Facebook continues its pivot to video

Tipping comes to Clubhouse: The social audio app will now let users tip hosts, likely a play to keep creators on the platform as they’re in danger of being poached by bigger players like Twitter and Twitch.

As the pandemic drove consumers to move their spending online in 2020, Amazon benefitted in a big way. But it wasn’t just its ecommerce business that grew by double digits. Its advertising business grew by 52.5% last year, pushing Amazon’s share of the US digital ad market past 10% for the first time. This has only strengthened its position as the No. 3 ad publisher in the US.

Livestreaming is a small but growing part of creator culture. Much like Stories, livestreaming is a way for creators and other influential figures on social media to present content that is often less polished than photos or recorded video. Livestreams also give influencers a way to interact with their audience in real time through live chat.

Livestreaming has become a prominent feature across the social media and digital video landscapes. Here’s how marketers are taking advantage of opportunities within the space.

Amazon’s net US digital ad revenues will rise by 41.0% this year as consumers shift dramatically to more ecommerce shopping and advertisers pay to get in front of shoppers at their leading destination.

Doug Scott, CMO of Twitch, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov about the livestreaming platform’s user growth surge, the impact of popular programming beyond gaming, and building communities.

The large increase in live video viewers is one of the biggest digital media growth stories of the pandemic.

eMarketer principal analyst Yory Wurmser and forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Eric Haggstrom speak about what types of federal and state-level regulation might be coming up, including privacy laws and updates of Section 230. They also discuss who's watching Twitch, who isn't watching sports, and Apple easing off its 30% fee for some virtual events.

Video viewing platform Twitch is benefiting from coronavirus lockdowns in a big way in the US. Usage will jump 26.2% this year to 41.5 million, higher than the 37.5 million predicted in February.

While the coronavirus pandemic caused every major US sports league to suspend its season, esports resumed relatively quickly. Leagues pivoted from competing inside venues to an online-only format where teams and production crews operated remotely. Despite any short-term struggles from large advertising downturns, the outlook for esports remains positive.

Esports received heightened media attention during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. While the publicity helped bring awareness to the growing industry, the pandemic will not have a significant impact on annual esports viewership or advertising revenues in the US.

eMarketer analyst Ross Benes, senior analyst Audrey Schomer and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss whether Quibi is already in trouble three months after launch. They then talk about the HBO branding fiasco and why it might be time to start taking Twitch more seriously.

For our new report “Influencer Marketing and the Path to Purchase,” we spoke with a number of social media influencers to find out what brand partnerships look like from their perspective. They shared insights on what creative collaboration looks like, how to engage their followers, and what they do to measure the performance of their content.

Most influencers consider brand awareness to be their primary role when collaborating with marketers. But in the past year, social networks like Instagram have slowly begun opening commerce features to creators, indicating that influencer marketing could soon play a larger part in driving purchases on social media.

We forecast that 37.5 million people in the US will watch streaming video on Twitch at least monthly in 2020, meaning the video streaming platform will reach 15.5% of US digital video viewers this year. At its current pace, Twitch will surpass 40 million US users by the end of 2021, according to our first ever forecast for the platform.

In this year’s Key Digital Trends report, we identify what changes are coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2020 and why they matter to marketers.

Advertisers are embracing the popularity of connected TV by allocating more money to streaming platforms.

Ad dollars and viewers are pouring into digital video platforms as the TV industry continues to lose subscribers.