Creators Went Big on Shorts in 2023

One of the biggest influencer marketing trends of the year, as revealed by a recent CreatorIQ analysis, is that brands and creators went big on short-form video — to the tune of a 700% year-over-year increase in YouTube Shorts used by brand campaigns, a 113% increase in TikTok brand videos and a 100% increase in brand Instagram Reels compared to 2022. 

CreatorIQ leveraged in-platform client data across 2 million posts, 143K creators and 19.8K brand campaigns, including from Unilever, Red Bull and Estee Lauder, for this analysis. A few additional highlights: 

• The value of creator marketing is increasing year-over-year: CreatorIQ clients drove $62.3 billion in EMV worldwide this year, up 14% from 2022’s total.
• A picture is worth a thousand words: Instagram was far and away the preferred platform, with CreatorIQ clients sharing 1.2 million posts on the social platform and 600K Instagram stories. 
• New channels, new opportunities: Brands are experimenting with new channels including Twitch (300% increase) and Snapchat (242% increase). 

Speaking of Snapchat — it may not make the headlines as much as other social platforms these days, but there's evidence that some influencers are leveraging it exponentially more than they used to, to the point that it’s starting to look a bit like reality TV. 

For example, internet personality David Dobrik has over 7 million Snapchat followers and posts 80-100x a day — potentially hours of content that give his audience a front row seat to his own reality. Influencer Bryce Hall revealed that his Snaps routinely receive 50 to 100 million views, and the platform is one of his top sources of income. With stats like those, it’s not surprising that more brands want to get in on the action.