The social media platform with the longest post lifespan is Pinterest, where posts have an extraordinary half-life of about 164,518 minutes, or roughly 3.76 months. This makes Pinterest ideal for high-quality, timeless visuals that steadily accumulate views and engagement over a long period
. Following Pinterest, YouTube also has a notably long post lifespan, with an average half-life of about 12,717 minutes (approximately 8.83 days) and videos often continuing to receive engagement for 20 days or more. YouTube’s content is considered evergreen, benefiting from its search engine nature and the suggestion algorithm that can keep videos relevant long after posting
. In contrast, typical social media platforms like Instagram have a post lifespan of around 19 to 48 hours, LinkedIn posts can last up to a week or more with engagement, Facebook posts generally last about 5 to 6 hours, and Twitter/X posts have the shortest lifespan, averaging around 15 to 43 minutes
Summary of Post Lifespans by Platform:
- Pinterest: ~3.76 months (longest)
- YouTube: ~8.8 days to 20+ days
- Instagram: ~19 to 48 hours
- LinkedIn: Up to a week or more
- Facebook: ~5 to 6 hours
- Twitter/X: ~15 to 43 minutes
- TikTok: Very short, about 0 to 2 minutes
Thus, for the longest-lasting social media content, Pinterest is the best platform, followed by YouTube.