Social giants' ad revenue begins to slow

According to London-based marketing research agency WARC, growth in advertising revenue for six of the most popular social media firms declined by a half in the first three months of the year.

Looking at Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, Tencent and Weibo, WARC found that ad revenue rose 26.2% year-on-year to just under £14.2 billion. However, despite still taking a huge amount, this is a slowdown in growth of around a half.

User trust in social media platforms has dropped, and user growth across Facebook’s platforms, which include WhatsApp and Instagram, hit its lowest rate on record, at just 1.4%.

James McDonald, Managing Editor at WARC Data, said: “The social sector is still expanding at a rapid pace - amassing $17.9 billion of ad money in the first three months of this year alone - but growth has eased over recent quarters and has halved from a year ago.

"Further, user growth has stalled in North America and consumer trust in social platforms is waning.”