Do TikTok Slideshows Get More Views? What the Evidence Says

Short answer: not reliably, and nobody has shown that they do across TikTok. The "slideshows get 5x more views" claim you've probably seen comes from tool vendors and cites no data. TikTok's own numbers, from a 2024 message to creators, were about likes, comments and shares, not views. And the two largest public datasets point in different directions. Below is every source we could verify, with its date, so you can judge for yourself. It's one spoke of our complete guide to TikTok slideshows.

The evidence at a glance

Checked October 5, 2026. Sorted by how much data each one shows.

Two things jump out. The bigger the dataset, the smaller the slideshow advantage gets, and the biggest one has video ahead. And none of the sources measures quite the same thing: reach, engagement rate and "views" are different numbers.

The case for "slideshows get more views"

TikTok's own numbers

The most credible pro-slideshow figure comes from TikTok itself. In early 2024, Modern Retail reported that TikTok was telling creators photo carousels got 2.9x more comments, 1.9x more likes and 2.6x more shares on average than video posts.

Read it closely, though. Those are engagement figures, not views or reach. TikTok didn't publish a method, a time period or what "on average" was averaged over. And a platform promoting a format it wants more of has an obvious reason to lead with its best numbers. It tells you TikTok wanted more photo posts in 2024. It doesn't tell you a photo post will reach more people than your video.

One brand's results

In the same piece, the skincare brand Youthforia said its carousels reached 11% more people than its usual videos. That's a real, first-hand account, and it's one account. Another brand quoted in the article said both formats worked and it depended on the content.

The "5x" claims

This is where it gets thin. Reelbase's photo mode explainer (February 1, 2026) says photo mode is getting "5x more reach" than regular videos. Its photo mode guide from two days later says "creators report" 5x higher reach. Neither gives a sample, a method or a source. The guide also cites the 11% Youthforia figure, which is a long way from 5x.

We'd treat "5x" as an anecdote that spread, not as a finding. It may well be true for some creators, on some posts, at some point. There's no evidence it's true in general.

The case against

Fanpage Karma: a 3% reach gap

Fanpage Karma looked at almost 700,000 TikTok and Instagram posts from January to May 2025. On TikTok, carousel reach was "only 3% higher" than video. Engagement rate was much higher for carousels (81%), driven by likes, but shares were about a third lower than for video.

So in a large dataset, the reach difference nearly disappears. The engagement gap is real, but it sits in likes, not in how far the post travels.

Buffer: video ahead on engagement

Buffer's State of Social Media Engagement 2026 (March 5, 2026) covers 52 million+ posts across 10 platforms, with data through December 3, 2025. On TikTok, video had a median engagement rate of 3.39%, images 1.92%. Buffer still called images "more viable than you might expect" on TikTok, but video led.

Buffer measures engagement as engagements divided by reach, so this isn't a views comparison either. It does contradict the idea that photo posts are a blanket engagement win.

Why the studies disagree

They're not measuring the same posts or the same thing:

• Who's in the sample. Buffer's data comes from accounts that use Buffer. Fanpage Karma's comes from the profiles in its own database. TikTok's figure comes from TikTok, and neither study is a random sample of creators.
• What's measured. Reach, engagement per reach and engagement per view all move differently. A format that earns lots of likes from fewer people can win one metric and lose another.
• When. TikTok promoted photo posts heavily in 2024. Distribution in early 2024 and late 2025 needn't be the same.
• Which slideshows. A product photo dump and a seven-slide tutorial are both "photo posts". Averaging them together hides most of what matters.

Why it can still feel like slideshows win

If the data is this mixed, why do so many creators swear slideshows outperform? A few reasons that have nothing to do with the algorithm:

• You only see the winners. Slideshows that flopped don't get shared in "this got me 2 million views" threads. The ones that took off do.
• The comparison is often unfair. A creator's slideshows are frequently lists and tips, while their videos are a mix of everything. Comparing a format's best content type with another format's average flatters the first one.
• Novelty. A new format on an account can get a lift simply because it's different from what that audience usually scrolls past. That fades.
• Effort. A slideshow takes less time to make, so people post more of them, and more posts means more chances for one to break out. More winners in absolute terms doesn't mean a better hit rate.

None of this proves slideshows don't get more views. It's why one creator's experience, or a screenshot of one post, can't settle it.

What TikTok actually confirms about recommendations

Separate from the format debate, here's what TikTok has said on the record about how its recommendations work.

Its support page, How TikTok recommends content, names three main factors:

• User interactions: for the For You feed, "content you like, share, comment on, and watch in full or skip, as well as accounts of followers that you follow back."
• Content information: "sounds, hashtags, number of video views, and the country in which the content was published."
• User information: "device settings, language preference, location, time zone and day, and device type."

It adds that for most users, user interactions, "which may include the time spent watching a video, are generally weighted more heavily than others", and that "how important each factor is can change over time."

TikTok's 2020 newsroom post, How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou, says a strong signal such as finishing a longer video counts for more than a weak one, and that "neither follower count nor whether the account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors in the recommendation system."

Neither page mentions photo mode, slideshows or format.

Confirmed vs speculation

The pattern: what TikTok confirms is about viewer behaviour, not format. A slideshow that people stop on, swipe through to the end, share and comment on is sending the signals TikTok says it uses. A slideshow people flick past isn't, and being a slideshow doesn't rescue it. Our TikTok algorithm explainer goes deeper on the signals themselves.

So should you post slideshows?

Post them when the content suits them, and test rather than assume.

Slideshows make sense for:

• Lists and tips where each slide is one item.
• Step-by-step how-tos people will want to come back to.
• Before-and-afters and comparisons that work as two or three still images.
• Faceless accounts that don't want to film.

Video is still the better fit for anything that needs motion, a voice, a demonstration or a personality on camera.

To find out what works on your account, compare like with like: post the same kind of content in both formats over a few weeks, and judge each post by views against your follower count, not raw views. One post proves nothing. A run of them starts to.

Our own benchmark is coming

FYPNow ranks TikTok posts on its Niches wall by exactly that measure, views against the creator's follower count, with slideshows and videos side by side. That makes it a good place to answer this question properly, niche by niche.

We're not publishing that comparison yet. Slideshows are a newer part of our catalogue, and there aren't enough of them per niche to say anything that would hold up. We've set a bar before we publish: at least 30 slideshows in each of at least 8 niches. The numbers will go in our own benchmark, once the sample is large enough, with the method and caveats, whichever way they come out.

Until then, if you want to see how individual slideshows in your niche are doing, the Niches wall in Viral Content Agents has a Slideshows filter and a Most viral sort, so you can see which slideshows outperformed their accounts, one post at a time.