TikTok overtakes YouTube as the third most popular influencer marketing platform among US marketers

Per the latest influencer marketing forecast from Insider Intelligence, TikTok surpassed YouTube as the third most popular influencer marketing platform among US marketers, and the gap between the two will widen through 2025.

Insider Intelligence estimates that 45.7% of US marketers at companies with 100 or more employees will use TikTok for influencer marketing, while 42.5% will use YouTube.

“YouTube hasn’t kept up with the short video trend,” says Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “YouTube Shorts is no match for TikTok or even Instagram Reels, as it continues to struggle to attract both creators and viewers. At the same time, TikTok and Instagram are encroaching on YouTube’s territory as they lean into longer-form video.”

TikTok surpassed Snapchat and Twitter in 2021 in global user count. ByteDance’s popular short video app saw $2.3 billion in consumer spending last year, up 77% year-over-year from $1.3 billion in 2020. YouTube is ahead of TikTok in terms of US user base, according to the analysis. 

TikTok’s US user base is expected to increase by 5.1% to 90.6 million users in 2022, while YouTube is expected to have 226.8 million US users this year.

Daily time spent on TikTok among US adult users hit 40 minutes in 2021 and is expected to be 38 minutes in 2022. Meanwhile, time spent among US adult users of YouTube in 2022 is forecasted to jump about one minute to reach nearly 46 minutes per day, on average.