Social Media is now a part of almost every business’s marketing strategy and as video marketing continues to outperform all other content types, especially on Instagram- it’s high time now for everyone to start focusing on video marketing more than ever. While there are many platforms that have videos as their main leads, the two most popular ones that come to your mind instantly, whenever you think of short-form videos are Instagram and TikTok. 

Instagram –

Instagram is a photo and video sharing social media app that was mainly started to share personal highlights of your life and now, it has evolved into a huge platform to share your brand story, the fun side behind the scenes and connect to your customers. It also has analytics and advertising tools that help in understanding your audience, marketing performance, brand awareness and getting leads. It is owned by Meta ie. Facebook so offers twice the amount of users and reach as cross-posting is allowed, hence, your content has a higher chance of being seen on both platforms. Instagram launched reels not so long ago and it is currently one of the most well-performing content types on the platform.

Pros-

• Larger audience than TikTok
• Go-to platform for Influencer marketing
• Instagram stories are a great way to share moments that disappear within 24 hours
• Story highlights are used to save important stories for a quick glance
• Scheduling on Facebook and Instagram is easy through Creator Studio
• Reels have a higher reach comparatively
• Advertising offers more advanced features
• Shopping feature allows shopping directly on the app by linking products

Cons-

• 25 million businesses here makes it difficult to stand out
• Pictures and other content types except reels are not favoured much by the algorithm
• Cannot link websites directly to posts

TikTok –

TikTok is a video-sharing social media app that is relatively newer as compared to Instagram. It is currently the most popular video streaming platform for short-form videos. It’s mostly used by youngsters as the tone is trendy, fun and youthful. TikTok made the short-form video format successful that has now been adapted by other platforms as well like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to name a few.

Pros –

• Fewer users than Instagram but the growth rate has been higher than any other
• Younger demographic with 13-24 old segments
• Advertising costs are lower than Instagram
• Videos have a higher reach as it’s the only content type available here
• Brands can easily achieve KPIs as there is less competition

Cons-

• Long-term analytics aren’t available, 28 days being the maximum
• Younger demographic might not fit all brands
• Hard to drive traffic to the website as cannot link posts

The bottom line- While both are the best-performing apps currently that highly favour short-term videos, Instagram has a much wider audience than Tiktok and offers multiple content types as opposed to Tiktok offering only videos. This gives a variety to the users who want something more than just videos. Tiktok is highly catered to the younger audience, so if your business is targeted toward young people, it’s the best platform to consider. Videos are time-consuming from the creator’s perspective and it can create pressure for brands to keep producing high-quality videos again and again. If you want to have a better track of your analytics and ads, Instagram should be your go-to option.