Digiday+ Research: How are marketers measuring success on the top social platforms?

That’s according to a Digiday+ Research survey of 150 marketer professionals conducted in Q1 of this year.

Digiday’s survey found that the top three social platforms among marketers this year are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok (yes, I know that’s four — stay with me). Instagram is the No. 1 social platform for marketers as of Q1 2025, with 93% of marketer pros saying their companies currently use the platform, followed by its Meta sibling Facebook, at 84%. YouTube and TikTok tied for third place, with 65% of marketers saying their companies currently use each platform.

It’s a slightly different picture from what social media marketing looked like six months ago, but the key word here is slightly. Instagram and Facebook were still the top two social platforms in Digiday’s Q3 2024 survey, with 97% of marketer pros saying their companies were using Instagram and 89% saying they were using Facebook. TikTok came in a definitive third place, though, with 86% of marketers saying their companies were using the platform — a significant difference from the 65% who said the same in Q1 of this year. YouTube came in fourth, with 73% of marketers using that platform as of Q3 2024 — another notable difference from the 65% who said they’re currently using the platform in Q1 2025.

Once we move out of the top three (slash four) social platforms, the percentage of marketers who use the different social platforms falls off significantly. Pinterest came in fourth place among the platforms included in Digiday’s Q1 survey, with less than a third of marketers (29%) saying their companies use Pinterest, and X came in fifth place, with just 16% of marketers using the platform. Reddit tied with X for fifth.

When it comes to how marketers are measuring success on the social platforms they use, engagement turned out to be the most important metric. More than a quarter of marketer pros (26%) said engagement is their main measurement of success on Facebook, more than a third (37%) said the same of Instagram and nearly half (42%) said engagement is their main measurement of success on TikTok, making it the top metric on these platforms.

Of the top social platforms in Digiday’s survey, only YouTube had a metric other than engagement come out as the top measurement of success: 34% of marketers said impressions are their main measurement of success on YouTube. A significant percentage of marketers still consider engagement to be important on YouTube, though. Thirty-one percent of marketer pros said engagement is their main measurement of success on the platform.

Digiday’s survey found that commerce or sales is also important for marketers on the top social platforms — it showed up as one of the top three metrics on all of the top three (OK, technically four) platforms. Twenty-nine percent of marketers said commerce or sales is their main measurement of success on Instagram, 25% said the same of Facebook, 15% of marketers said the same of YouTube and 18% said the same of TikTok.

Digiday’s survey found that cost is a major hurdle for marketers when it comes to advertising on social platforms — which, in today’s environment, shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Cost of media is the top challenge marketers chose on both Meta platforms (which maybe says something about the state of advertising with the social giant): 28% of marketer pros said cost of media is the biggest challenge they face on Instagram and 23% said the same of Facebook.

Lack of budget is the top challenge on YouTube — so, along the same lines as Instagram and Facebook. Twenty-three percent of marketers said lack of budget is the biggest challenge they face on YouTube. This challenge also came up for marketers on TikTok — 17% said lack of budget is their biggest challenge on the platform — but it didn’t come out as the top challenge there. Lack of resources and content demands did, with 18% of marketer pros choosing it as their top challenge on TikTok.

It’s also worth noting that 19% of marketers said lack of budget is the biggest challenge they face on Instagram, and that cost of media is the No. 2 challenge among marketers on YouTube, with 22% of respondents to Digiday’s survey saying it’s their biggest challenge on the platform.