Social media has now grown to become the world’s largest channel by advertising investment, forecast to grow to a total value of £197.6 billion this year – a rise of 14.3%.
Revealed in WARC Media’s latest Global Advertising Trends report, the medium’s true scale is laid bare as Meta’s ad revenue alone is currently predicted to surpass that of all global linear TV advertising by 2025.
Although the year-on-year growth of 14.3% is a slight deceleration on the previous year’s 16%, both Facebook and Instagram still grew by 20% across 2023, with concerted investment in AI helping drive incremental spend.
The news isn’t entirely positive however, with ongoing concerns over a US-wide ban limiting TikTok’s growth to 18.3.% in 2024.
At the same time, X/Twitter’s long-time advertising revenue woes are set to continue – but will be much improved compared to their startling 46.4% decrease in 2023.
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In contrast, Snapchat and Pinterest revenues both returned to double-digit growth (17.3% and 13.7% respectively) following a difficult 2022, after both firms were able to refocus on their respective core strengths.
“Much of social media’s success has been driven by Meta’s remarkable renaissance. However, social’s stronghold on budgets can also be seen in TikTok’s rise, and a return to double digit ad revenue growth at Snapchat and Pinterest,” WARC Media head of content, Alex Brownsell said.
“However, with this dominance comes challenges, such as rising advertising loads in social environments, and the impact of AI on media planning. In this report, we take a holistic view of the global social media landscape, which shows no sign of losing momentum.”
In the UK, social media advertising spend grew by 15.6% in 2023, and is forecast to reach £8.8bn in 2025 according to the latest AA/WARC Expenditure Report.
Much of this growth will be down to rising investment in social video formats, which the IAB UK reports are up 20% on the previous year.
