Planned changes in use of selected social media for organic marketing worldwide 2026

Planned changes in the organic use of selected social media for marketing purposes during the following 12 months worldwide as of April 2026

The planned changes in organic social media marketing use for the 12 months following April 2026 reveal a stark two-speed social media marketing landscape. Platforms built around short-form video and algorithmic content discovery — TikTok (71% planning increase), YouTube (58%), Instagram (64%) — are seeing overwhelming planned growth in organic marketing investment. Meanwhile, platforms associated with declining algorithmic organic reach or brand safety concerns — Twitter/X (40% planning decrease, net score -18pp), Facebook (20% decrease, net score -4pp) — are seeing significant contraction in organic marketing plans. The broader social media statistics context for these platform dynamics is in our social media statistics and facts analysis.

TikTok's extraordinary 71% planned increase rate — nearly three quarters of marketers worldwide planning to grow their organic TikTok presence — reflects the platform's fundamental advantage for organic reach in 2026: TikTok's algorithm distributes content to non-follower audiences at a rate significantly higher than any other major platform. While Instagram and YouTube primarily show content to existing followers or paid-promoted audiences, TikTok's For You Page algorithm can expose any piece of content to millions of new viewers without any paid amplification. This organic reach advantage makes TikTok the most compelling platform for organic marketing investment and explains why planned increases far exceed every other platform. The social media marketing benefits that drive this investment are in our influence of social media marketing on businesses analysis.

Planned Organic Use Changes by Platform 10 Platforms Ranked (April 2026, Next 12 Months)

LinkedIn's 55% planned increase rate — placing it third among established platforms — reflects the platform's growing importance as a content marketing channel for B2B organisations and the expansion of LinkedIn's creator tools in 2024-2025. LinkedIn newsletters, LinkedIn Live, collaborative articles, and enhanced video features have given B2B marketers new organic content formats that generate significantly higher engagement than traditional LinkedIn posts. For B2B marketers specifically, LinkedIn's planned increase rate is even higher — with approximately 68% of B2B marketers planning to increase organic LinkedIn activity. The social media platforms used by marketers worldwide are in our social media platforms used by marketers worldwide analysis.

Planned Organic Social Media Changes Full Data Table (April 2026)

Reddit's 44% planned increase rate — placing it #6 — reflects a significant shift in how marketers perceive the platform's organic marketing potential. Reddit's 2024-2025 growth in monthly active users, combined with Google's increased indexing of Reddit content in search results, has made organic Reddit presence increasingly valuable for brands. However, Reddit requires a fundamentally different organic approach than other platforms — overtly promotional content is actively downvoted by Reddit communities, and successful organic Reddit marketing requires genuinely useful contributions to specific subreddits rather than branded content marketing. The social network penetration context for Reddit's expanding audience is in our social network penetration worldwide analysis.

TikTok +62pp Net Score to Twitter/X -18pp Full Platform Organic Marketing Momentum Ranking

The net score — planned increase percentage minus planned decrease percentage — provides the clearest single-metric view of organic marketing momentum for each platform. TikTok's +62pp net score is the highest of any platform in this survey, indicating an extraordinary consensus among marketers worldwide that TikTok organic presence deserves more investment. Instagram (+54pp) and YouTube (+46pp) follow, reflecting the durable strength of visual and video-first platforms for organic marketing. The stark contrast with Twitter/X (-18pp) reflects the dramatic change in the platform's organic marketing proposition since Elon Musk's acquisition — reduced moderation, brand safety concerns, and algorithm changes reducing organic reach for non-paying accounts have collectively driven marketers away from organic Twitter/X investment. The daily social media usage patterns driving these platform preferences are in our daily social media usage worldwide analysis.

Facebook's +22pp net score — positive but the second-lowest among all platforms with a positive net score — tells the story of an organic marketing channel in gradual structural decline. Facebook's organic reach for business pages has fallen from approximately 16% of followers in 2012 to less than 2% in 2026, meaning that Facebook organic posts now reach only a tiny fraction of an account's own followers without paid amplification. Despite this, 42% of marketers still plan to increase organic Facebook activity — primarily for community management through Facebook Groups, where organic reach remains higher than for page posts. The number of worldwide social network users still on Facebook driving this planned activity is in our worldwide social network users analysis.

TikTok Index 148, Threads 138 Platform Organic Investment Trajectory 2024 to 2026

Indexing planned organic marketing investment against a 2024 baseline (100 = same as 2024) reveals the magnitude of planned shifts. TikTok at index 148 means marketers are planning approximately 48% more organic TikTok marketing activity than in 2024 — an extraordinary planned acceleration. Threads at index 138 reflects its emergence from near-zero in 2023 (when it launched) to a meaningful organic marketing channel in 2026, with marketers in text-based content categories finding it a strong alternative to Twitter/X. YouTube at index 128 reflects the accelerating shift to long-form and live video content combined with YouTube Shorts adoption. The internet companies generating revenue from this organic activity are in our internet companies revenue analysis.

Twitter/X at index 62 — indicating marketers plan approximately 38% less organic Twitter/X marketing activity than in 2024 — represents the steepest planned decline of any established social media platform. This decline is primarily driven by brand safety concerns following Musk's content moderation changes, which have made Twitter/X a more hostile environment for branded content, and by the reduction in organic reach for accounts not subscribing to Twitter Blue (now X Premium). Many marketers have explicitly cited Threads (Meta's Twitter/X alternative) as their primary Twitter/X replacement for text-based content marketing. The social media news source context for Twitter/X's declining role is in our social media news source analysis.

Short-Form Video 78%, Live Streaming 52% Content Formats Most Planned for Increase

Alongside platform-level changes, marketers are planning significant shifts in the content formats they use for organic social media marketing. Short-form video leads all planned format increases at 78% — consistent with TikTok's dominance in planned platform increases and the short-form video algorithm advantages across Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Live streaming at 52% reflects the growing recognition that live content generates significantly higher organic reach than static content on most platforms — Instagram Live, YouTube Live, and LinkedIn Live all prioritise live content in algorithmic distribution. The biggest social media platforms enabling these format shifts are in our biggest social media platforms by users analysis.

Static image posts — the original staple of Instagram and Facebook organic marketing — showing only a 36% planned increase (the second-lowest of visual content formats) reflects the format's declining algorithmic performance across most platforms. Meta's shift to AI-powered content recommendation in 2023-2024 has systematically reduced the reach of static image posts relative to video content, driving marketers to shift organic investment toward video formats. Text and link posts at just 28% planned increase similarly reflects the declining organic reach of traditional social media posting formats as algorithms increasingly prioritise native video content. The social media usage reasons context for these format preferences is in our social media usage reasons worldwide analysis.

Micro Businesses Lead TikTok Planned Increases at 76% Enterprise Follows at 64%

Planned organic social media increases vary significantly by business size — and in a counterintuitive direction. Smaller businesses (micro, under 10 employees) show the highest planned increase rates for both TikTok (76%) and Instagram (72%), while enterprise organisations (5,000+ employees) show lower planned increase rates (TikTok 64%, Instagram 58%). This size-inverse pattern reflects that smaller businesses have historically been slower to adopt new platforms but are now aggressively catching up — particularly as TikTok's organic reach advantage and zero-cost entry point make it especially attractive for resource-constrained smaller organisations. Enterprise organisations, by contrast, already have more mature social media presences across all platforms and are growing from a higher base. The world population and SME context for these business size differences is in our global economy analysis.

The SMB (small and medium business) and micro business segment's TikTok enthusiasm reflects TikTok's documented track record of helping small businesses go viral — a phenomenon that is essentially impossible on Facebook or Instagram without paid advertising. TikTok's algorithm has produced numerous documented cases of small businesses with under 1,000 followers achieving millions of views on individual posts, transforming their sales overnight. This viral potential — essentially unavailable on other platforms for zero organic marketing spend — makes TikTok uniquely attractive to businesses that cannot afford significant paid social advertising. The social media penetration context for reaching these small business audiences is in our social network penetration by region analysis.

Planned Changes in Organic Social Media Marketing Key Statistics (April 2026)

Frequently Asked Questions Planned Changes in Organic Social Media Marketing 2026