While reach fell on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Pinterest, one platform went the other way. Average views per YouTube video rose 76% in 2025, from 390 to 687. Interactions rose 11%. Comments rose 38%. The platform passed 2.5 billion monthly users.
The myth is that YouTube is the hard one, the platform for full-time creators with editing suites. The data says businesses published on YouTube more often than anywhere else, around 21 uploads a week on average, more than five times their TikTok output and ten times their Reels. Much of that is Shorts, and it should be said that engagement rate fell 37%, so more people are watching without proportionally more reacting. For search content, that is fine. Being watched is the point.
What it means for a South African business
YouTube is the only social platform that is also a search engine, and its videos surface in Google. A twelve-minute video answering the question your customers ask on the phone every week, filmed once, gets found for years. A Reel gets found for a day. For a business selling anything that needs explaining, from a wine club to a solar installation to a wedding venue, the slow platform is the one that compounds.
There is a broader shift underneath the numbers. After five years of eight-second clips, audiences are showing an appetite for longer, calmer, more human content. That is good news for a brand that would rather be understood than be loud.
What we’d do
A small library rather than a channel. Six to ten evergreen videos that answer real questions, titled the way people search, filmed plainly and well. No adverts dressed as content. Cut the best minute of each into a Short and let it point back to the full piece. Then leave them alone and let the search do the work.
Data: 2026 Social Media Study, 39.7 million posts across 1.06 million business accounts, 2025 compared with 2024.
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