Find out who will dominate the video market in 2025 in our comparative analysis of YouTube and Facebook. Explore the trends, statistics and strategies of the two social media giants to find out where content creators and consumers are headed. And don't miss our analysis of the forces at play and the opportunities ahead in the video landscape.
Social platforms are constantly reshuffling the deck, driven by the acceleration of artificial intelligence, increasingly diverse video consumption behaviors, and bold strategies orchestrated by tech giants. At the top of the list, YouTube and Facebook command the majority of attention, embodying the fierce battle for leadership in the global video market. Between transforming usage, exploding advertising investments, and major technological innovations, the year 2025 reveals a completely transformed digital ecosystem. Advertisers, content creators, and users are navigating the heart of this revolution, seeking to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these two titans. The impacts are being felt well beyond the traditional boundaries of the social media, affecting influencer marketing, e-commerce, engagement strategies, and cultural habits. Through the prism of data, concrete use cases, and innovations, this analysis details the distinctive strengths of YouTube and Facebook, revealing the mechanisms that will shape the video market in 2025.
YouTube vs. Facebook: Global Overview and New Power Balance
The year 2025 marks a pivotal turning point in the competition between YouTube and Facebook, with each platform claiming dominant positions in key segments of the global video market. YouTube boasts an active user base that is 16 % than WhatsApp, thus surpassing Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Twitter in terms of video reach. This supremacy is not only digital: it is expressed through the diversity of formats, the depth of engagement and the power of analytical tools.
Facebook, with its extensive integration of video features into its News Feed and Facebook Watch, remains a massive audience driver. Its strength? The recycling of videos from Reels initially created on Instagram and amplified thanks to the synergy of the Meta ecosystem. In addition, Facebook has taken first place in terms of generating traffic to websites, with posts with links garnering an average of 413 clicks — a score higher than all other social platforms, including Instagram, YouTube or TikTok.
- YouTube dominates thanks to the depth of long and short content (Shorts, Lives, Playlists).
- Facebook capitalizes on the virality of its short formats (Reels) and on the power of the Meta ecosystem.
- Instagram appears to be an essential engine for brand discovery and social commerce.
- TikTok grabs first place for time spent per Android user with 35 hours per month on average.
- Other players – Snapchat, Twitter, Twitch, Vimeo, Dailymotion – are investing in specific niches: live streaming, expert communities or thematic sharing.
| Platform | Active users (worldwide) | Average time per month | Dominant video type | Traffic generated (clicks to sites) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 2.53 billion | 28h | Long, Shorts, Live | 350 |
| 2.13 billion | 21h | Reels, Stories, Live | 413 | |
| 1.7 billion | 15h | Reels, Stories | 275 | |
| TikTok | 1.5 billion | 35h | Courtes, Live | 228 |
| Snapchat | 750 million | 10h | Stories, Spotlight | 160 |
The challenge is no longer just to accumulate views, but to retain hybrid audiences and converge uses. This balance of power is reinforced by the spectacular growth of digital in everyday life: 5.56 billion Internet users, 5.24 billion active social profiles and an average engagement of 2 hours 21 minutes per day on networks are the markers of a highly competitive market.
As strategies evolve, it becomes clear that the distinction is made as much by the ability to monetize audiences as by mastery of technological tools—from algorithmic recommendations to rights management on AI-generated content. Massive engagement with videos on YouTube is also resulting in the emergence of innovative monetized formats, while Facebook is accelerating its personalization and integration of video shopping.
Rising platforms and fragmentation of uses
One trend stands out: the public today is juggling with a average of 6.83 social platforms per month. In addition to the essentials, players like Twitch, Vimeo, Dailymotion, LinkedIn, and Twitter are grabbing market share in specialized segments. LinkedIn, for example, is investing heavily in video, similar to TikTok, experimenting with immersive feeds designed for professionals and experts. (Discover this transformation here on ValueYourNetwork).
The fragmentation of the digital landscape, however, creates formidable complexity for advertisers and content creators. The excitement around niche platforms, such as Bluesky or Threads, is accompanied by an increasing difficulty in establishing loyal audiences. Winning attention span is therefore becoming the true barometer of success, justifying massive investments and continuous innovation.
To understand how the video battle is structured, it is imperative to focus on the engagement mechanisms and their evolution, a decisive issue in the current market.
Video Audience Engagement: An In-Depth Look at Behaviors
The ability to generate lasting and deep engagement is one of the major criteria that separates market leaders. On YouTube, the diversity of formats (long videos, Shorts, Live, Playlists) encourages à la carte consumption, fostering the formation of communities around flagship creators such as MrBeastwith a record 341 million subscribers This year.
Facebook, for its part, is leveraging the ease of viral sharing, the relay of private and public groups, and the synergy with Instagram and Messenger to amplify its video audiences. AI-powered Reels and Stories are systematically highlighted in the Feed algorithm, pushing content discovery towards a logic of zapping and virality. This approach confers a formidable capacity to generate reach, particularly on current topics, sports, or entertainment.
- Long videos on YouTube generate in-depth interactions (comments, likes, recurring subscriptions).
- Virality on Facebook takes advantage of the “shares + groups” structure, quickly propelling content to broader targets.
- The format live streaming on YouTube and Facebook, but also on Twitch or LinkedIn, marks important events (webinars, games, public debates).
- Video capsules (Shorts on YouTube, Reels on Facebook and Instagram, TikToks) encourage immediate engagement with young audiences.
- Recommendation tools stimulate both loyalty (creation of playlists, subscriptions, personalized recommendations) and discovery (algorithms exploring trends).
| Video format | Flagship platform | Average engagement time | Dominant interaction | Example of a captive audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long duration | YouTube, Facebook Watch | 20 min | Comments, Subscriptions | MrBeast fans, online training |
| Short video | TikTok, Reels, Shorts | 90 sec | Shares, Likes | Young people aged 16-24 |
| Live streaming | Twitch, YouTube Live, Facebook Live | 40 min | Donations, Live Reactions | Video game fans, coaching, concerts |
| Stories | Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat | 12 sec | Views, Quick Replies | Millennials & Generation Z |
The study of behavior shows that the loyalty Instagram's strong point is 16.6 %, while Facebook retains 13.1 % of its users reporting strong loyalty. TikTok outperforms all other platforms in terms of time spent, although user persistence remains more volatile than on YouTube or Facebook.
The rise of podcasts and sports content is strengthening the sense of community, a significant lever for video content creation. The emergence of AI-generated video on YouTube, the rise of video podcasts (particularly with YouTube Music and Spotify), and the rise of video shopping on Facebook illustrate this constant diversification of engagement points. To ensure the success of a video strategy, it has become essential to multiply formats, adapt production to the context of each platform, and continuously measure performance to guide editorial policy.
Content segmentation and personalized experiences
The challenge for each platform is now the ability to personalize the user experience. With the rise of artificial intelligence, both YouTube and Facebook are perfecting their recommendations to adapt to tastes and viewing habits. Thanks to AI, Facebook offers, for example, the automated highlighting of content based on location, social context, and virality potential. While YouTube is refining its dynamic playlists, identifying videos likely to capture attention or generate strong engagement, while automatically detecting content generated or modified by generative AI (more).
This level of technological sophistication is pushing advertisers to redesign their creative and budgetary strategy, exploring the synergies between individual targeting, remarketing and multi-platform activation.
Understanding the place of advertising investment and influencer marketing in this new era is fundamental to grasping the dynamics of domination in the video universe.
Advertising explosion and changing influence strategies
The YouTube vs. Facebook competition isn't just about audience acquisition; it's also about monetization and advertising effectiveness. Across the digital sector, global advertising investment has reached 1.1 trillion dollars in 2024, with a marked growth of 7,3 %Social networks now capture nearly 73,% of these budgets, or 790 billion, while influencer marketing is experiencing spectacular growth, peaking at 35 billion dollars invested, galvanized by the performance of creators on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
- Advertising reach is up sharply on LinkedIn (+17 %) and Pinterest (+10 %).
- Video, whether short or long, is the preferred format for branding, awareness and conversion.
- On Facebook, video advertising is increasingly integrated into the news feed, leveraging cross-platform data (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp).
- YouTube creators are leveraging the diversification of sponsored formats: product placements, collaborations, live shopping, and the integration of video podcasts.
- The use of AI makes it possible to optimize advertising targeting and predict the evolution of ROI on each platform.
| Canal Social | Advertising spending 2024 ($ billion) | Annual change (%) | Share of video in advertising | Star influencers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 108 | +12 | 69 % | MrBeast, Squeezie |
| 76 | +13 | 52 % | Le Grand JD, Nas Daily | |
| 52 | +16 | 57 % | Chiara Ferragni, Léna Situations | |
| TikTok | 28 | +18 | 84 % | Khabane Lame, Zach King |
| Twitch | 7 | +8 | 55 % | TommyInnit, Domingo |
Podcasts, powered by video, are becoming the new El Dorado of influence. According to GWI, 22,1 % of online adults listen to at least one weekly podcast, now surpassing the proportion who follow influencers (discover here). By quickly investing in this format, YouTube and Spotify are signaling the rise of hybrid content (audio + video), promoting new modes of engagement and intimacy with audiences. Facebook, for its part, is exploring the integration of Live audio and the retransmission of live events to build community loyalty.
This context of accelerated change is widening the gap between pioneering platforms like YouTube, capable of aggregating diverse global audiences, and Facebook, which is riding the wave of a massively engaged intergenerational audience, courted through social commerce and interactive content. Both are concentrating budgets and attracting major talent, while having redefined the codes of digital marketing in the era of ubiquitous video.
While advertising performance is becoming a central issue, strengthening video identity and innovation on each platform is accelerating the race for new formats and winning over future generations.
Micro-influencers, communities and authenticity
Success is no longer limited to industry giants. Micro-influencers, capable of engaging highly targeted and authentic communities, are becoming essential for brands seeking credibility.find out why). On YouTube, building specialized channels, specific niches, and personalized playlists attracts a loyal audience seeking shared expertise or passion. Facebook, for its part, favors private thematic groups, where exchanges and mutual assistance often revolve around practical or inspiring videos.
- Authentic partnerships: personalized campaigns based on strong storytelling.
- Private groups: co-creation and sharing of key videos, tutorials, case studies.
- Explosions of video challenges: recurring short formats that ride the wave of #2025 trends.
- Mixed formats: combining a podcast, a video and a live event to strengthen proximity.
- Participatory engagement: voting, questions/answers, competitions relayed on video.
The development of these micro-influence strategies injects a breath of authenticity into the video sphere, making each viral content potentially carrying new value, in an ecosystem where relevance and creativity count more than the mechanical multiplication of views.
These examples reveal a profound shift in how each platform approaches video, its monetization, and its engagement with its users. These transformations are paving the way for the advent of artificial intelligence and personalization, key elements in the future structuring of the market.
Video Social Networks and AI: New Frontiers of User Experience
The integration of artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the video experience across all platforms. On YouTube, AI powers video recommendations, detects potentially sensitive content, automatically summarizes chapters, and flags AI-generated videos. Facebook, meanwhile, leverages generative AI to adapt suggestions in Feed, curate dynamic playlists, and deliver branded videos tailored to each user.
- Optimizing real-time video feeds based on individual interactions and preferences.
- Automated comment moderation, proactive removal of inappropriate content.
- Automatic synthesis of video summaries, translation into several languages in real time on YouTube.
- Push inspirational or educational videos according to the expectations of audience segments on Facebook.
- Cross-recommendation with LinkedIn (viral B2B content), Twitch (live streaming events), TikTok (trendy challenges).
| AI functionality | YouTube | User impact | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personalized recommendation | Yes, very advanced. | Yes, via Feed and Watch | Increases engagement time |
| AI content detection | Yes, AI signage | Yes, proactive moderation | Confidence, increased security |
| Simultaneous translation | Available on featured videos | Coming soon via MetaAI | Global accessibility, diversity |
| Generation of microformats | Shorts, dynamic extracts | Reels, Automatic Stories | More discoveries, responsiveness |
Added to this technical sophistication is the explosion of ChatGPT in the digital ecosystem, accumulating 310 million unique visitors and 3.5 billion monthly visits. The craze for generative AI is driving the creation of micro-content, video clips, and hybrid formats combining synthetic voices, animations, and augmented video. This trend also encourages the constant reinvention of formats, in line with the rapid evolution of user expectations.
The influence of AI doesn't stop there: it allows each platform to identify “weak signals” in the market, anticipate thematic shifts and inspire the design of new community or commercial experiences.
Personalized video experience, catalyst for social commerce
The combined effectiveness of video and AI is manifested in an exemplary manner in the field of social trade. More 56 % of connected adults say they shop online every week, driven by personalized recommendations from their browsing on Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook. Global online consumer goods sales now exceed 4.12 trillion dollars, confirming the ability of videos to trigger spontaneous purchases through product placement, live shopping or even the addition of interactive information in the video stream.
- Clickable videos: direct redirection to the store or shopping cart, without breaking the customer journey.
- Live shopping: interactive presentations by influencers or experts, real-time questions.
- Tutorials and usage demonstrations on YouTube, sponsored Reels on Facebook, LinkedIn video guides.
- Push of content adapted to each demographic segment, with a particular focus on “silver surfers” (50+ years old), active and solvent but traditionally less targeted.
- Combining QR codes or promotional links embedded in video formats, boosts instant conversion.
This efficiency is fueled by fluidity and personalization, with each platform seeking to eliminate friction to maximize the likelihood of purchase (detailed analysis). Ultimately, the convergence of AI and video could even lead to the emergence of new categories of immersive commerce, merging customer experience, infotainment and community interaction on a very large scale.
The video shopping model, widely tested in Asia and now essential in Europe and the Americas, is redrawing the e-commerce landscape and establishing the supremacy of platforms capable of offering both algorithmic firepower and creative diversity.
The dynamics of streaming and the transformation of television, driven by video, are now forcing a constant repositioning of each player, or risk losing some of their relevance to new generations. This link between video, streaming, and the evolution of media habits deserves increased attention.
Streaming, video and media transformation: towards a new generational paradigm
The rise of streaming content is disrupting the traditional balance between video platforms and legacy media. While Netflix and Disney+ continue their ascent, YouTube maintains its status as the leader in online video, generating more than 6,44 % of global web traffic — 40 billion more than Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit, and WhatsApp combined. On screens, the new generation spends more time streaming than watching traditional television, particularly among 16-24 year-olds who devote 51 % of their screen time.
- 92 % of Internet users consume online content every month, across all media.
- Video streaming captures nearly 87 % of worldwide Internet traffic (all formats, all platforms).
- Sports and podcasts are gaining ground, with 23.6 % and 22.1 % regular users respectively.
- Interactive formats: live chat, annotations, interactive responses, embedded polls on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and LinkedIn.
- Niche platforms (Vimeo, Dailymotion) specialize in the B2B aspect, capturing professional events or sharing expert content.
| Content type | Dominant platforms | Key audience | Share of screen time | Characteristic use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video streaming | YouTube, Netflix, Twitch | 16-24 years old, esports fans | 51 % (16-24 years) | Video games, broadcasts, live talk shows |
| Social video | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok | 25-44 years, families, trending | 42 % (social network time) | Discovery, entertainment, challenges |
| Professional video | LinkedIn, Vimeo | 30-50 years, B2B, experts | 15 % (dedicated time) | Webinars, training, conferences |
| Podcasts & Audio Video | YouTube, Spotify | Any age | 20 % (weekly audience share) | Broadcasts, debates, long-form stories |
In this landscape, YouTube stands out as the most transgenerational platform, capable of winning over both digital natives and more mature generations. Facebook, for its part, stands out for the strength of its intergenerational communities, offering a unifying space for dialogue and sharing, although video consumption is less intensive than on YouTube or TikTok.
The transformation of video social networks is also the result of the ability to integrate the live experience, essential for covering sporting, political, and cultural events on a global scale. Twitch occupies a central place in this segment, but must contend with the rise of competing offerings coming directly from YouTube, Facebook Live, and LinkedIn Video.
Generations, content and evolution of video cultural practices
Observation of practices highlights the shift from a linear model (traditional TV) to on-demand, open-ended, and interactive consumption. This revolution generates several notable effects:
- Emergence of cross-channel creators: the same influencer activates their visibility on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitch to maximize their omnichannel presence.
- Blurring the lines between editorial, entertainment, commerce and education.
- Revaluation of educational and informative content (webinars, tutorials, mini-training courses) on LinkedIn Video and YouTube.
- Live streaming is booming for breaking news coverage, political discussions and major sporting events.
- Increasing integration of audio with video: podcasts, live talk shows, filmed episodes of audio series broadcast on YouTube or Facebook Watch.
Each platform is honing its strategy to capture new audiences while maximizing the attention span of its traditional communities. This race for relevance is driving innovation and accelerating the reshuffling of the cards, both technologically and in the very nature of the connection between creators, audiences, and brands.
From this wealth of opportunities and challenges, it becomes clear that the future of social video is less about simple dominance than about perpetual strategic adaptation to the frenetic pace of global demand.