social media

On the outside: Social media’s total global advertising spend is expected to balloon to $110 billion by 2022 (with Facebook taking 75% of the global spend market). Social networks are happy. Investors see dollar signs. Marketers feel justified in their spending. On the inside: Social media’s underbelly conveys a picture of turmoil. Consumers can’t quit […]

Here’s what retailers and brands can expect and should focus on regarding social communities and social media for the rest of 2019.

Even Big Digital Companies Need Little Humans . . . Lots Of Them Amazon offered $10,000 of startup capital and up to three months of pay to qualifying employees who quit . . . and go start a local last-mile delivery business. The eCommerce giant had previously invested in local delivery companies, seeding the creation […]

Among a series of updates unveiled at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg echoed a common refrain: The future is privacy. Fresh memories of Facebook’s mistakes and looming fines are not the only reasons why Zuckerberg’s refrain is relevant; in this cultural moment, consumers are clamoring for brands that build community around specific […]

A Tech-Driven Transformation Payoff In The Face Of Food Quality Issues Chipotle is in the midst of a food quality turnaround and a digital business transformation payoff. The company has invested in technology-driven innovation and an adaptive model leveraging point-of-service store systems, mobile ordering, food delivery (via DoorDash), and loyalty (a few months old and […]

In recent years, a wave of so-called digitally native direct-to-consumer (DTC) startups have burst onto the scene and have grown in popularity. Consumers are increasingly purchasing products and services such as mattresses, shoes, razors, and groceries from the over 400 DTC firms now in operation. Forrester forecasts that online spend by DTC enthusiasts will grow […]

For years, I’ve maintained that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, Inc., has had his eye on a singular goal: becoming the global version of China’s WeChat. WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app, with 1 billion monthly users. China’s population is 1.4 billion people, which means approximately two in three Chinese are on WeChat. But WeChat […]

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, […]

Facebook’s tumultuous year made approaching the social giant’s Q4 2018 earnings call complicated, to say the least. Days before the call, news hit that Facebook is consolidating the back-end tech of its family of messenger apps. Why? Then, a story breaks that Apple is pulling a Facebook app that invites users to share their phone […]

Like the opening sequence of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the social media landscape is getting “flipped-turned upside down” by the ascendance of stories. Well, that may be a bit dramatic, but they are certainly starting to make waves. Stories are growing in popularity as a mode of sharing and consuming content on social media. […]

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 […]

In the past few months, my colleague James McQuivey has written several blogs about the exciting times we live in. In these posts, he focuses on how technology is fundamentally changing the way we interact with the world around us and how that change is grounded in evolution. His research shows that our uniquely evolved […]

Facebook’s Q2 2018 earnings call was not well-received by investors as evidenced by the stock’s 19 percent price drop equating to the largest-ever loss in market value in one day for a U.S. traded company. But if you’re a marketer looking to forecast your spending on social advertising over the next several years, Facebook’s latest earnings […]

Facebook’s Q2 2018 earnings call was not well received by investors as evidenced by the stock’s 19 percent price drop equating to the largest-ever loss in market value in one day for a US traded company. But if you’re a marketer looking to forecast your spending on social advertising over the next several years, Facebook’s latest […]

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 […]

We didn’t think the Cambridge Analytica story could get any darker, but clearly it has. Yesterday, The New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy, with clients fleeing the firm after improper data harvesting and suspect targeting practices for election manipulation were revealed. The article disclosed that Cambridge Analytica had been planning to […]

Q1 2018 earnings for Twitter, Facebook, and Snap largely showed minimal impact from the recent data privacy crisis. There were no surprises: Twitter is building off its Q4 2017 momentum, Facebook continues to grow its user base, and Snap is still going through an identity crisis. For the most part, the financial markets seem to […]