Why TikTok’s loss might be Instagram’s gain as Reels grows in content and audience

Both TikTok and Instagram draw younger audiences compared to Facebook, with 62% of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. saying they use TikTok, while 78% of the same age group use Instagram, per Pew Research Center. Americans ages 30 to 49 use LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Facebook at higher rates. A brand’s consideration comes down to where its audience is, said Mark Lodwick, director of marketing at Intuit Mailchimp. Lodwick has found “TikTok [being] great for reaching millennials and Gen Z.”

Additionally, Instagram already has a massive ad business worth more than $30 billion in ad revenue, according to eMarketer, while TikTok’s U.S. ad revenue is an estimated $11 billion, up from $5.96 billion in 2022, per Statista. Instagram’s U.S. ad revenue is expected this year to increase by up to $5.10 billion (or some 15.9%) to $37.13 billion, surpassing Facebook as the largest social ad business in the country, per eMarketer.

Recent agencies’ data shared with Digiday indicates some uptick across content creation on Instagram Reels following the temporary TikTok ban on Jan. 19, as well as followers and engagement increasing on Reels for some major creators, like MrBeast. Even before the brief TikTok ban in January, creators were already adding other handles to their profiles in anticipation of a ban and encouraging followers to join them on other apps.

While TikTok remains a significant player amid its uncertainty, with many creators continuing to use it and agencies confirming that clients have not pulled budgets, there’s a clear shift toward diversification among creators and advertisers.

Data from influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy’s proprietary tool, Companion, showed that Instagram saw creator content growing 16% in the week after the ban, which it measured based on number of posts creators published on a platform after the ban. YouTube also saw content creation increasing 14% during the same period, while TikTok saw a 3% drop in content posts and a 9% decrease in average views per video, per the study, which analyzed more than 10,000 creators’ activity, 78,000 posts and 19 billion impressions in the U.S. and U.K.

“[The data] indicates that Instagram has emerged as the main beneficiary of the disruption to TikTok in the U.S.,” said Becky Owen, chief marketing officer of Billion Dollar Boy.

The report also noted that Instagram Reels’ viewership was “relatively stable” and suggested that “audiences may be gravitating more toward Instagram over YouTube in response to the shift.” Meta did not respond to requests for comment.

In another study reviewing the TikTok ban, cybersecurity company SafetyDetectives, which provides research and crisis management services, researched how social accounts were impacted after the event. It looked at engagement in the U.S. across 30 creator and company accounts across nine categories, like music and tech, on social platforms before and after the disruption. For example, streamer IShowSpeed got an additional 1.2 million followers on Instagram, while actor Dwayne Johnson got 1 million new followers. Musician Bad Bunny and YouTuber MrBeast also both gained more than 500,000 followers on Instagram, according to the company’s analysis.

Another indicator for more Instagram interest could be a recent spike in Meta’s cost per mille (CPM) pricing since January 2025 that suggests demand for Instagram (and perhaps Facebook to a lesser extent) is rising during this uncertain time, according to Calla Murphy, svp of digital strategy and integrated marketing at Belardi Wong, an agency working with high-end fashion and retail brands. Murphy shared that Meta CPMs surged 20% year-over-year this January from $10 to nearly $12, and CPM is up 14% overall year-to-date across the agency’s Meta data.

“[It went] up to 40% from Jan. 7 to 19,” Murphy said, adding that February prices are coming down slightly to $11.70.

As another reference, performance marketing agency Gupta Media also tracked CPM peaking at $11.46 for Instagram Feed on Jan. 13 and up to $11.47 on Jan 28 for Instagram Reels. Its Social CPM Tracker showed a spike during Jan. 13 to Jan. 19, 2025 with CPM at $9.93, up from $5.68 during the third week in January 2024.

Ahead of time, “CPMs did start picking up … and they were up 30% to 40%, so we definitely saw spikes in CPMs leading up to the TikTok ban,” Murphy added. “So if folks are trying to diversify some of their TikTok spend and push it back into Meta, essentially the demand for ad impressions goes up — increasing the price right now.”

In response, Murphy explained that, like many agencies, they continue advising brands to diversify their marketing mix on online and offline channels, including through Pinterest and Snapchat or direct mail and search, as well.

Other agencies and brands agree that Instagram Reels is perceived as the closest experience to TikTok’s full-screen, short-form video format. Another advantage is that Meta has been investing in Reels for years, adding trial Reels (a feature to test content with non-followers) last December, increasing the video length to 3 minutes from 90 seconds this January and launching an editing app (Edit) to compete with CapCut, which is also facing uncertainty.

Hannah Fritzenkotter, director of paid social for agency CMI Media Group, agreed there has been more investment into Meta since TikTok’s disruption, but it varies by client. Some clients have found moving small amounts of budgets to Reels to be “pretty successful,” she said, adding that it’s something the agency has experimented with for a while. “… I think TikTok’s just maybe amplified the timeline.”

CMI has not noticed brands divesting from TikTok, as the app is still active for users that have already downloaded it, despite the app facing a ban in about two months. In fact, some brands are continuing to engage on TikTok, seeing an opportunity to gain more traction if competitors are pulling back.

“Our POV is if [TikTok is] still performing well and it’s still doing what it’s supposed to be doing … we’re going to stay there,” said Alexandra Gilson, senior vp of paid social at CMI.

Kelly Dye, vp of influencer strategy of New Engen influencer shop Acorn, also tells brands to “not to abandon ship” on TikTok just yet — and believes that “Meta and YouTube are best poised to grab the dollars. Instagram Reels is a better apples-to-apples swap for millennial audiences, many of them were consuming TikTok to begin with, [and] YouTube Shorts might be better positioned to replace it for Gen Z.”