Social media plays a central role in how people consume information and make decisions today. It’s where they follow the news, discover products, keep up with friends, and stay connected to their communities. That concentration of attention has made it one of the most contested spaces in marketing. On the other hand, it’s also why results have become harder to generalize. As platforms have splintered and evolved in different directions, what works in one feed often breaks down in another.
Hootsuite’s Social Media Statistics and Metricool’s 2025 Social Media Study have compiled social media data and trends from the past year, illustrating this divergence in vivid detail. These reports offer a detailed breakdown of how platforms and formats performed among audiences last year, capturing the highs and lows from a year in flux. The data highlight widening performance differences between platforms, uneven format engagement, and the growing impact of rising content volume and declining baseline quality on how users engage with social media.
TikTok Is on Top, yet Facebook Still Holds Weight
When it comes to social platforms, TikTok is the king of the hill. Metricool’s study found that it led in impressions per post, interactions per post, and growth per account. In terms of how much attention and engagement a single piece of content can generate, TikTok is difficult to beat.
Still, that performance advantage doesn’t tell the whole story. Facebook may have a reputation as an old-timer’s platform, but it remains the largest social media platform in the world, with more than 3.07 billion monthly active users, according to Hootsuite. Metricool’s study found that Facebook reach grew significantly (up 51%) in 2025, with average post reach increasing from roughly 5,800 accounts in 2024 to nearly 8,800 in 2025. So, while TikTok may deliver sharper returns per post, Facebook still has reach that few platforms can match.
Video Content Reigns Supreme, but It’s Not the Only Format That Works
Video, especially that of the short-form variety, continues to dominate social performance across platforms. Hootsuite estimates that users watch nearly 139 million Facebook and Instagram Reels every minute, and Metricool’s data reinforces that video drives the strongest reach and interaction on most networks. Audiences have made their affinity for the short-form medium clear, and platforms have responded by offering a range of video options.
Where the data gets more nuanced is in how different video formats behave. On Instagram, Reels reach more people, but static posts often accumulate more views over time because the algorithm resurfaces them repeatedly. Reels, by contrast, get one chance to land — but when they do, they earn significantly more interaction. In 2025, Reels generated more comments, saves, and shares than posts, despite being consumed in seconds. The takeaway isn’t simply “use video,” but to understand how immediacy and longevity trade off depending on format and platform.
Don’t Count Photos, Carousels, and Polls Out Just Yet
Despite video’s dominance, Metricool’s data shows that other formats still play an important role, particularly when it comes to interaction. In 2025, image and video posts were the most widely used formats, with posting volume far above average. But they weren’t always the top performers.
Carousels stood out as one of the strongest-performing formats of the year. While they weren’t the most heavily used format, Metricool data found that they generated 13% more impressions than the average post and drove 247% more interactions in 2025, making them one of the most reliable formats for engagement on the platform. The effect was especially noticeable for small and mid-sized accounts, where carousels consistently outperformed single-image posts. Instagram’s feed mechanics reward swiping and dwell time, and carousels take advantage of that in a way static posts and even short-form videos don’t.
On LinkedIn, polls were high performers for interaction. Metricool’s data indicates that LinkedIn polls delivered 158% more impressions than the average post, along with higher click-through and engagement rates than other formats on the platform. That performance reflects how LinkedIn users behave: polls fit naturally into professional feeds where opinion, benchmarking, and low-friction participation are already common. Outside of LinkedIn, the format doesn’t show the same consistency.
Video may still do the heavy lifting for reach, but when it comes to interaction, other formats can outperform it under the right conditions. The challenge is knowing which conditions those are and resisting the temptation to apply a single playbook everywhere.
The Quality Problem
Across platforms, one pattern shows up clearly in Metricool’s 2025 data: saturation. More accounts are publishing more frequently, but reach and interactions per post aren’t keeping pace. Increased output no longer guarantees increased visibility, especially as feeds become denser and more competitive. Quality is becoming a huge point of contention, especially with seemingly unstoppable tide of low-quality AI-generated content (A.K.A. “slop”) flooding the internet.
While AI tools have made it easier to produce content quickly and at scale, they have also enabled low-quality content to be produced and shared en masse. Users are encountering more slop in their feeds every day, and are responding by disengaging faster and interacting more selectively. Metricool’s study captures the impact of this tide. Posting volume has surged across platforms, but reach and interactions per post have failed to grow in proportion, and in many cases have flattened or declined.
Today’s feed is one where more content exists, but less of it earns sustained attention. AI hasn’t just changed how content is made; it has changed what content has to overcome to perform well. How marketers will learn to adapt to and overcome content saturation will likely be one of the defining characteristics of social media strategy in 2026.
Read Hootsuite’s Social Media Statistics Here: https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-statistics/
Download Metricool’s 2025 Social Media Study Here: https://metricool.com/social-media-study/
