There is a huge selection of social media platforms businesses can use for their marketing. It is therefore common for marketers to compare them, such as comparing TikTok Vs. Instagram, to see which one is better. While both are vastly different, some overlaps make choosing one over the other harder than it might look at first.

Instagram Vs. TikTok: Understanding the Platforms

Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform available on the web and for mobile devices. It allows users to upload photos and videos, and share them with others who can view, comment, and like them. Reels is a relatively new addition to Instagram. It allows users to post short videos on the platform. This is perhaps the feature you will be most interested in as a marketer.

TikTok, on the other hand, is a video-sharing platform that has grown in popularity very quickly in the past few years. This is mainly attributed to the influx of influencers and brands looking to leverage the latest trends and cultural movements in their marketing.

Demographics

According to the latest data, Instagram mainly caters to people aged between 25 and 34. TikTok’s demographic mainly includes people aged between 16 and 25. This means that marketers targeting millennials should use Instagram while those targeting Gen Z should put a lot more effort into TikTok.

The genders seem evenly split between the two platforms, with TikTok having a slightly higher female percentage than Instagram.

Time Spent on the Platforms

For marketers, the amount of time people spend on a platform is an important metric. This is because more time on the platform means more chance that people will see your ads or marketing content.

According to Lyfe Marketing, 90% of TikTok users open the app at least once a day compared to 62% of Instagram users. TikTok’s users spend an average of 55 minutes on the platform, while Instagram users spend 28 minutes.

These differences can explain why many brands are seeing more exposure on TikTok. They also mean that brands that are not already using the platform should start putting together a TikTok marketing strategy.

Sales Funnels

It is perfectly fine to measure top-of-the-funnel success through the number of views, engagements, and followers we get from our content, but we should not stop there. The whole point of using social media platforms for marketing is to generate sales and leads. We want the views, engagements, and followers to turn into traffic that ultimately leads to converted leads and sales.

Both TikTok and Instagram let you add a link to your bio. However, Instagram has expanded the ability to share links to everyone inside Stories in 2021. Instagram also gives you additional CTA buttons you can add to your bio, such as Message and Contact. All these features make it much easier to move people from Instagram to your sales funnel.

TikTok already has a CTA button that shows at the end of ads, and it might be experimenting with adding CTA buttons in the background. Until that happens, Instagram remains the better option in this regard.

Both Instagram and TikTok are very capable social media platforms for marketers, and they are different enough that marketers can choose one over the other. However, that does not mean you have to choose one over the other unless you have a niche need that the other cannot serve.