New research from social video intelligence firm Tubular Labs highlights major trends shaping the creator economy in 2025, with findings that indicate strategic content duration and cross-category collaborations are driving growth across platforms.
YouTube Shorts now account for 57% of all content uploaded by U.S. creators, generating 88% of total views and 85% of total engagements year-to-date in 2025, according to the report. This dominance of short-form content appears across major brands and creators alike.
Red Bull, for example, allocates 86% of its YouTube uploads to Shorts, which generate 88% of its engagement on the platform. WWE shows a similar pattern with 50% of uploads being Shorts that drive 65% of engagements.
Gaming-focused YouTube Shorts saw an average increase of 17% in views per video in April-May compared to February-March 2025, while long-form gaming content decreased by an average of 15% during the same period.
Regarding cross-category collaborations, one notable finding is that beauty brands achieve their highest engagement rates through partnerships with creators outside their primary category.
Food and Drink was only the fifth most sponsored category by U.S. beauty brands at 2.7% of total uploads, but earned the highest engagement rate compared to all other TikTok categories. Specific beauty brands, including Cetaphil, Nivea, and Sephora, saw their Food and Drink creator partnerships generate up to 3.2 times more engagement than their standard content.
Sephora’s engagement rate on their owned content is only 0.4 times, while their collaborations with Food and Drink creators like @aiyannace reach 3 times the engagement rate, demonstrating the effectiveness of these cross-category partnerships.
Device and Duration Correlations
The research reveals a strong correlation between content length and device usage. Mobile devices account for 69% of YouTube viewership, while TV viewers represent only 16% of views but 42% of estimated minutes watched.
Content under 60 seconds drives higher views on mobile devices, while videos exceeding 20 minutes perform strongest on TV. This device preference pattern suggests creators may need tailored content strategies for different viewing platforms.
Platform-Specific Audience Behaviors
The research highlights distinct audience behaviors across platforms. TikTok, although Red Bull’s third most used platform, accounting for just 14% of uploads, drives 63% of the brand’s total cross-platform engagement.
Audience interests also vary by platform. Red Bull’s YouTube audience shows interest in categories such as fatherhood, road safety, and hobbies, while its TikTok audience is drawn to topics like chess, puzzles, and magic tricks. The overlapping interests between platforms include bicycles and science experiments.
Posting Frequency
The research indicates that posting frequency has a significant impact on content performance, with different optimal rates depending on the goals.
Top gaming creators ranked by total YouTube views post approximately 30 times per week, while creators with the highest views per video post only 4 times weekly. Similarly, creators with the highest total engagements post 20 times weekly, while those with top engagement rates per video post 6.8 times per week.
This suggests a strategic tradeoff: higher posting frequency increases total views and engagements but may dilute per-video performance metrics.
Gaming Content and Strong Viewership
Gaming represents the second most viewed YouTube category by U.S. creators in 2025, with approximately 1.6 million gaming uploads generating 361 billion views. Only Pop Culture & Entertainment ranks higher.
The top U.S. gaming creators on YouTube show a range of content approaches. Hopper leads with 1,456 uploads generating 2.6 billion views (1.8 million per video), largely consisting of AI-generated action figures and unboxing videos. Meanwhile, Cadres produces Minecraft videos for children and teens, with fewer uploads (386) but higher per-video performance (6.6 million views per video).
The report suggests a growing question around content creation methods, noting: “AI helps generate tons of content, but are audiences more drawn to human-generated content like real gameplay videos from Minecraft?”
Implications for Creators and Brands
The findings suggest multiple strategic considerations for creators and brands operating in the social video space:
Content duration should be tailored to the platform and anticipated viewing device
Cross-category collaborations can significantly outperform standard in-category partnerships
Posting frequency strategies should align with specific growth objectives
Platform-specific content approaches yield better results than one-size-fits-all strategies
The data points presented in the report indicate the growing importance of strategic content decisions based on audience behavior rather than conventional industry assumptions.
All images are credited to Tubular Labs. Get the full report here.
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
New research from social video intelligence firm Tubular Labs highlights major trends shaping the creator economy in 2025, with findings that indicate strategic content duration and cross-category collaborations are driving growth across platforms.
YouTube Shorts now account for 57% of all content uploaded by U.S. creators, generating 88% of total views and 85% of total engagements year-to-date in 2025, according to the report. This dominance of short-form content appears across major brands and creators alike.
Red Bull, for example, allocates 86% of its YouTube uploads to Shorts, which generate 88% of its engagement on the platform. WWE shows a similar pattern with 50% of uploads being Shorts that drive 65% of engagements.
Gaming-focused YouTube Shorts saw an average increase of 17% in views per video in April-May compared to February-March 2025, while long-form gaming content decreased by an average of 15% during the same period.
Regarding cross-category collaborations, one notable finding is that beauty brands achieve their highest engagement rates through partnerships with creators outside their primary category.
Food and Drink was only the fifth most sponsored category by U.S. beauty brands at 2.7% of total uploads, but earned the highest engagement rate compared to all other TikTok categories. Specific beauty brands, including Cetaphil, Nivea, and Sephora, saw their Food and Drink creator partnerships generate up to 3.2 times more engagement than their standard content.
Sephora’s engagement rate on their owned content is only 0.4 times, while their collaborations with Food and Drink creators like @aiyannace reach 3 times the engagement rate, demonstrating the effectiveness of these cross-category partnerships.
Device and Duration Correlations
The research reveals a strong correlation between content length and device usage. Mobile devices account for 69% of YouTube viewership, while TV viewers represent only 16% of views but 42% of estimated minutes watched.
Content under 60 seconds drives higher views on mobile devices, while videos exceeding 20 minutes perform strongest on TV. This device preference pattern suggests creators may need tailored content strategies for different viewing platforms.
Platform-Specific Audience Behaviors
The research highlights distinct audience behaviors across platforms. TikTok, although Red Bull’s third most used platform, accounting for just 14% of uploads, drives 63% of the brand’s total cross-platform engagement.
Audience interests also vary by platform. Red Bull’s YouTube audience shows interest in categories such as fatherhood, road safety, and hobbies, while its TikTok audience is drawn to topics like chess, puzzles, and magic tricks. The overlapping interests between platforms include bicycles and science experiments.
Posting Frequency
The research indicates that posting frequency has a significant impact on content performance, with different optimal rates depending on the goals.
Top gaming creators ranked by total YouTube views post approximately 30 times per week, while creators with the highest views per video post only 4 times weekly. Similarly, creators with the highest total engagements post 20 times weekly, while those with top engagement rates per video post 6.8 times per week.
This suggests a strategic tradeoff: higher posting frequency increases total views and engagements but may dilute per-video performance metrics.
Gaming Content and Strong Viewership
Gaming represents the second most viewed YouTube category by U.S. creators in 2025, with approximately 1.6 million gaming uploads generating 361 billion views. Only Pop Culture & Entertainment ranks higher.
The top U.S. gaming creators on YouTube show a range of content approaches. Hopper leads with 1,456 uploads generating 2.6 billion views (1.8 million per video), largely consisting of AI-generated action figures and unboxing videos. Meanwhile, Cadres produces Minecraft videos for children and teens, with fewer uploads (386) but higher per-video performance (6.6 million views per video).
The report suggests a growing question around content creation methods, noting: “AI helps generate tons of content, but are audiences more drawn to human-generated content like real gameplay videos from Minecraft?”
Implications for Creators and Brands
The findings suggest multiple strategic considerations for creators and brands operating in the social video space:
The data points presented in the report indicate the growing importance of strategic content decisions based on audience behavior rather than conventional industry assumptions.
All images are credited to Tubular Labs.
Get the full report here.