and young adults, aren’t really all that digital.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson discusses one thing that summed up 2019 for her, as well as some of her predictions for 2020, focusing on Facebook.

In 2019, Instagram's US user growth rate will have dropped to single digits for the first time to 6.7%, down from 10.1% in 2018. Starting in 2020, and through the end of our forecast period in 2023, we estimate that the social media platform will grow slower than previously expected.

eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Oscar Orozco explores our latest adoption numbers for Snapchat worldwide and the impact of face filters that went viral.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Peter Vahle discusses our latest adoption figures for Snapchat in India, Indonesia and Japan, and the success of recent platform additions.