Social media is already a common tool that marketers use to spread brand awareness, reach their target audience, and establish brand presence digitally. There are now several businesses who acknowledge the advantages of social media and put effort in their strategies. There are also a number who now invest heavily in social media marketing to the point of looking for experts on the field, like New Age Digital, to do the heavy-lifting for them. After all, at least 91% of businesses all over the world use social media mostly for their marketing purposes.

In recent years, two of the biggest social media platforms are TikTok and Instagram. TikTok users have grown exponentially within the last three years, and the app itself is known as a platform for creating and sharing short videos. Instagram has introduced a similar feature just recently, called ‘Instagram Reels.’ This is another feature marketers could definitely take advantage of, but if it somehow functions the same way, what is the difference between TikTok and Instagram reels in terms of engagement and reach?

Here is an infographic that compares findings from different profiles on TikTok and Instagram Reels:

Ultimately, it boils down to two factors: community vs. reach

TikTok vs Instagram Reels

– Comparing 60 profiles on TikTok and Instagram Reels

What is TikTok?

-Recorded as the biggest app of 2020 with 2.5 billion downloads all over the world, it is a video-sharing application that allows you to create and share short-form videos with a variety of genres ranging from dance, comedy, fashion, and education. It allows collaborations between its creators through a duet, or creating a dance to a new song.  It is usually 15 seconds to a minute long.

What is Instagram Reels?

–A new feature introduced by Instagram in late 2019 that also allows creating short-form videos, but has fewer tools and features compared to TikTok.

About 60 profiles that are active on TikTok and Instagram Reels were analyzed to compare their performance. These 60 profiles have an active following ranging from 20,000 to 50 million followers.

TikTok:  

Average Views: 1,193,332

Average Likes: 231,935

Average Comments: 2,141

Views per number of followers: 24.86%

Instagram Reels:

Average Views: 1,204,569

Average Likes: 110,675

Average Comments: 811

Views per number of followers: 144.03%

*Results revealed that new users were curious and excited to try out Instagram Reels due to its extensive audience reach, as the number of views reached up to 1.2 million, which is slightly higher than TikTok’s 1.19 million. The results also showed the difference between the number of views per number of followers where Instagram Reels scored a 144% view rate, compared to 24% view rate on TikTok.

*This proved how extensive the reach is on Instagram Reels; however, it lacks one major component that TikTok capitalizes on: Community.

Major Differences Between TikTok and Instagram Reels:

*TikTok and Instagram Reels are not only used for entertainment. They can be used for acquisition for your company.

Network Vs. Content

Instagram Reels is network-based, while TikTok is content-based. This means that Instagram users are likely to see posts related to their circle or ‘network’, like their family or friends, and any other posts from people that could be related or similar. TikTok users will mostly see content from different users, mostly ones that they’ve probably never heard of, based on their interests and similar content, or accounts that they may have previously engaged with.

Views Vs. Community

Instagram Reels seems to boost more views from users who have tried the new feature, yet has fewer likes and comments compared to similar content posted on TikTok. TikTok seems to have a higher level of engagement because of its stronger community of users who actively like, comment, and share the videos. Another notable difference is that Instagram Reels do not show the number of shares, compared to TikTok that shows it as an official metric.

Analytics

TikTok shows analytics to users for the video they post, which Instagram currently does not provide for its Reels. TikTok users can take advantage of the analytics to study which types of videos had the most likes, shares, or comments, and use it as a reference for creating videos in the future. Instagram Analytics currently does not provide similar information, which means users would have to rely on the standard metrics for now.