At Buffer, we don’t simply write about social media — we examine it.
This residing useful resource curates each unique information report we have revealed, from platform-specific traits to posting methods that truly work.
Whether or not you are a creator, marketer, or small enterprise proprietor, these insights can assist you make smarter content material choices backed by actual numbers.
Key factors to notice
Earlier than diving into the numbers, listed here are a couple of essential notes to remember:
- Engagement ≠ Complete Quantity: A excessive engagement charge doesn’t at all times imply extra whole interactions. For instance, LinkedIn could have the next engagement charge, however Instagram usually drives way more whole views and interactions as a result of its bigger attain.
- Completely different platforms, totally different behaviors: A “like” on Threads doesn’t carry the identical weight as a “save” on Instagram or a “share” on LinkedIn. Every platform rewards and surfaces content material in a different way, and person intent varies.
- Not all engagement is seen: Many platforms now prioritize personal alerts like DMs, shares, and saves, which means a few of the most significant engagement isn’t mirrored in public metrics.
- Algorithms are at all times altering: These research mirror a snapshot in time (often over a 6–12 month interval). Platform algorithms evolve rapidly, so traits could shift, particularly after main characteristic or rating updates.
- Consistency impacts every part: Throughout almost each examine, one sample holds: creators who publish persistently (particularly weekly) are likely to outperform sporadic posters, no matter platform or format.
- Correlation ≠ causation: Simply because a format (like long-form TikToks) performs nicely on common doesn’t imply each lengthy video will outperform a brief one. These are traits, not ensures.
- Buffer’s dataset displays the actions of Buffer customers: All information relies on exercise from Buffer-connected accounts — primarily small companies, creators, and advertising and marketing groups.
Some essential definitions and formulation
Listed below are some phrases you’ll run into all through this web page and what they imply.
Engagement charge
→ The proportion of people that interacted together with your publish out of the whole who noticed it.
How we calculate engagement charge:
(Complete Interactions ÷ Complete Impressions) × 100
Common
→ The sum of all engagement charges divided by the variety of posts. Useful for evaluating platform efficiency general.
Median
→ The “center” worth in an inventory of engagement charges. It removes outliers and provides a clearer image of typical efficiency over time.
Attain
→ The variety of distinctive customers who noticed your publish — the most effective indicators of how far your content material traveled.
Watch time
→ The full time individuals spent watching your video. For TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Reels, that is usually extra essential than views or likes.
Put up consistency
→ How usually you publish over a given time interval. In our research, “constant” sometimes means posting no less than as soon as every week for five+ weeks.
Engagement benchmarks and posting conduct
These studies will aid you perceive what’s regular on social media — and what it takes to face out.
To find out the place customers are participating essentially the most, we analyzed common and median engagement charges throughout eight main social platforms over a full 12 months.
The findings reveal not simply which platforms carry out finest, however how engagement is shifting over time — and what which means in your content material technique.
Platform-wide common engagement charges
We checked for common engagement first, which helps us evaluate platforms at a excessive stage, exhibiting the place engagement is strongest general.
This snapshot reveals the place content material tends to get essentially the most traction general — and the place excessive visibility doesn’t at all times translate to excessive engagement.
So, in rating order:
- LinkedIn: 6.50%
- Fb: 5.07%
- TikTok: 4.86%
- Threads: 4.51%
- YouTube Shorts: 4.41%
- Pinterest: 3.46%
- X/Twitter: 2.31%
- Instagram: 1.16%
Median engagement traits from Jan 2024 – Jan 2025
After all, averages might be skewed by a couple of viral hits. That’s why we additionally checked out median engagement over time — to know what the common creator is experiencing month to month.
We discovered that some platforms are rising, others are holding regular, and some are clearly slipping.
- LinkedIn: rose from 6.00% → 8.01%
- Instagram: dropped from 2.94% → 0.61%
- Threads: decreased from 4.76% → 3.60%
- TikTok: slid from 5.14% → 4.56%
- YouTube Shorts: climbed from 3.95% → 4.71%
- Pinterest: jumped from 3.08% → 5.26%
- Fb: steadied round 5.45%
- X/Twitter: declined from 3.47% → 2.15%
📌 What does the information imply for you?
These numbers aren’t only for evaluating platforms — they inform a narrative about the place consideration is shifting, how customers are participating, and what sort of content material every platform now rewards.
LinkedIn is now the strongest platform for natural engagement, climbing to an 8% median — an enormous alternative for thought leaders. Threads began sturdy and nonetheless beats X, however engagement is starting to normalize because the platform matures. X/Twitter is declining — the bottom median and common engagement of any platform studied.
Instagram’s public engagement is dropping quick, however that doesn’t imply customers aren’t interacting. DMs, shares, and saves could also be rising behind the scenes. TikTok nonetheless performs nicely, however watch time is overtaking likes and feedback as the important thing sign of success. YouTube Shorts is a rising star, with median engagement trending up month over month.
Pinterest is quietly outperforming extra talked-about platforms, particularly for evergreen content material. In the meantime, Fb stays constant, pushed partially by lively Teams and native communities.
The facility of consistency
We checked out over 100,000 Buffer customers throughout a 26-week interval to reply one query:
Does posting persistently actually make a distinction?
Quick reply — sure. A giant one.
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On this examine, “constant” means posting no less than as soon as per week. “Extremely constant” = 20+ weeks out of 26.
Key findings:
What occurs once you present up week after week? Creators who posted no less than as soon as every week for 20+ weeks noticed 450% extra engagement per publish than those that posted fewer than 5 occasions throughout the identical interval.
→ Simply 5 months of constant weekly posting = 4.5× extra engagement per publish.
Even creators who posted persistently for simply 5–19 weeks earned 3.4× extra engagement than the least constant group. Displaying up only one month extra than common can meaningfully shift your outcomes.
Engagement peaked across the 21-week mark, with a median of 4.47 interactions per publish. After that, returns started to stage off — an indication that consistency issues greater than quantity.
This sample held throughout platforms — whether or not it was Threads, Instagram, or LinkedIn. It’s not about going viral as soon as. It’s about constructing predictable engagement over time.
📌 What does the information imply for you?
Consistency compounds. For those who’re searching for one high-impact behavior to construct, make it this: publish as soon as every week, each week.
Even brief posts. Even when it’s not good. The outcomes are clear — frequency breeds familiarity, and familiarity builds engagement.
📚 Sources that can assist you publish persistently
Do AI-assisted posts carry out higher or worse?
To this point, we’ve seen how engagement charges and consistency form efficiency. However what about how the content material will get made — and whether or not AI can assist?
To know how AI is shaping content material efficiency, we analyzed 1.2 million posts throughout six main platforms — evaluating posts written fully by people to these created with assist from Buffer’s AI Assistant.
Spoiler: AI didn’t simply assist individuals write quicker. It additionally helped them publish smarter — and extra usually.
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The platforms we studied have been: Fb, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Threads, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube.
Key findings:
AI-assisted content material noticed ~22% extra engagement than non-AI-assisted posts.
The median engagement charge jumped from 4.82% to five.87% when AI was used — a significant 22% enhance.
Platform-level positive factors ranged from +5% on YouTube to +100% on Threads, exhibiting that some platforms profit extra from AI-written codecs than others.
However this wasn’t nearly writing model — creators utilizing AI additionally posted extra usually and refined their content material quicker, which contributed to stronger efficiency.
📌 What does the information imply for you?
AI isn’t magic — but it surely is momentum.
Instruments like Buffer’s AI Assistant can assist you get previous the clean web page quicker, check out new angles, and keep constant.
These small productiveness positive factors stack up. Higher hooks, clearer formatting, and stronger CTAs can all contribute to larger engagement — even when the publish was your concept from the beginning.
In brief? AI can assist you publish extra of your finest work — extra usually. And as AI instruments grow to be extra embedded in on a regular basis workflows, the road between ‘AI-assisted’ and ‘human-created’ will blur — however the aim stays the identical: exhibiting up persistently with content material that connects.
📚 Sources to spice up your AI toolkit
Platform-specific insights
Get the sting on every platform with distinctive efficiency and utilization patterns.
Do longer TikTok movies get extra views?
Everybody talks about TikTok as a short-form platform — however the information tells a special story.
We analyzed 1.1 million TikTok movies to learn the way video size impacts efficiency. The outcomes problem the concept that shorter is at all times higher.
Key findings:
To start out off, we checked what everyone seems to be already doing and most TikToks — 86% — are below 60 seconds. However surprisingly, creators who go longer are reaping the rewards.
In comparison with mid-length movies (30–60 seconds), TikToks over 60 seconds earned:
- +43.2% extra attain
- +63.8% extra watch time
And when in comparison with ultra-short clips (5–10 seconds), the outcomes are much more dramatic, with movies over 60 seconds seeing:
- +95.7% extra attain
- +264.5% extra watch time
Even 30–60 second clips noticed stable wins over shorter content material:
- +18.9% extra attain vs. 10–30 sec movies
- +36.7% extra attain vs. 5–10 sec clips
📌 What does the information imply for you?
For those who take nothing else away from this part, take this: create movies which might be 60 seconds or longer.
Even mid-length movies of 30-60 seconds persistently produce stronger outcomes than ultra-short clips.
Lastly, bear in mind: the algorithm rewards watch time, however high quality nonetheless wins. A powerful first few seconds matter simply as a lot as size, so hook quick, then ship.
📚 Sources to raise your TikTok content material
How content material codecs have an effect on Instagram attain and engagement in 2025
We analyzed over 4 million Instagram posts from 2022 to late 2024 to know how content material format impacts each attain and engagement.
Our information revealed that reels and carousels each have strengths — however they serve totally different objectives.
Key findings:
Reels drive discovery. On common, Reels earned:
- 36% extra attain than carousels
- 125% extra attain than single-image posts
Carousels drive engagement. They outperformed different codecs when it got here to interactions:
- 12% extra engagement than reels
- 114% extra engagement than single-image posts
📌 What does the information imply for you?
There are three issues to contemplate given these findings.
One, to develop your viewers and enhance visibility on Instagram, use reels – they’re seen extra usually, particularly by non-followers.
Two, to have interaction your current group extra deeply, use Carousels – they get extra likes, feedback, saves, and shares.
And eventually, use photographs extra sparingly. They nonetheless have a task — however carry out lowest on each attain and engagement. Higher but, put them in a carousel.
📚 Sources to improve your Instagram
The social media panorama is consistently shifting, so to know the place creators and types are focusing their consideration, we analyzed hundreds of thousands of Buffer channel connections from 2022 to late 2024. Our information exhibits each the rise of recent gamers and the endurance of legacy platforms.
Key findings
Right here’s how a few of the largest (and fastest-growing) platforms stack up:
- Bluesky surged: +1,588% enhance (from 1.6K to 27K connections)
- Threads grew quick: +600% (from 3.3K to 23K)
- TikTok exploded: from simply 779 → 276K connections
- Fb stayed sturdy: +70% (from 1.08M → 1.85M)
- Instagram almost doubled: +95% (from 657K → 1.28M)
- Pinterest gained momentum: +113%
- X (previously Twitter) had slower progress: +37%
- YouTube Shorts skyrocketed: 5.6K → 147K in simply 18 months
📌 What does the information imply for you?
The social panorama is not about selecting one successful platform — it’s about diversifying well. Threads and Bluesky reveal how rapidly new platforms can emerge. Getting in early can provide you a head begin on attain and relevance.
However legacy platforms nonetheless matter. Fb and Instagram proceed to develop steadily, reminding us that the largest audiences usually reside the place individuals already spend their time.
And video? It’s unavoidable. The surge in TikTok and YouTube Shorts exhibits that creators are prioritizing codecs that drive visibility rapidly.
In all of this, crucial factor to recollect is to deal with the place your viewers is — and the place they’re headed subsequent.
Threads vs. Twitter/X: Which sees essentially the most engagement?
The discharge and fast rise of Threads kickstarted a brand new query among the many text-first platforms: which sees essentially the most engagement?
To reply that, we analyzed 10.2 million posts from 2024 to match engagement efficiency on Threads and X (Twitter) through Buffer.
Key findings
Threads posts have a median engagement charge of 6.25%, in comparison with simply 3.60% on X. That’s a 73.6% enhance in engagement — regardless of Threads having a smaller general person base on the time of research.
The common engagement charge was additionally larger on Threads: 4.44%, in comparison with 2.42% on X — a +83.5% uplift in common engagement.
Why the hole? Engagement on Threads is being pushed by its reply-first algorithm and comparatively low content material saturation, giving posts an extended shelf life and better visibility.
Whereas X nonetheless boasts a bigger lively person base and broader attain potential, the information exhibits that creators searching for engagement — particularly from early adopters and area of interest communities — usually tend to discover it on Threads.
📌 What does the information imply for you?
In case your content material aim is connection and dialog, Threads gives considerably higher engagement right this moment.
However in the event you’re optimizing for information, virality, or attain, X nonetheless has strategic worth — particularly when paired with Threads.
Your finest transfer? Cross-post thoughtfully and prioritize platforms the place your group is most lively.
📚 Sources to develop on Threads and X
The state of text-first platforms: Threads, X, Bluesky
Textual content-first platforms kickstarted social media as we all know it and are at all times surging in recognition — however they’re not all constructed the identical.
To check how creators are exhibiting up (and being seen) on Threads, X, and Bluesky, we analyzed 1.7 million posts from early 2025.
Whereas they could appear interchangeable at first look, the information reveals key variations in engagement dynamics.
Key findings
The median publish will get 4 engagements on all three platforms. So for the standard person, efficiency begins in an identical vary.
However once you have a look at common engagements, platform conduct diverges:
- X posts common 328 engagements — which means a couple of viral hits skew the numbers.
- Threads common 58 — indicating regular, constant interplay.
- Bluesky averages 21 — area of interest and centered, with smaller however devoted audiences.
However why does it matter in any respect? It helps to make an knowledgeable resolution about which platform to select and what method to take.
- X is unpredictable — highly effective in the event you strike viral gold, however likelihood is you may often get a modest 4 interactions.
- Threads is the regular center floor — engagement isn’t excessive, but it surely’s predictably stable.
- Bluesky is deliberately small-scale — designed for creators who worth tight-knit interactions over mass attain.
📌 What does the information imply for you?
A multi-platform method can provide you each scale and depth. Mix the strengths of every platform:
- Chasing viral attain? Spend money on X, realizing the payoff is available in spikes.
- Need constant conversations? Threads gives a reliable baseline.
- Desire deep-dive group engagement? Bluesky could also be well worth the effort.
And so that you don’t duplicate efforts, discover cross-posting. Creators seeing essentially the most success usually cross-post with slight tweaks — repackaging concepts to match every platform’s vibe.
📚 Sources in your text-first platforms
The most effective time to publish on each platform
Our hottest query — answered with information from actual person posts.
Buffer analyzed hundreds of thousands of posts throughout all main platforms to find out the perfect occasions to publish.
Under, you’ll discover a breakdown of top-performing time home windows by platform — plus hyperlinks to dive deeper into every particular person evaluation.
Finest time to publish on Fb
The most effective time to publish on Fb is between 5–7 a.m. native time, with Mondays and Wednesdays driving essentially the most engagement. Early morning scrolls stay efficient, particularly for content material that sparks dialog.
Finest time to publish on Instagram
Instagram sees peak efficiency within the late afternoon, particularly 3–6 p.m., with Fridays producing essentially the most interactions. That is prime time for visible content material and save-worthy posts.
Finest time to publish on LinkedIn
For LinkedIn, the optimum posting window is 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a noticeable spike round 10 a.m. on Tuesdays. Align your content material with working hours to succeed in professionals in discovery mode.
Finest time to publish on TikTok
TikTok posts carry out finest when revealed within the late afternoon to early night (4–7 p.m.), with Sunday evenings and midweek afternoons standing out. This displays when customers are almost certainly to look at longer-form video content material.
Finest time to publish on YouTube
The most effective time to publish YouTube Shorts is between 3–5 p.m., particularly on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Posting forward of peak watch hours boosts preliminary attain and retention.
Finest time to publish on Threads
Threads sees sturdy engagement between 7–9 a.m., with an fascinating spike on Sundays at 1 a.m. For those who’re experimenting with early-morning or in a single day content material, Threads is value testing.
Finest time to publish on X (previously Twitter)
The best posting window on X is 8–10 a.m., with Wednesdays and Tuesdays seeing the best engagement. Well timed, text-driven posts are likely to carry out finest throughout these early-day moments.
📌 What does the information imply for you?
- There’s no one-size-fits-all time — every platform exhibits its personal rhythm. Viewers habits range, and noon or night spikes can differ by platform.
- Weekdays win — weekends typically underperform throughout all platforms.
- Early to mid-mornings and mid-afternoons to early evenings are prime posting home windows — aligning with routines like commutes, breaks, and winding down.
- Use these occasions as benchmarks — however don’t skip testing. Your distinctive viewers could reply in a different way, and your personal information is the perfect supply of reality for reveal your finest occasions.
Extra information coming quickly
We’re at all times testing and publishing new studies primarily based on actual platform exercise. Regulate the newest findings to remain up to date on our newest updates.
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Need us to review one thing? Tell us on Threads — we’re at all times open to new information deep dives.
