Short answer: Most Instagram creators in the sample do not link a TikTok or YouTube account on their profile. In Virev‘s November 2026 study, only 8.6% of Instagram creators with 1,000 or more followers link a TikTok or YouTube account. That leaves 91.4% without a qualifying link, by our calculation from Virev’s published percentage. That is not the same as saying all of them own a second account and hide it: some may simply have no second account to link. But for a brand or viewer who finds you on Instagram alone, a second account you do own stays out of sight unless you link it.
The study is worth taking seriously because it counts profiles rather than asking creators what they do. Virev, which runs a creator search covering 180M+ creators according to its own page, counted 611,122 Instagram creators from a 2% sample of its Instagram table, plus 221,949 YouTube channels with 1,000 or more subscribers and 5,656,803 TikTok creators with 1,000 or more followers in its crawls, all with at least one post between 30 July and 27 October 2026. Those counts describe Virev’s crawled accounts, not every creator on each platform. A link counted only when the profile itself pointed at the other account, through a bio link, a short link, or a handle written next to the app name. A single video link or the app name alone did not count.
How far apart are the three platforms?
The gap is the story. YouTube creators link another platform far more often than Instagram creators do: 34.0% of YouTube channels link Instagram or TikTok, according to Virev. Our calculation from those two published figures puts the YouTube rate at about 4 times the Instagram rate of 8.6%. TikTok sits lowest on this measure, with 2.9% of TikTok creators naming Instagram or YouTube in their bio text, but that number comes with a large warning, explained below.
| Platform | Accounts counted | Link or name another platform |
|---|---|---|
| 611,122 | 8.6% | |
| YouTube | 221,949 | 34.0% |
| TikTok (bio text only) | 5,656,803 | 2.9% |
Note: TikTok measures bio-text mentions only. The three percentages are not fully comparable, because TikTok’s clickable bio-link field was unavailable to Virev.
On Instagram, YouTube is the more common destination: 6.1% link YouTube and 3.1% link TikTok, with only 0.57% linking both, according to Virev. On YouTube the pattern flips in scale but not in direction, with 31.2% linking Instagram and 13.3% linking TikTok, and 10.6% linking both. One possible reason, offered here as interpretation rather than a finding of the study, is that YouTube gives every channel a links section on its About page, according to Virev, and creators use it. The study does not prove that interface design causes the gap between YouTube’s 34.0% and Instagram’s 8.6%.
Does linking rise as creators get bigger?
Yes, on every platform in the study, but the starting points are very different. On Instagram, 7.3% of creators with 1,000 to 10,000 followers link another platform, rising to 17.2% at 100,000 to 1 million followers, according to Virev. That is a rise of 9.9 percentage points, or about 2.4 times, by our calculation. The rate then dips slightly to 15.5% above 1 million followers, so bigger does not mean always more linked.
YouTube shows the steepest climb: 16.6% of channels with 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers link another platform, against 65.3% above 1 million subscribers, according to Virev. TikTok moves the least, from 2.2% at 1,000 to 10,000 followers to 7.1% above 1 million in bio text alone. The honest reading is that linking rises with follower or subscriber count, not that linking itself made them big. The study shows the two moving together; it does not prove one caused the other.
Which Instagram creators link out most?
Linking rates also vary substantially by category. Creators who picked “Reel creator” as their Instagram category link another platform at 27.2%, and “Digital creator” accounts follow at 21.1%, according to Virev. Our calculation puts the Reel creator rate at about 3.2 times the overall Instagram rate of 8.6%, a gap of 18.6 percentage points. Accounts with no category, which make up 446,195 of the 611,122 Instagram creators counted, link out at only 6.6%.
That last detail is the practical one. A blank category and a bio with no second link is the default state for most creators in this sample, not an exception. If you have done the work of building a second audience, leaving it unlinked means the platform where a stranger finds you first cannot vouch for the rest of your work.
Are the audiences on each app even the same size?
For matched cross-platform account pairs identified through a link on at least one profile, the follower counts are closer than the usual “TikTok is bigger” talk suggests. Across 104,120 linked TikTok and Instagram pairs with 1,000 or more followers on both, the median creator has 1.11 TikTok followers for every Instagram follower, and TikTok is the bigger account for 52.8% of them, according to Virev. That is close to a coin flip. YouTube and TikTok pairs come out nearly even too, at a median of 1.10x.
The YouTube to Instagram comparison leans further, at a median of 2.23x across 51,363 pairs, according to Virev. Virev itself warns that this pair set leans toward large channels, because big channels link Instagram far more often, so treat 2.23x as a description of linked pairs, not a promise about your own accounts.
What this study cannot tell you
Two limits change how you should use these numbers. First, TikTok’s 2.9% counts bio text only, because Virev’s data does not hold the TikTok bio link field, and Virev says this undercounts TikTok the most. Do not quote 2.9% as TikTok’s full linking rate. Second, Virev’s estimate that about 24% of Instagram creators actually run a second account is an extrapolation from a hand check of just 30 unlinked creators, with a wide range of about 15% to 40%. The linked share of 8.6% is the counted figure; the 24% figure is a rough estimate, and the article should not be read as saying otherwise.
Virev also notes its sample leans toward accounts brands search for and is not a random draw from all of Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. That means the results describe that slice of creators, not a random draw from every account on each platform.
What should you do this week?
Check your own profiles the way a stranger would. Open each profile, look for the other account, and fix what is missing before you post anything new.
- Add clickable profile links to your TikTok and YouTube accounts on Instagram, and write the handles in your bio as well, rather than leaving them only in a story highlight.
- Use YouTube’s channel links feature to list your other profiles.
- Name your Instagram handle in your TikTok bio text, because that is the part of TikTok Virev could actually count.
- Consider picking a category on Instagram if yours is blank, as an optional profile-identification step. The study shows uncategorised accounts linked out least, but it does not show that adding a category makes a creator link more.
- Test every link yourself. Virev’s hand check found about 1 in 15 sampled links pointed at someone else entirely.
None of this is a growth hack. For creators who do maintain accounts on more than one platform, it is basic housekeeping, and the data says most sampled Instagram creators have not linked a second account. That is exactly why it is worth doing first: it makes your other accounts easier for profile visitors to find.
How many Instagram creators link TikTok or YouTube?
Only 8.6% of Instagram creators with 1,000 or more followers link a TikTok or YouTube account, according to Virev‘s November 2026 study of 611,122 creators.
Do YouTube creators link other platforms more often?
Yes. 34.0% of YouTube channels link Instagram or TikTok, according to Virev, which our calculation puts at about 4 times the Instagram rate.
Why is TikTok’s number so low?
TikTok’s 2.9% counts bio text only, because Virev’s data does not hold the TikTok bio link field. Virev says this undercounts TikTok the most, so the complete linking rate is likely higher than the measured bio-text rate of 2.9%, though the study did not measure that complete rate.
Does linking your other accounts grow your following?
The study does not prove that. It shows linking rises with size, which could mean established creators link more, or that linking helps, or both. Treat it as visibility housekeeping, not a proven growth tactic.
