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Many US TikTok users go there for product reviews and recommendations.

Posted on by L. Dreeye
Many US TikTok users go there for product reviews and recommendations.

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Ahead of the busiest shopping season of the year, TikTok is becoming a popular 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 is using TikTok for product reviews and recommendations. The questions are taken from a broader survey examining the opinions 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 March 24, 2024.

Everyone who took the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through a national random sample of residential addresses. Thus, almost all American adults have a choice. The survey was weighted by combining a sample of Internet users with data from ATP members who do not use the Internet, and weighting the combined data set to be representative of all American adults by gender, race, ethnicity, party affiliation, education and other categories. This analysis is based on those using the platforms of interest. Learn more about the ATP methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis and the survey methodology.

This is a Pew Research Center analysis conducted as part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Related reports can be found at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.

Using social media for product reviews and recommendations.

A bar chart showing how TikTok stands out as a place where users come for product reviews and recommendations.

The majority of American adults who use TikTok (62%) say they go to the site to view product reviews or recommendations. This includes about a quarter who say it is main cause.

In comparison, fewer Instagram (44%), Facebook (37%) or X (29%) users say they use each platform to recommend products.

Young women stand out for using TikTok to review products

Brands are engaging with TikTok users in a variety of ways, be it through online advertising or sponsoring influencers to talk about their latest product. And as discussions about a nationwide ban on TikTok continue, critics of the proposal say it could wipe out a multibillion-dollar market for creators.

A histogram showing that use of TikTok for product reviews and recommendations varies greatly by age.

Younger users, especially young women, are most likely to use the site to review products.

Roughly three-quarters of U.S. TikTok users aged 18 to 29 (74%) say this is the reason they use it. This share drops to 62% among users aged 30 to 49 and to 46% among users 50 and older.

Women who use TikTok are more likely than men to say they use it to recommend products (68% vs. 52%). And the youngest women are especially inclined to use it for this reason:

  • 74% of female TikTok users aged 18 to 49 cite product reviews as the reason they use the site. This includes about four in ten (37%) who believe it is main cause.
  • Women aged 18 to 29 on TikTok are the most likely to say they use the site for this reason; 83% say so.
  • 49% of women aged 50 and older on TikTok say they use the platform to review products.
A bar graph showing that young women are especially active in using TikTok to review products.

A similar pattern is observed across age groups among men using the platform. Men ages 18 to 49 on TikTok are more likely than men ages 50 and older to use the platform to review products (56% vs. 42%).

There is no gender difference in the proportion of those aged 50 and over who believe this is the cause.

This Pew Research Center analysis comes from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Note. Below are the questions used for this analysis, along with the survey responses and methodology.

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