The news: TikTok edges out Instagram in short-form video views, but Instagram boasts a more engaged audience, according to a recent Metricool report.

• Short videos on TikTok get an average of 32,895 views, 46.2% higher than Instagram (23,074) and 518% higher than YouTube (5,320).
• Engagement favors Instagram; the Meta platform has the highest short-form video engagement rate at 4.45%, calculated by comparing interactions with reach.
• That’s above 2.49% for TikTok and 1.71% for YouTube.
• Instagram short videos have the highest volume of likes, comments, shares, and total interactions.

Why it matters: Short-form video is an increasingly effective marketing format for brands looking to reach younger-leaning audiences on social.

• 80.7% of US marketers rate short-form video as effective, outperforming formats like CTV ads (72%) and midroll/in-stream ads (68.4%), per a 2025 EMARKETER/Smartly data.
• Younger audiences watch short-form video at a high rate: 85% of consumers in Great Britain between 16 and 24 watch least weekly, per YouGov, above TV series (65%), films (45%), and video podcasts (33%).
• That effectiveness and high consumption rate likely contributes to the 97% of US marketers who consider short-form/vertical video important to their media strategies, according to 2025 PhotoShelter data.

But Metricool’s report indicates views aren’t an accurate representation of where action is most likely to happen.

Our forecast shows TikTok leads in average daily time spent at 22 minutes, compared with 17 minutes on Instagram overall and 13 minutes on Instagram video. Marketers may mistake that attention advantage for stronger engagement, potentially leading to disproportionate spending across the platforms’ short-form video offerings.

Recommendations for marketers:

• Rethink spending allocation on short-form video platforms. Both TikTok and Instagram are valuable investments for different reasons: TikTok for its leadership in pure views, and Instagram for its edge in engagement. Marketers should ensure that spending aligns with whether reach or engagement is the priority.
• Set platform-specific KPIs. Using the same benchmarks across TikTok and Instagram can obscure differences in performance; marketers should establish KPIs that reflect what each platform is best suited to deliver.