Digiday+ Research: Publishers’ growing focus on video doesn’t translate to social platforms

By Julia Tabisz  •  December 12, 2025  •

Ivy Liu

This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →

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Big names in the publisher world are investing in vertical video: Time, CNN, The New York Times. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center study found that 21% of adults in the U.S. and 37% of those under 30 regularly get their news from creators or influencers.

Logically, this trail would lead down the path of social media. After all, publishers’ movements involving vertical video reflect the shift of audiences to TikTok-style feeds where creators are increasingly the ones delivering news and information.

But the reality is that publishers’ recent investments in vertical video are focused on their own sites and apps. And, while a Digiday+ Research survey of 50 publisher professionals conducted in the third quarter found that video-focused social media platforms account for four of the top five platforms publishers currently use, the survey also found that publishers’ use two out of four of those platforms has fallen over the last year.

Digiday’s survey found that Instagram is the top-used social media platform among publishers, with 90% of publisher pros saying in Q3 that their titles had posted content on Instagram in the previous month. Facebook followed, with 82% of publishers saying they use the platform, followed by YouTube at 78%, X at 66% and TikTok at 58%.

Instagram and YouTube both saw an increase in publisher use over the last year. In Q3 2024, 86% of publisher pros told Digiday they had posted content there in the previous month. Seventy-one percent said the same of YouTube last year.

Publishers’ use of Facebook, however, has been trending downward in the last few years. In Q3 2022, a whopping 99% of publisher pros told Digiday they had posted content on Facebook in the last month. That percentage fell to 91% in Q3 2023 and held steady there through Q3 2024, before dropping to 82% in Q3 of this year.

And TikTok has seen a drop-off in usage among publishers over the last year. In Q3 2024, more than two-thirds of publishers (67%) said they had posted content on the platform in the past month, compared to 58% in Q3 2025.

So, what has publishers’ use of the different video-focused social media platforms looked like this year? We break the data down below:

With 90% of publisher pros saying this year that they use Instagram, it’s the most-used social media platform among publishers in 2025 and its usage has increased from 86% last year. Overall, publishers’ use of Instagram has remained strong over the last few years: 91% of publishers said they used the platform in Q3 2023 and 86% said the same in Q3 2022.

Publishers’ ad spend on the platform looks much different, though. It peaked in Q3 2023, when 61% of publisher pros said they had purchased advertising on the platform in the previous month, before falling to 55% in Q3 2024. This year, just 39% of publishers said they purchase advertising on the platform.

Below is a look at some additional data points that capture publishers’ use of Instagram.

Next up is Facebook, which has seen a downward trend among publishers in the last few years. As publishers’ use of the platform has trended down, so has the group’s investment in advertising on the platform. In Q3 2022, three-quarters of publishers (75%) were purchasing advertising on Facebook. That percentage fell slightly to 73% in Q3 2023, then more significantly to 67% in Q3 2024 and 61% in Q3 2025.

It is worth noting, though, that only Facebook maintains a fairly significant amount of publishers’ investments in ads on the platform in comparison to their use of the platform: 61% of publishers who said this year that they had purchased advertising on Facebook in the previous month, compared with 82% who had said they’d posted content on Facebook in the same time period.

Some additional data points on publishers’ use of Facebook below:

The 78% of publisher pros who told Digiday this year that they post on YouTube is a bit of an upswing compared with years past: 71% of publishers said they used YouTube in 2024, a slight decrease from 73% in 2023 and a significant decrease from 83% in 2022.

But Digiday’s survey found that very few publishers invest in advertising on YouTube: Just 23% of publishers said in Q3 of this year that they had purchased advertising on the platform in the previous month. In fact, that percentage has been trending downward: In 2023, 36% of publishers were investing in ads on YouTube, and 29% were doing the same in 2024.

See a further breakdown of publishers’ use of YouTube below.

Publishers still struggle to find a balance on TikTok: 3a80133a-d625-4666-8455-d128e15af346

Finally there’s TikTok — a platform that carries great cultural significance but also one where publishers have historically struggled to find their place. Publishers’ use of TikTok had actually been trending upward as of last year: 51% of publishers told Digiday in Q3 2022 they posted on the platform, 61% said the same in Q3 2023 and 67% were posting on TikTok in Q3 2024. But that percentage fell to 58% this year.

Meanwhile, publishers’ ad spend on TikTok remains very low: Just one-quarter of publishers (25%) said in Q3 of this year that they had purchased advertising on the platform in the past month. This percentage is actually up from last year, when just 19% of publishers were investing in TikTok ads.

A closer look at publishers’ use of TikTok:

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