Half of Marketers Now Say Video Is Their Most Important Content Type. TikTok Is Out-Engaging Reels by Four to One.
Social Media Examiner's 2026 report shows 46% of marketers identify video as their most important content type. TikTok engagement is 4 to 9 times Reels and Shorts. Allocation strategies have not caught up.
If you are running the same short-form creative across TikTok, Reels and Shorts and reporting average performance, you are masking a 4-to-9x difference in engagement.
Social Media Examiner's 2026 Social Media Marketing Industry Report puts numbers behind what the industry has felt for two years. Video is now the dominant content type for nearly half of marketers. Short-form video drives the highest reported ROI by format. TikTok engagement rates outpace Instagram Reels by more than four to one, and YouTube Shorts by nine to one.
The headline data. Forty-six per cent of marketers identify video as their most important content type. Ninety-three per cent treat video as important overall. Eighty-two per cent say social-video marketing delivers positive ROI. Sixty-three per cent have used AI tools to create or edit marketing videos in the last 12 months.
The platform comparison is where strategy needs to bend. TikTok engagement rate sits at 2.80%. Instagram Reels at 0.65%. YouTube Shorts at 0.30%.
TikTok engagement rate runs at 2.80%, Instagram Reels at 0.65% and YouTube Shorts at 0.30%, a 9x gap
The Australian context tightens the read. Local TikTok user growth is still the fastest of any major platform. Instagram Reels is mature and increasingly cluttered with ads. YouTube Shorts is, in practice, a discovery layer for the longer YouTube content most Australians still watch via connected TV. The three platforms are not interchangeable channels, even when the creative looks the same.
Why it matters
The numbers force three uncomfortable decisions for marketing teams.
First, if TikTok is delivering 4 to 9 times the engagement, why is the budget allocation usually flat across the three platforms? Most brands run the same volume of content across all three because the cost of repurposing is low. The opportunity cost is the bigger number.
Second, the AI-in-video number, 63%, is high enough that there is now a clear minority of brands that are not using AI in their video workflow. That minority is paying more for production and shipping less iteration than competitors who are.
Third, long-form video is back in the report. Twenty-nine per cent now say long-form video drives ROI. The pendulum is swinging from short-form-only back to a more balanced format mix. Brands that built only-short-form pipelines will need to reinvest in longer formats.
What to do about it
Reallocate at least one quarter of your social-video budget toward whichever platform engages your audience best. If you do not know which platform that is, run a four-week test before committing.
Stop reporting cross-platform social-video as a single number. Break out TikTok, Reels and Shorts performance separately. The averages hide both wins and losses.
Add AI to the workflow if you have not. Tools like Captions, Submagic, Descript and Adobe Premiere AI are now table-stakes for the iteration speed your competitors are running.
Brief long-form video back in. The 29% ROI signal is enough to justify three to five long-form pieces a quarter for testing.
Look at TikTok engagement-rate-by-segment, not just account average. The most engaged segments are usually under-resourced.
The video question is over. The platform-allocation question is not.