Short-video focused marketing: Faceoff- Tiktok v/s Instagram

- The age of snappy, short-form video is well upon us. And it's not just for Gen Z to show off their latest TikTok dance moves. It's also a powerful medium for brands to reach mass audiences and engage in smart social media outreach. TikTok and Instagram Reels are leaders in this space. Short-form video is a great tool to hook and engage audiences, therefore understanding the nuances of these platform today is crucial.

Modern digital marketing strategies

TikToK and Instagram reels are powerful platforms where brands can apply modern marketing strategies to serve up exactly the type of content their audiences desire.

Two powerful stratergies are

• Brand marketing

Executing brand marketing well by engaging in strategic creative storytelling, leaves audiences with a positive impression of your brand and can make people prefer your product or brand over others.

It's evolved to include anything that defines a brand's identity.

1. Who you are?

2. What you do?

3. What makes you unique?

4. What is your personal story?

5. What do you promise to your customer?

• Content marketing

Content marketing is about creating valuable content to attract and retain a specific audience with the ultimate goal of driving customer engagement and action. It's about creating content that educates, entertains, or inspires without overtly trying to sell anything.

Successful marketing strategies often involve a combination of both of these, and short form video platforms, like TikToK and Instagram reels, are places where each approach can thrive.

Short form video-Instagram

Short form video is a perfect medium for both brand marketing and content marketing tactics. That's because effective short form video helps you authentically present your brand, drawing audiences in by creating trust and increasing customer confidence and loyalty. Reels is a perfect place to share your brand message if your target audience is already on Instagram. If you've got an Instagram presence or if you're done your market research and have identified large portions of your audience use Instagram, it only makes sense to meet them where they are.

· Instagram rewards creators who use each of their in-app features. That is the algorithm prioritizes your content. So if you create Reels, your other Instagram content should get greater visibility as well.

· Reels do tend to have a more polished aesthetic than the more rare TikTok videos, you can lean into that if your brand also has a more polished style. So while TikTokers may reject overly produced videos, Reels' consumers may welcome it.

· Instagram's built-in video editor is fairly basic, you do have a world of other editing apps that were built for this, apps like InShot, Splice, Animoto or VideoShow.

· Instagram Reels are part of a much larger machine that has many touchpoints where your audience can find your content. Reels videos not only appear in the Reels tab, they can also be featured within the Explore page, which is sort of like Instagram's version of TikTok's

· Explore page is basically a marketplace of media that uses machine learning to know what each user wants. More than half of Instagram creators rely on it for discovery, so it's a great place for brands to organically show up and get discovered by people that don't already follow them.

· Instagram is owned by Facebook and Reels content is now embedded right in user's Facebook feeds. So, there's a lot of touchpoints where your Reels videos can reach your target audience in different ways.

Short form video- Tiktok

· The algorithm of TikToks for you feed is customized to each user's personal preferences, which let people organically discover new brands and products.

· In fact, about two thirds of TikTokers say that the platform introduced them to a brand or product that they've not previously been aware of, which is great top of funnel success.

· Conversion content can include product reviews, interviews, unboxing videos, interactive trends and challenges, ads, and more.

· Calls to action can include more direct methods of conversion, especially with the advent of shoppable ads that allow users to buy products straight from the video itself.

What makes TikTok so unique?

>TikTok creators feature DIY tutorials, brand stories, behind the scenes videos of how products are made, personal blogs, product commentary, and more.

>That's a really great opportunity for people and brands new to the platform, because it is a level field where anyone can go viral. Part of the reason TikToks can go viral far beyond the existing network is because at heart, it's a discovery platform.

·>The algorithm promises to serve up personalized content to users based on who they are, who they follow and what type of content they most engage with. This lets brands organically appear in people's feeds that align the most closely with their target demographic.

>Another great benefit is that you don't need professional skills or equipment. In fact, polished videos are actually often looked down upon. Instead, TikTokers prefer relatively rudimentary production quality.

> TikTok is notoriously aimed at the Gen Z crowd. About a third of users are age 10 to 19 and a little less than a third are in their twenties. So that's two thirds of users age 30 and under, a heavy Gen Z and millennial skew.

>TikTok ads are a great way to automate the process of creating, delivering, and optimizing paid content. The built-in insight reports and Ad management tools offer valuable customization so that you can target the right audience and get results.

Faceoff Winner!

In order to be a step ahead on Reels, you need to be up to date with the latest trends on TikTok. With TikTok videos being repurposed on Reels, we are starting to see a direct relationship between what trends on TikTok one week appear on IG Reels the next.

If your brand keeps up to date with what content is and isn’t working on TikTok, then you can leverage this content straight into your IG Reels strategy. This will mean you are not only on trend but you’re ahead of the curve and can be one of the first to jump on what is trending on the new platform.

And we’ve already seen some brands doing just that. Louis Vuitton is a great example of a brand which has no videos on their TikTok channel, but have leveraged TikTok trends and features that are popular on the platform in their IG Reels content. Louis Vuitton’s IG Reels videos make direct use of TikTok’s popular transition trend to demonstrate different outfits, just like users do on TikTok.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/louisvuitton/