TikTok and Instagram Reels: Which is better for business?

4/7/2023

Tiktok from a fledgling social network has now become the most popular and favourite platform. To not fall behind this formidable newcomer, Instagram has also released another new feature called Instagram Reels.

After Instagram Reels was born, many opinions said that it was TikTok’s 2nd version. So, is there any difference between Instagram Reels and TikTok? Which is better for businesses to promote their products, services or brand images on social networks?

Let’s take a look!

What is TikTok different from Instagram Reels?

1. Editing features

Overall, TikTok offers more filters and effects, while the filter store for stories on Instagram is more limited. Although Instagram can enlarge its filters, the options available now on each platform fit their unique types of content.

TikTok and Instagram Reels: Which is better for business?

TikTok offers a lot of filters and effects

TikTok’s effects are pretty funny and creative, while Instagram Reels mainly focuses on producing clean content, aesthetically pleasing pictures.

Instagram Reels focuses on producing clean, aesthetically pleasing pictures

In addition, TikTok also features a duet, stitch, and reaction, allowing brands and users to interact with each other in a more creative, meaningful way instead of just liking and commenting.

2. Algorithm

The algorithm of Instagram Reels is almost unknown, so it will be difficult for users to know their target audience’s demographics. While TikTok has a page called “For you” or FYP. Each user’s FYP is unique and generated based on:

User interactions: The type of video that users like, share, or comment on.

Video info: The captions, hashtags, and audio of the video users interact with or use when creating content.

Device and account settings: Language reference, country users are from, etc.

Based on these factors, TikTok will sort and prioritize them according to their users’ priority.

Regardless of the algorithm, using TikTok and Instagram Reels brings tons of benefits to businesses. Many people think that Instagram Reels is more helpful because it is directly connected to its Instagram account. However, this depends on the user’s decision and preferences.

3. Demographics

Compared to TikTok, the audience of Instagram tends to be older. According to Statista, as of January 1, 2021, 30.3% of Instagram users are between 25 and 34 years old, while 30.8% of users are between 18 and 24 years old. Not only that, more than half of the users on Instagram are female.

While TikTok has up to 60% of users between 16 and 24 years old, and only 26% of users are between 25 and 44 years old.

Thanks to the difference in demographics, businesses will know whether they should choose TikTok or Instagram Reels to promote their products, services, and brand images to their target audience.

4. Analytics

It seems that TikTok is superior to Instagram Reels in terms of analytics. TikTok has a built-in content and audience analyzer for Pro accounts. This analytics will be divided into sections, including overview, content, and followers.

Instagram Reels only has likes, comments, shares

Thanks to these figures, businesses can see users’ total watch time, average watch time, percentage of views by country, percentage of views based on how users view (e.g. your page vs follow)

You can even see the audio and video your followers watched in the past week to understand what types of videos they’re enjoying besides yours.

For Instagram Reels, the only things businesses have are likes, comments, shares, along with basic analytics that Instagram gives you if you have an Instagram business profile.

Should businesses use TikTok or Instagram Reels?

To decide whether to use TikTok or Instagram Reels, you need to analyze factors including your existing followers, demographics, your target audience, the type of content you want to produce.

For example, if your audience is predominantly from 25 to 30 years old, then Instagram Reels might be your priority.

In addition, Markerly’s study demonstrated a difference in the way Instagram Reels and TikTok work.

Markerly compared 80 influencers and 10 brand pages on TikTok and Instagram Reels. The results illustrated that influencers have a higher interaction rate on TikTok than on Instagram Reels.

However, for brand pages, Instagram Reels proved to be more practical than TikTok, although this is mainly due to the pre-existing followers on Instagram.

Both TikTok and Instagram Reels have different advantages and disadvantages. It’s really not easy for businesses to decide which platform to use to promote their business; it depends on users’ choice.

However, businesses can use both platforms simultaneously not to miss potential customers, and take full advantage of the interesting features these two platforms bring you. In addition, you should also leverage your Tiktok or Instagram videos’ engagement by translating them into languages, bringing your creation to more viewers. Motionbear.io is such a great subtitling and localizing tool that can keep you stay closer to audience. Explore it now!