TikTok vs Instagram: Do you know the key differences between them? Which one do you choose?
Even though it’s well known the battle between these two social media platforms, after a deep analysis, we can state that you should leverage both.
In this post, we are going to share all the information you need to know about both channels.
Table of Contents
What Is Instagram
Instagram is a free photo and video sharing app, owned by American company Meta.
With a wide variety of content formats (stories, reels, carousels, feed posts), it’s a well-established social media platform with a highly diverse audience.
According to Statista, here’s a distribution of global audiences 2022, by age and gender.
What Is TikTok
TikTok is a popular social media platform that allows you to create, watch and share short videos in vertical format on any topic.
This social media app owned by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance has reached the milestone of three billion downloads worldwide in 2021.
Related Content: How to Grow Your Business with TikTok: 9 Strategies
The Key Differences Between Instagram and TikTok
It’s true that there are many differences between the two social media platforms, although both share the ease of creating creative content and sharing it. They also have in common the use of hashtags since it helps to segment the content.
How is Instagram different from TikTok?
1. Instagram vs TikTok: The algorithm
When it comes to their algorithm, both platforms work pretty similar.
But you can have a greater reach with TikTok, even going viral with your content. And you can do so, even though you don’t have a large follower base account.
Said that, the algorithm of both social media networks takes into consideration the following elements:
- Likes, comments, shares and saves.
- Keywords on hashtags and captions
- Trending sounds
- Account follows
- Posting location
2. Instagram vs TikTok: Demographics
While TikTok is for Gen Zs, Instagram’s audience is mostly for older Millennials.
Now, that doesn’t mean that only young people use these platforms. An increasing number of brands and businesses are leveraging these platforms to reach a wider audience.
3. Instagram vs TikTok: Content
In both channels, you can get inspired by large businesses outside your niche, search for trends, and create creative content that help your audience.
There are differences on the types of content you can see on TikTok and Instagram.
Instagram:
- Highly edited content
- Aesthetic visual platform
- Lifestyle-related content
TikTok:
- Use of platform filters
- Casual videos to express themselves creatively through dance, music, acting, and jokes.
- Users participate in trends, duets and challenges
4. Instagram vs TikTok: Instagram Reels and TikTok Videos
As TikTok videos were having a huge success with its highly engaging content, Instagram introduced a similar feature: Instagram Reels.
The main differences between them are:
Instagram Reels:
- Less interaction between creators
- Users re-upload their videos
- Make videos up to 60 minutes long.
TikTok Videos:
- Spontaneous videos
- Create videos using the app
- From 15 seconds up to 10 minutes
Related Content: 7 Instagram Reels Strategies For Businesses
5. Instagram vs TikTok: Paid advertising
The first thing we’d like to stand is that you should not underestimate any platform. Our advice is to test, test and test everything!
As we’ve said before, TikTok’s content is more casual, and managing ads in this platform can seem a wild west, for companies more prone to research. On the contrary, Instagram Reels enjoys a more robust platform, with predictable analytics.
6. Instagram vs TikTok: Influencer Marketing
To stand out from the crowd, businesses are relying on applying Influencer Marketing Campaigns. It helps them to gain trust, and boost conversions.
As TikTok influencers are more ordinary people who at some point in time became viral, using TikTok influencers can help brands share an authentic message. On the other hand, Instagram influencers share more planned and sophisticated content and are not as close to their audience as TikTok influencers.
How To Choose The Best Platform For You?
Today, almost every business has an Instagram account. And many are expanding their online presence on TikTok.
We recommend you leverage both, and above all, test to know where to allocate more resources.
Remember that it is crucial to develop a social media strategy that defines the objectives, strategies and tactics of your social media strategy.
Conclusion
TikTok is a social media platform that has impacted on the social media community as a game changer. So much so that other platforms such as Instagram have begun to create some features that could compete with them.
As we’ve seen, there are many differences between both platforms:
- Algorithm
- Demographics
- Content
- Videos
- Paid advertising
- Influencer Marketing
Yet, using both TikTok and Instagram, we can boost our brands.