Hanna Kahlert

Hanna is one of our expert analysts, helping drive MIDiA’s research into the future of digital entertainment. Her key areas of interest are cross-entertainment audience behaviour, the creator economy, and social platforms.

If the internet dies, where does all the attention go?

Hanna Kahlert

2 Apr 2025

Cultural trends

TikTok

Instagram

Consumers no longer need to leave their social feeds. Instead, they can now get new music, film clips, pop culture, and news updates all on their favoured apps. Social has become the be-all, end-all of...

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Why ads in DMs are not the solution Instagram wants them to be

Hanna Kahlert

18 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

Instagram

advertising

Key insights from this blog: Instagram's direct messaging features have become a core component of the platform; MIDiA data highlights that the majority of social media users log in to the platform to...

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Meritocracy only works if the door is open in the first place: International Women’s Day in 2025

Hanna Kahlert

11 Mar 2025

Cultural trends

consumers

women in music

Key insights from this blog: This International Women's Day, celebrations of women's accomplishments were overshadowed by industry developments and political decisions Women are consumers too – it is...

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YouTube is winning emerging markets by being social – and format-flexible

Hanna Kahlert

5 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

YouTube

In English-speaking markets (and much of Europe), entertainment consumption is split across a large number of digital platforms, segmented largely by content format, rights access, and legacy uptake. It...

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Social 2025
Navigating platforms for fan power

Hanna Kahlert

February 2025

Creators

Spotify

Social

The biggest apps are in the process of disruption. TikTok’s uncertain future and Meta’s apps relaxing content restrictions and fact checking will constitute greater challenges for creators, advertisers,...

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DeepSeek and Rednote signal the dawning era of APAC

Hanna Kahlert

29 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Netflix

TikTok

The AI race is a tense one. Billions of dollars have been poured into the likes of OpenAI. Meanwhile, the US and UK governments, among others, have pledged to invest heavily in AI development, suggesting...

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Creators and the creator economy
Defining the undefinable

Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert and Ben Woods

January 2025

Creators

Cultural trends

Creator economy

20 years since the launch of YouTube, the creator economy is not new – but it lacks a single clear definition. Different interest groups who interact with it all have their perspectives, but this lack...

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Ban or no ban, what comes next for TikTok creators?

Hanna Kahlert

22 Jan 2025

Marketing Strategy

YouTube

TikTok

The TikTok ban saga continues. The official date of the ban saw the app go dark in the US and Canada, replaced by a notice that the law had come into effect. However, only a few hours later, the app came...

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Meta pushes for “free speech” as TikTok falls short: a dramatic cultural shift for social

Hanna Kahlert

15 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Facebook

TikTok

The news cycle leaves no room to draw breath as strategic pivots and Supreme Court hearings come thick and fast. Changes are afoot – and they paint a very different picture of the digital landscape of...

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Musk calls UK government ‘tyrannical’ and TikTok could leave the US: is global culture going regional again?

Hanna Kahlert

7 Jan 2025

social media,

tiktok ban

elon musk

A swath of elections in 2024 have paved the way for regulatory changes in the social media sphere, with talk of bans and restrictions meeting the governmental meddling of CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg....

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Social platform user behaviour
Q3 2024

Hanna Kahlert

December 2024

Marketing Strategy

Competition among social platforms is intensifying, with attention largely saturated and new regulations poised to upset the balance of power among incumbents. While growth is left in the overall market,...

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A regulation-heavy year for social looms in 2025

Hanna Kahlert

17 Dec 2024

Social media

Social

Product Strategy

The UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has published guidelines around the Online Safety Act, warning that most social platforms are not adequately meeting standards. Sites that fail to comply can...

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Will the TikTok ban happen? What you need to know

Hanna Kahlert

10 Dec 2024

tiktok ban

Donald Trump

Social media

It has been a rollercoaster of a news year for TikTok since April, when President Biden signed a law that would ban the platform unless it found new owners. The January 19th deadline is approaching quickly,...

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MIDiA's 2025 predictions webinar slides
It's social's stage now

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Free Report

Spotify

YouTube

Twitch

MIDiA's expert analysts dive into our 2025 predictions for the music, social, video, audio, and games industries – and explain why we believe "it's social's stage now".

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MIDiA’s 2025 predictions
It’s social’s stage now

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

The creator economy reshaped entertainment in the first half of the 2020s and social wasthe big winner, now positioned at the centre of the entertainment economy. In 2025 wewill see the second-order effects...

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Australia bans social media for under-16s: the first domino towards a new digital world?

Hanna Kahlert

3 Dec 2024

regulation

age restriction

australia social media ban

Australia has just approved groundbreaking social media regulation that bans users under 16 from accessing platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and X. This under-16 social media ban is the first...

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Why social media regulation could be a boost for the creator economy

Hanna Kahlert

26 Nov 2024

TikTok

Social media

platforms

TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, with its January deadline to find a new owner fast approaching beneath the oversight of a new, and unpredictable, US administration. President Trump originally tried...

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The BlueSky migration: How cultural shifts can disrupt even the most established social media platforms

Hanna Kahlert

19 Nov 2024

bluesky

mastodon

Twitter

Twitter clones have proliferated since Elon Musk first bought and renamed the platform to X in 2022. Despite a lot of buzz around platforms like Mastodon and BlueSky, none have seemed to capture a significant...

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MIDiA Research 2024-2031 global social forecasts
New frontiers and strong growth ahead

Hanna Kahlert and Mark Qi

November 2024

YouTube

Facebook

Instagram

More than ever, social platforms are the de facto way that consumers interact not only with entertainment but with the internet itself. As internet access expands in emerging markets and social platforms...

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Info-tainment, Kamala’s campaign failure, and the distortive role of social media marketing

Hanna Kahlert

12 Nov 2024

Marketing Strategy

Social media

trump presidency

The recent US election has capped off one of the biggest global election years in recent history, and the world around us is changing rapidly. Digital life, and specifically social media platforms, play...

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