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As the busiest shopping season of the year gets underway, TikTok is a go-to place for product reviews and recommendations. This is especially true for young women who use the platform, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March.
Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand who uses TikTok for product reviews and recommendations. The questions come from a broader survey exploring the views and experiences of TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram users. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,287 adult internet users in the United States from March 18 to 24, 2024.
Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey was weighted by combining the sample of internet users with data from ATP members who do not use the internet and weighting the combined dataset to be representative of all U.S. adults by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. This analysis is based on those who use the platforms of interest. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this analysis and the survey methodology.
This is a Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related reports online at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.
Use of social media for product reviews and recommendations
A majority of U.S. adults who use TikTok (62%) say a reason they use the site is to look at product reviews or recommendations. This includes roughly a quarter who say it’s a major reason.
By comparison, fewer users of Instagram (44%), Facebook (37%) or X (29%) say they use each platform for product recommendations.
Young women stand out in use of TikTok for product reviews
Brands engage with TikTok users in many ways, whether through online ads or by sponsoring influencers to talk about their latest product. And as discussions about a nationwide ban on TikTok continue, critics of that proposal argue it could wipe out a multibillion-dollar creator market.
Younger users – especially young women – are particularly likely to use the site for product reviews.
Roughly three-quarters of U.S. TikTok users ages 18 to 29 (74%) say this is a reason they use it. This share drops to 62% among users ages 30 to 49 and 46% among those 50 and older.
Women who use TikTok are more likely than men to say they use it for product recommendations (68% vs. 52%). And the youngest women are especially likely to use it for this reason:
- 74% of female TikTok users ages 18 to 49 cite product reviews as a reason they use the site. This includes roughly four-in-ten (37%) who say it’s a major reason.
- Women ages 18 to 29 on TikTok are especially likely to say they use the site for this reason; 83% say so.
- 49% of women ages 50 and older on TikTok say they use the platform for product reviews.
There is a similar pattern across age groups among men who use the platform. Men ages 18 to 49 on TikTok are more likely than men ages 50 and older to use the platform for product reviews (56% vs. 42%).
There are no differences by gender in the shares of those 50 and older who say it’s a reason.
This Pew Research Center analysis is from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
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