social media

Facebook has thrived in the short term with record-setting users and revenue. Long term, its outlook remains bleak.

Throwback to the mid-2000s: Facebook was founded, and Hannah Montana premiered. Miley Stewart was an average American kid with an alter ego pop star named Hannah Montana. Miley/Hannah’s dual identity allowed her to escape the public eye while still reaping fame and fortune — ultimately, living “the best of both worlds.” Cut to 2020: Social […]

A detailed analysis of how consumers are using social media in the customer lifecycle and an intriguing option for brands.

The global economy is in recession: US Q1 GDP declined 4.8%, and the eurozone’s contraction set a record. As far as the advertising triopoly and the social networks are concerned, however, advertising in Q1 surpassed bleak expectations and usage is booming — but not all is how it appears to be. Advertisers: The Pandemic’s True […]

Employees’ Advocacy Boosts Your Content And Customer Interactions While trust in brands has dwindled, B2B buyers hold those same brands’ employees in high regard as authentic and compelling sources of information. And they want to engage with them. In our new research, “Mobilized Employees Engage Buyers With A Trusted Voice,” Matthew Camuso and I explored […]

“The Forrester Wave™: Social Suites, Q4 2019“ is live! We’re particularly excited about this report because it represents a culmination of years of Forrester research on social technologies. Since 2015, we’ve covered five distinct social tech categories: Social listening platforms aggregate and analyze social conversations. Social adtech buys, manages, and optimizes social ads. Word-of-mouth platforms identify and […]

While 2018 was a challenging year for global social media advertising amid the implementation of GDPR, privacy scandals, and brand safety concerns, Forrester forecasts that social will remain the fastest-growing digital advertising channel globally over the next five years. This growth will be driven by increasing revenue per user and will be fastest in Asia […]

In perhaps one of the few (only?) times that Twitter is grateful not to be the size and scale of Facebook, Inc., it announced this week that it “accidentally” shared user data with third-party measurement vendors and advertisers against users’ wishes. Despite users being able to adjust their ad setting permissions to not share data, […]

We first published research on social selling in 2016, and B2B sellers continue to flock to various networks to interact with their customers and prospects. Social provides the opportunity for authentic connections, mutually beneficial professional relationships, and positive business outcomes for both buyers and sellers. But sellers’ inconsistent and boorish behaviors and a lack of […]

Based on the many press inquiries we’ve received at Forrester, the industry is keen on predicting Facebook, Inc.’s immediate demise. (Note: Facebook, Inc. is inclusive of the Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and its other apps, services, and hardware. We simplify and call it “Facebook” for the purposes of our research.) But not so fast. […]

Ad Revenue “It’s every bit as certain as death and taxes.” (Meet Joe Black, 1998) . . . And I’d add “holiday advertising.” Q4 2018 proved yet again that advertisers ramp up their media budgets in Q4 to get consumers to buy those holiday gifts. Facebook, Inc. (inclusive of its family of products: Facebook.com, Instagram, […]

You’re hearing with increasing frequency that social listening platforms (SLPs) are incorporating artificial intelligence and that AI may eventually unburden humans from heavy social data management and analysis. The reality: This is exaggerated. You still need a hefty amount of human involvement to set the rules, train the data, and maintain the platform. In researching […]

What bubble? The size of the influencer market on Instagram alone is set to grow $2.38 billion next year. Accordingly, our Forrester Analytics data shows that 75% of marketers have already implemented or are planning to implement a solution to manage this market in 2018, and seventeen percent of B2C marketers consider influencers one of […]

This blog post is part of Forrester’s Holiday 2018 retail series. Despite news of brands such as Nike, Adidas, Allbirds, and SeatGeek successfully selling on social networks, social media is still not a place that consumers buy products and services. Our Forrester Social Technographics® data uncovers that consumers use social media least in the buy stage of […]

Brandwatch and Crimson Hexagon, two social listening platforms, announced their merger today. The company will maintain the Brandwatch name with Brandwatch Founder and CEO Giles Palmer at the helm. At Forrester, we’ve been pushing for the next evolution in the social listening space. Our recent evaluation, “The Forrester Wave™: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018,” found […]

  Influencer marketing is often characterized as a trendy tactic for B2C marketers to tap into the far-reaching audiences of the Insta-famous. As a result, the practice regularly receives negative coverage for short-term-oriented, poorly executed B2C campaigns where consumer brands pay vapid lifestyle influencers outrageous sums in exchange for questionable ROI. There’s no doubt that […]

What you’ll hear from the press this week: Facebook missed its earnings for the first time since 2015. But in our world, 43% YOY increase in revenue and 11% YOY increase in DAUs and MAUs is still a solid performance. Facebook continues to diversify by augmenting its core Facebook social network with ancillary products (Instagram, […]

Fifty-three percent of business and technology decision makers and influencers tell us they want to better leverage social listening technologies to understand customer requirements and achieve their firm’s goal of addressing rising customer expectations.* This shouldn’t come as a surprise; social listening platforms (SLPs) offer a unique window into customers’ lives, opinions, and preferences. SLPs are heavy hitters in the martech stack and are […]

Fifty-three percent of business and technology decision makers and influencers tell us they want to better leverage social listening technologies to understand customer requirements and achieve their firm’s goal of addressing rising customer expectations.* This shouldn’t come as a surprise; social listening platforms (SLPs) offer a unique window into customers’ lives, opinions, and preferences. SLPs are heavy hitters in the martech stack and are […]