Gen Z Loves Short-Form Social Video, No Matter the Platform

Prior to TikTok’s disappearance from U.S. app stores in January, the short-form video app’s biggest competitors had already been preparing for a world without the ByteDance product. While TikTok’s absence was short-lived, tracking data from Morning Consult Intelligence shows that there have been some shifts in usage of Instagram Reels, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts. 

TikTok still stands out among young users, but it’s clear that efforts on other platforms’ parts to compete have been paying off.

TikTok still leads with Gen Z, but the race for No. 2 tightens

Outside legacy platforms, TikTok still maintains a healthy lead over its competitors among Gen Z users. At the end of Q1 2025, 48% of Gen Z respondents said they use TikTok daily, 8 points higher than the next most used platform, Instagram Reels. But the race for No. 2 has been heating up with both Reels and YouTube Shorts making gains with frequent Gen Z users over the last year.

While Reels and Shorts have been around for years, all of TikTok’s competitors went into overdrive last year after it was forced to either find a U.S. buyer or be banned, luring creators to their respective platforms and amping up ad capabilities in an attempt to siphon dollars and users away from the TikTok ecosystem.

While TikTok has been granted another ban extension — its future remains up in the air as the Trump administration continues tit-for-tat tariff hikes with China — many content creators are diversifying their channels, as it became clear in January that a ban could happen. It’s looking like Reels could be the biggest beneficiary, like we predicted earlier in the year. Many TikTokers have brought their engaged TikTok audiences to Instagram, and while it’s unlikely that this move would translate to new Instagram users, it will help make Reels a stickier product over time. And the more engaged people become with Reels, the more attractive that product will be to advertisers, who are likely diversifying their budgets outside of TikTok. 

Instagram Reels has made major strides with Gen Z users, but a big opportunity still lies ahead with millennials

For most consumers, Instagram Reels offers the most similar experience to TikTok: visual inspiration mixed with entertaining video content. The former attracts very similar types of content creators as the latter (which Instagram has tried to capitalize on), and the general Instagram user interface is slowly becoming more similar to TikTok.

And while Reels is quickly growing among Gen Z, its biggest opportunity may be with millennials. Over the last few years, millennials’ net favorability of Instagram Reels has grown substantially, from 31 at the beginning of 2022 to 47 by the end of 2024. However, their net favorability of TikTok has increased more slowly, and it now trails Reels’ — over the same period of time, growing from 26 to 33. (Net favorability is the share of those who have a favorable impression of a brand minus the share of those who do not.)

What’s more, the share of millennials who say they use TikTok and Instagram Reels daily is very similar (33% versus 31%, respectively), but their much higher favorability means that there’s room for further growth. After all, millennials have always bought what Instagram has sold — this is the platform most associated with the generation, so it stands to reason that Reels would be a natural evolution of the platform for that demographic.

And while Gen Zers are the trendsetters at the moment and TikTok inspires the kind of virality hard to replicate elsewhere, brands targeting a more mature audience reaching the height of their purchasing power would be right at home on Instagram.