When it comes to generating visual content, building community and going viral on social media, Instagram and TikTok are the best social media platforms. Both have shown tremendous growth, attracting users from all corners of the world.

Instagram is a social media-sharing photo and video-sharing platform that was founded in 2010 in San Francisco, while TikTok is a video-music user platform that launched in 2016 in Shanghai. As of April 2022, Instagram is Australia’s second most popular social platform, and TikTok has become the third most popular social media channel among teenagers under 18.

With millions of active users across Australia, it’s clear that both platforms offer a lot of opportunities for brands to attract users who are aligned with their values and beliefs. However, the biggest question is which platform is best for your brand.

We get it. With so many social media platforms available, it can become overwhelming, but it all depends on your business goals, audience demographics and resources.

So, let’s take a deep look at each platform, core features, statistics and demographics and hopefully, we can help you conclude which is the best channel for your brand.

Table of Contents

Instagram vs TikTok – Core Features

Instagram core features

The platform is primarily known for its photo and video-sharing features. But, it’s also famous for the many ways users can interact via likes, comments, shares, direct messages and other core features.

After introducing reels and the popularity of TikTok’s short videos, Instagram has focused more on video-sharing formats than ever. It’s currently testing a change that turns all video posts into reels.

Let’s look deeper into all core features for businesses.

Professional Dashboard and Insights: This dashboard is easy to manage and allows you to track analytics for posts, stories, reels and live videos for the last 90 days
Interactive Bio & Bio SEO: You can get creative and make your bio shine with interactive elements such as emojis, links, hashtags and tag mentions. Additional, it’s the best place to include relevant keywords in your business.
Live Room: Live session for a maximum of four people at a time.

Pinned Comments: Instagram lets you pin up to three comments on each post. You can select those comments that provide thoughtful insights and make them more visible than others.
Collabs or Partnership Posts: Now, you can tag other users to co-create content. You can collaborate on a post or reel with another user, and the content will appear on both users’ profiles accumulating the same number of likes and comments.
Map Search: View the location of stories and posts. This option is only available in Australia.

Guide Type: Create a guide of places, products and posts on your profile from a post you have saved or from other accounts, with the option of adding additional descriptions for each guide and item.

Stories:

Story Captions: Within the platform, you can add automatically generated and editable captions.
Story Highlights: Save relevant stories that will appear in your profile below your bio. This option is great for businesses to highlight their services, products, reviews, events, etc.
Stickers: You can now use stickers on stories to drive sales, ask questions, order food, countdown and many more other options such:
Music
Quiz
Emoji Slider
Customisable Link
Poll
Hashtag
Mention

Reels:

Reels can now be up to 90 seconds long.
You can search for reels by audio or song.

Remix Reels:

Create a reel remix from an existing video of other users. It’s another option to collaborate on Instagram.

Reel Templates: Create a reel from a template someone has already made. You can change the music and edit all clips.

Instagram Shopping Features:

Tagging: Tag products in photos and inside stories as well.

Instagram Checkout: Users can find a product and buy directly from the platform.

Shopping from Creators: Buy your influencer’s favourite looks within the app.

Instagram Ads: Promote your business through Instagram ads. They are different types of Instagram ads that businesses can use. You can create from single images, stories and reels ads, video and carousel, explore ads and shopping ads. Each format is available to be displayed in different placements.

TikTok core feautures

The platform has completely redefined how we use and consume social media. The mix of music, short videos, comedy and micro-blogging content has led TikTok to become the currently most popular app in the world.

The majority of adults still don’t understand the platform, but kids love it. Since the pandemic, TikTok has become the number one app for Gen Z, in terms of both content consumption and creation. The app facilitates trendy music, funny filters, special visual effects and the choice to create up to 3 minutes videos, making creating content easy and entertaining.

However, it’s still hard to understand the point of TikTok. Is it just a form of a micro-entertaining channel to spend a few minutes during the day? Or is it becoming the number one channel to look for information? Is it valuable for businesses?

It’s still too early to tell! So first, let’s see their key features and how to use TikTok for businesses.

Business Account: Easy dashboard to manage your account. You can switch to Pro Account and choose between Creator or Business.

Bio Section: You can use a profile photo or video and short bio descriptions up to 80 characters. There is also an option to add a link to your website and use emojis.

Private Messages: Connect with other users by private messages.

Engagement Options: Like, share, comment and save videos from other users.

Analytics dashboard: TikTok offers analytics from content, followers, and live sessions for up to 60 days of performance or custom options.

Save Options: Save all your best content on one side, from videos, songs, effects, and comments to questions, hashtags or products. You can also create a collection with your favourite videos.

Live Videos: TikTok offers the option to add effects, select a co-host and add moderators that can filter comments and mute viewers. If you’re older than 18, your followers can send you gifs that can be transformed into a form of cash.

Videos: Create videos from 15 sec to 3 minutes videos.

Video Templates: From the creation mode, you can now create a video from a template.

TikTok Duet: Partner with other creators to create content, do a challenge or respond to other TikTok users’ content.

You can make a duet with any TikTok video from a brand, influencer, friend or even your own feed, as long as the poster of the original video has allowed their video to be used as a duet.

Effects and Filters: Get creative and have fun with all the video effects and filters you can use on TikTok. Choose between the green screen, accessories, funny, atmosphere and many others.

Stickers: Add stickers to your videos such as; support nonprofit organisations, mentions, hashtags, polls, Q&A, and emojis.

TikTok Ads: Advertising on TikTok has become the new option for marketers looking to reach younger audiences.

Instagram vs TikTok – Demographics Stats

While Instagram may have an advantage in terms of the number of users and influencer marketing, TikTok’s growth is exceptionally popular with Gen Z. Both platforms rank very close as the most preferred platform for women.

Let’s look at some stats for 2022 via Digital Report 2022

Instagram:

2.2 billion monthly active users across the world
13.5 million Instagram users in Australia in May 2022, which accounted for 51.5% of its entire population.
The majority of them were women – 55.8%.
People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group in Australia (3 800 000).
According to Semrush, Instagram is one of the world’s top 10 most visited websites globally, and the 9th most popular google search term.
Instagram is the second most downloaded app in the world. Only TikTok beat Instagram in 2021.
Instagram is Gen Z’s favourite social platform. Ranking above TikTok, users aged 16 to 24 prefer Instagram.
More than 100 million posts are uploaded each day on Instagram.
Instagram earned Over 13 Billion Us Dollars in 2020 from Ads.
93% of marketers say they use Instagram as a part of their brand’s social strategy.

Image via We Are Social & Hootsuite

TikTok:

1 billion monthly active users across the world.
40% of TikTok users are located in China, followed by India.
7.4 million TikTok users in Australia in July 2022.
43.7 per cent of TikTok users are aged 18 to 24.
57 per cent of TikTok users are female.
It was the most downloaded app in 2020.
As of April 2022, TikTok has become Australia’s seventh most used social media platform.
Australians spend 23.4 hours per month on TikTok – an increase of 40% from 2021.
TikTok had 104 million downloads just last month (an increase of 46% from the year-ago period).
In Australia, TikTok ads have the potential to reach 7.38 million users (18+ only).

Image via We Are Social & Hootsuite

As you can see, Instagram may have more significant numbers and a slight edge in popularity. Still, TikTok numbers are very impressive. Although engagement is hard to quantify, stats show that engagement on TikTok has been skyrocketing since the pandemic began.

Many users use TikTok to express themselves and share their lives in a fun and unique way with short videos -especially those under 24.

Instagram thrives on users being able to engage visually with the content that brands and influencers share. A survey found that 93% of marketers and agencies plan to use Instagram in their social media strategy using preferable Instagram stories and reels as well as influencer marketing strategies.

On the other hand, Tiktok has recently created a #1 billion creator fund. The platform wants to pay its creators to solidify its relationship with the influencers and become the number one platform chosen by influencers and brands.

Before we jump into the next session, let’s look at this latest research on using online platforms by demographic groups.

Image via Pew Research Center

Which Network is Best for Your Brand?

As we have seen so far, both platforms offer their users interactive and entertaining features. Any platform will help you build brand awareness, engage with your audience, promote your product or services, and attract customers.

Moreover, both are video content hubs experiencing high popularity on social media. And not to mention that TikTok and Instagram are also great for influencer content.

Both sound very alike, however, to decide which platform is best, we need to go a little further. You need to ask yourself which is best for achieving your business objectives and reaching your target audience.

Based on the above stats, it’s clear that Instagram has more users and popularity worldwide, but the growth of TikTok is strong, something to consider. Regardless of their popularity and success, another stat to look at is the target audience demographics.

Let’s imagine your audience is under 18 age, so maybe you should look to invest in TikTok. However, remember that a teenager may not have the money to buy your product directly, so there is another decision maker – their parents.

Following the above situation, achieving social media ROI could take a bit longer. But you will undoubtedly build a strong relationship with your consumer persona that can profit your company in the long run.

Now let’s think your audience is younger, between 15 – 24 years old. You can test both platforms and analyse the performance. Let’s not forget that there is still a significant amount of young users that use Instagram as well.

So go big and take the benefits that both platforms provide!

In conclusion, again, the most important thing is to think about your audience, the type of content you want to use to represent your brand and its product or services and your company goals.

At Attention Experts, we have extensive knowledge and experience with social media strategies and paid advertising campaigns across both Instagram and TikTok. So, go ahead and book a FREE strategy session with our team. They will analyse every aspect of your business and social media presence to help you find the best strategy that works for you.

How We Can Help with Your Instagram & TikTok Marketing Strategies

If you’ve read to this point, you’re likely very interested in growing your business through Social Media Marketing. If so, you should join our next FREE webinar to learn more about Social Media Marketing & ROI.

Each month our Growth Director, George Hawwa, presents a 30-minutes webinar to cover a new topic in the social media space. You will have the opportunity to learn, ask questions live and grow your business.

Wondering what our current topic is? Check out the upcoming webinar HERE.

George is in charge of Attention Experts’ overall growth and best practices. George shares some accolades: being named in the ‘Top 30 leaders under 30’ in 2007 by Entrepreneur Australia Magazine and having won ‘Outstanding Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ for 2018 at the NSW Business Chamber Regional awards.

He also currently lectures at Sydney University on social media strategy to Postgraduate students at the Centre for Continuing Education. In addition, George is a sought-after speaker and educator on social media strategy and business.

Make sure to REGISTER NOW!

And if you need help with your social media strategy. You can also give us a call for a FREE Strategy Session. Our number is (02) 8069 9764 (02) 8069 9796 if outside Australia), or message us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/attentionexperts. You can also book a meeting with us via our website.