social marketing

Social marketing is at an inflection point. The Wild West days are ending as customers become privacy conscious and governments respond in turn. Read more about how social marketing will grow and change with the times.

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Blog

Today’s TikTok Appeal Pressure-Tests The First Amendment

Mike Proulx September 16, 2024
This morning, attorneys for TikTok appeared before the federal appeals court in Washington — challenging a law signed in April that forces the app to either cut ties with its China-based parent company (ByteDance) or be banned. What’s at stake? TikTok’s 170 million US users and 7 million businesses that rely on the app. TikTok believes […]
Blog

Supreme Court Punts Flimsy Laws Limiting Social Media Content Moderation

Kelsey Chickering July 1, 2024
Dismantling content moderation on social media platforms would have a host of negative consequences and change marketers' spending decisions.
Blog

Banning TikTok Creates A Meta Monopoly

Mike Proulx March 13, 2024
Despite increased anti-trust Congressional measures, a ban on TikTok will hand a monopoly to Meta’s Reels.
Blog

The US Senate Hearing To Protect Online Children: Alcohol Use Is “Age-Gated” — Why Isn’t Social Media?

Kelsey Chickering January 24, 2024
Social media platforms are under fire for their failure to protect children against a wide range of issues, including mental health concerns and sexual exploitation. This will be the main topic at a January 31 US Senate hearing, where the CEOs from Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord will testify on what they’re doing — […]
Blog

How GenAI Is Impacting The Social Tech Landscape

Kelsey Chickering November 28, 2023
Generative AI’s emergence triggered a landslide of interest and experimentation across sectors, including social media and content. Forrester’s Global AI Software Forecast, 2023 To 2030 supports this, as content marketing is the third-largest category for specialized genAI software spend. The rapid evolution of generative AI technology within the social tech landscape has sparked a race […]
Blog

Advertisers Will Take The Bait And Test TikTok Shop This Holiday Season

Kelsey Chickering November 21, 2023
TikTok Shop will be a key player this holiday season. Discover how advertisers can get the most out of the new social commerce player.
Blog

Customer Community Platforms: A Little More Conversation, A Lot More Action

Amy Bills October 30, 2023
Have you ever heard a leader of a successful business proudly announce that they don’t much care about understanding their customers’ needs? Yeah, me neither. The data from Forrester’s recent report, The State Of Customer Obsession In B2B, 2023, is clear on the value of knowing what drives your customers. Customer-obsessed organizations outperform their peers […]
Blog

Boost Your Social Media Team With A Social Suite Provider

Kelsey Chickering October 24, 2023
Social media is now a mainstay of most marketing plans, and shifts in the media landscape make social suites critical for marketers to efficiently manage their social media efforts — all in one place. What Are Social Suites? Forrester defines social suites as: platforms that combine multiple social tech capabilities into a single unified offering, […]
Blog

“TikTok Shop” Launch Makes US Social Commerce Plausible

Kelsey Chickering September 12, 2023
ByteDance officially launched its social commerce experience, “TikTok Shop,” in the US. It includes features such as a dedicated shop tab for searching products or browsing product categories, the ability for creators to tag products for purchase, an affiliate funnel for sellers, secure checkout, and brand product portfolios. So far, over 100,000 creators signed up […]
Blog

Overscripting Will Sabotage Your Creator Partnerships

Kelsey Chickering July 17, 2023
In Forrester’s Q1 2023 B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey, nearly three-quarters of US B2C marketing and advertising execs say that they plan to partner with creators and influencers in 2023. This doesn’t mean that all of these partnerships will succeed, however. In our just-released report, Best Practices For Creator Marketing Campaigns, we found that overdirection is […]
Blog

Meta’s Advertising Backbone Guarantees Threads’ Monetization

Kelsey Chickering July 6, 2023
Last night, Meta launched its rival app to Twitter, Threads, in 100 countries. This new app is garnering initial excitement and downloads, but it still has a long road ahead to scale and retain an audience, integrate new features, and eventually monetize through advertising. The easiest part for Meta will be monetizing Threads because if […]
Podcast

Social Media Turmoil Drives New Ad Strategies

What It Means March 9, 2023
The turmoil happening in social media may be a good thing for advertisers. Find out why as Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering discusses the current and future state of digital advertising in this episode.
Blog

Meta Hit With €390 Million Fine And An Uncertain Advertising Future

Stephanie Liu January 4, 2023
Learn what the latest ruling against Facebook and Instagram means for marketers.
Blog

Twitter Needs Advertisers, But Advertisers Don’t Need Twitter

Kelsey Chickering December 28, 2022
Recent concerns around brand safety should prompt advertisers to test elsewhere.
Blog

Consumers Haven’t — And Don’t Plan To — Shop Via Social Media

Kelsey Chickering November 16, 2022
US consumers have little interest in doing their shopping — let alone holiday shopping — on social media platforms.
Blog

Meta Pixel Fiasco Underscores Why Marketing And Risk Must Work Together

Stephanie Liu August 5, 2022
Marketing and risk share a common goal: building customer trust. By partnering, marketers and S&R pros can use the growing momentum around consumer privacy to grow customer trust.
Podcast

Why Are Brands Funding Misinformation?

What It Means June 23, 2022
Marketers are accidentally funding misinformation and fueling the proliferation of dangerous falsehoods. In this episode of What It Means, Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering discusses how marketers can protect their brand from this phenomenon.
Blog

The Majority Of Chinese Social Media Users Are Social Savants

Xiaofeng Wang May 18, 2022
Compared to their US counterparts, online adults in China are far more likely to use social media to buy products and interact with brands. Here are three takeaways for marketers.
Blog

The Risk Of Greenwashing: One Step Forward For The Cause, Two Steps Back For The Environment

Alla Valente April 21, 2022
The theme for Earth Day 2022 is “Invest In Our Planet.” In the leadup to the main event on April 22, it’s not unusual for scores of companies big and small and newcomers and household names in every industry to take to social media to highlight their efforts for investing in our planet. After all, […]
Blog

Social Media Users Interact With Friends And Family More Than Brands

Jessica Liu October 27, 2021
Yesterday, we published the annual refresh of our Forrester social consumer segmentation. In 2021, consumers who use social media at least weekly (the heaviest users we survey) overwhelmingly prefer to interact with friends/family over brands/companies and influencers on social media. The real question for brands is: “Does my target audience want to interact with my […]
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