Social Media

Pinterest adds an AR furniture shopping tool to its app: The platform aims to help customers make more informed purchase decisions to help boost sales.

Facebook was projected to pass 2 billion users worldwide in 2021 and poised to hit 2.10 billion by the end of this year. But despite boasting a massive user base, growth on the platform declined dramatically in 2021 and will slow to a trickle in years to come.

China’s tech giants are racing to own the technology of the metaverse: Tencent, Baidu, Oppo, and Huawei are beating US counterparts to the AR/VR patent punch.

Creator funds see mixed success: Social platforms offer more monetization tools than ever, but many content providers still struggle to get paid.

Amazon’s expanded agreements with Universal Music Group chip away at long-standing tensions: Creators on Twitch have grown increasingly frustrated with harsh music rebroadcasting rules.

US Instagram ad impressions are split mostly between two formats. For the US clients of performance marketing firm Tinuiti, 47.0% of impressions came from the feed and 42.0% from Stories in Q4 2021.

Marketers prefer TikTok to YouTube for influencer marketing: While YouTube struggles to catch up to its competitors, TikTok is yet to reach its full potential.

Twitter continues investing in performance marketing: Its new performance advertising products will be essential to keeping marketers around, despite a waning user base.

Teens continue to leave Facebook, and the platform won’t be able to reverse that trend in 2022 or beyond. But in a surprising twist, the average age of a Facebook user is also starting to decrease.

Instagram introduces subscriptions as it vies for control of the creator economy: As Instagram’s cachet diminishes among younger audiences, it hopes monetization tools will keep creators from turning to other platforms.

New forecast looks at use of social media platforms for influencer marketing: Instagram will continue to gain ground, while Twitter and Snapchat play catch-up.

Snapchat’s user base in the region grew almost 70% in 2021, to 107 million, compared with just 3.4% in North America.

Leaders from Pandora, Roblox, Riot Games, and more are banding together to make the metaverse safer: Lack of Big Tech support could make implementation impossible.

Close to 75% US marketers will tap influencers for campaigns this year, up about 5 percentage points from 2021.

US marketers' interest in TikTok for influencer marketing has skyrocketed since early 2020, as the app has transformed from a novelty to a social media mainstay. Nearly two-thirds of US influencer marketers plan to use the video sharing app in 2022.

Snap poaches Twitter, Instagram execs for ad and ecommerce roles: The platform lags behind competitors in ad revenues and social commerce partnerships, things its new hires could help improve.

TikTok aims to generate $12 billion in ad sales this year: Reaching that goal requires the social video platform to lure more large advertisers.

By 2024, we expect US digital ad spend to be about $65 billion higher than what we expected before the pandemic. The biggest drivers behind these larger-than-expected increases are retail media networks and connected TV.

The new year brings new antitrust roadblocks for Big Tech: Meta is facing opposition from the FTC, and Google is feeling pressure from the EU.

Social commerce is expected to reach more than $1 trillion in 2025: Platforms have invested heavily in the space, though consumers are still uncertain about its trustworthiness.