Posted by Let’s face it. Everyone knows Youtube is a big player in the video marketing space not until TikTok’s existence did things change.
The battle between these two platforms has left marketers with one Big Question.
Which platform is the best fit for their business?
Which is also worth their time and practice?
And the answers to these questions are seemingly an unending argument where one will say TikTok is better off than Youtube, while others will say youtube is superior to the other (TikTok).
So in today’s post, am going to be putting an end to this argument.
YouTube Vs TikTok: The battle phase
No doubt, YouTube is the world’s second most popular search engine in our world right now with over 3 billion searches every month, making it the most popular video streaming and sharing platform.
No matter the kind of business you are into, Youtube has an already existing audience for you to tap into which in turn can also lead to customers in the long run.
But the tremendous growth of TikTok over the past few years has put the platform in the eyes of many video content creators.
In other words, both platforms are creative hubs for everyone but when it comes to growing your business by leveraging one. it is also important to plan out your content strategy if you want to achieve success on these platforms.
And when it also comes to choosing the rightful platforms for your business, there are certain factors you should consider.
And that leads us to the next section.
Youtube Vs TikTok: Factors To Consider Before Starting
Before putting one platform into consideration above another, there are some key factors you should always know about and I will be covering them all in no time.
1. Key statistics:
When it comes to reaching a broader audience, both platforms have some amazing statistics that make one kind of look superior to the other.
As I mentioned earlier on, Youtube has about 2.5 billion active users on its platforms and it is also the second most visited search engine after Google, 17 years of its existence.
But Tiktok stats show they are not going to take it easy with the big players like Youtube.
For example, Youtube has been 11 years in existence since Tiktok was born.
As of today, Tiktok now has 1.8 billion active users and is estimated to approach 2 billion before the end of the year in 2022.
In other words, statistics don’t lie and what do we understand by all these metrics?
TikTok is the new party maker as their statistics speak for them.
If it takes them less than 7 years to attain almost what Youtube retained in 17 years as of today, then in the nearest future they are going to be way larger than what we expected in my own opinion.
2. Demographics:
Wait a minute. If we are judging based on statistical growth, then let us also consider the overall demographics as well.
As demographics play an important role in helping us understand our potential customer’s persona.
And 60% of the Genz is on Tiktok and is also considered as the largest population of about 25%, according to their age demographics.
In other words, the population decreases as the age group approach the mid-50s
In case you don’t know what Genz is, they are age groups within the ranges of 1997–2012.
But with youtube,
- They have a larger demographics
- While 21% of Us adults are on Youtube
So if your business appeals specifically to customers within the Genz category then you might as well double down on Tiktok.
3. Algorithms:
Youtube and Tiktok are both video-sharing platforms but their algorithms don’t have the same mode of operation and I will be covering that in a bit.
With Tiktok, their algorithm uses an AI to detect user interactions to determine contents that will be displayed on the “For You page”.
And I could see this for myself anytime I open TikTok with my desktop browser.
It shows me one of the most trending videos people in my region are interacting with that I may also love to see.
At the top left-hand corner, it suggested me a list of popular celebrities in my country.
And down below the suggested accounts is the trending hashtags people within my region are listening to.
And when you look correctly as shown below, you could tell that I haven’t even logged in or created an account yet.
So how does the algorithm knows I am from this region?
Like, I am so certain that if Tiktok doesn’t know my location then it wouldn’t have suggested to me videos and celebrities around my region.
So yeah, the algorithm uses our IP to understand our locations. So it can suggest videos based on this data.
And the algorithms also use audience interactions within the platforms based on
- Video likes, comments, and shares.
- Creators you follow and the content they create
- Videos you scrolled by.
This algorithm also supplies all these data to their advertisers so they can target the right audience and they make money from these advertisers.
In other words, the algorithm favors videos that lookalike audiences tend to interact and engaged with before it goes viral.
And Youtube works similarly like that to TikTok but with a different approach.
As I always mention, Youtube is a video search engine.
For example, when I searched for “best Dog foods” it shows me a list of videos on Youtube ranking for that term “best dog foods”.
These videos are not just showing up because Youtube feels you would love them.
It came as a result of different ranking signals they look out for before the algorithm could conclude that it should remain up on the search.
They include the following,
- Video optimization (tags, keywords in the video description, headlines, etc)
- Audience retention
- Likes and engagements
- CTR etc
4. Types of contents:
The type of video content also plays a huge factor in the success of your business as well.
And when it comes to choosing the type of content for your business, Youtube offers more flexibility for creators.
Using Ahrefs as an example.
Ahrefs is a saas company that makes money whenever people pay a subscription fee to use their services to get some required data.
If you are a website owner and want to rank your websites on Search engines, then you know how important ahrefs can be as they provide you with information and data you can use to rank your websites on Google.
So when marketing their service, they doubled down on Youtube.
With that, they create an educational video on how to teach people to rank their websites on search engines and recommend their tools as a resource to help them achieve that.
And their videos are usually longer in duration.
In most cases, they are usually 3 hours long videos, teaching their potential customers SEO on Youtube.
And that is because their mode of business requires them to make such amount of lengthy videos for themselves.
So using Tiktok will be a total waste of time and marketing budget. Why? Because TikTok is primarily known for 60 secs short-form content.
So, therefore, their audience on TikTok has a shortened retention span.
Not until recently, Tiktok extended their video duration to at least 10 minutes of videos durations and youtube also offers you to post short videos as well.
So both offer similar content formats but a big difference in how long should your video be.
So if your mode of business requires you to make longer-form videos, then your focus should be on Youtube. and if shorter videos, leverage TikTok as you can easily grow faster.
5. Video conversions
Talking from experience, When most people go on Tiktok they don’t usually come in with Buyer intents.
And Tiktok itself is not friendly when it comes to promoting external links on Your video.
So they don’t usually convert as well and that does mean it is not a good option for your business because they can be very reliable when it comes to creating brand promotion and awareness.
But Youtube tastes differently, and it is a search engine making it easy for you to track your conversion rates and estimates of how many people are searching for terms related to your business.
For instance, Somebody coming on Youtube searching for Topics like “best iPhone reviews” wants to know more in-depth specifications about the iPhone.
And then they can easily click links or affiliate links in the video description to buy the iPhone if your video provides them the information they need based on what they are searching for as shown below.
With the help of some external tools like vidiQ, you can see an estimate of how many people are searching for a particular phrase on Youtube and the Cost per click of a keyword (CPC).
So the higher the CPC of a keyword, the more buying power of that keyword.
If your videos are showing for a keyword with a high CPC then you know there is a high chance for you to track your conversions and also a great opportunity to make sales.
So which platforms should I begin with?
With all this wide range of data comparisons between these two platforms (youtube and Tiktok), which should I still begin with?
And the big answer to this undying question is to “Leverage both for your business”.
And I can explain
Youtube is a great platform for driving traffic to your business, engaging with your audience as well, and building that brand credibility.
But in reality, it takes time to pull off, especially when making longer videos that require some professional editing, and also takes time in getting those massive audiences (subscribers).
And that is where Titok comes into play as you can easily build that audience within a twink of an eye.
Fábio Ourique, A YouTuber could also testify to this as well on a video where he shares his personal opinion on leveraging both platforms (Youtube vs Tiktok)
He said it took him 3 years to attain his first 7k subscribers on Youtube.
Whereas on Tiktok it took him less than 1 year to attain his first 100k subscriber base.
As you can see here –
And why does this happens? Because it takes time to build an audience on YouTube.
The YouTube algorithm works in a way that it mostly relies on multiple optimization factors before your videos can actually be favored by the algorithm.
And one of the most important of all is Audience retention.
Audience retention simply implies how long a person spends time watching your videos.
The longer they stay watching, the better YouTube suggests your videos to more people.
And once your video fails to do so, the algorithm won’t give it that promotional boost it deserves.
And trust me guys, these days it is hard to keep people retention because a research study by Microsoft corp reveals that humans have a short attention span. So your videos need to keep them engaged on Youtube, it has to be visually appealing, and entertaining and provide answers to their questions.
And that is where Tiktok is favored, they specialize heavily in short-form videos and that is why videos on Tiktok usually go viral so fast.
And retaining viewers on Youtube to keep watching your videos to the very end is definitely not just about recording a few minutes of videos and going live.
You have to do keyword research, edit your videos professionally or pay a video editor to do the work for you, adding visual elements on the screen to keep people engaged and also designing some high-catching thumbnails, etc.
And talking from experience, it is not an easy task to do as it all takes time, effort, and most especially money to pull off, but in the end, it pays off.
So how can you go about this to your advantage?
Make videos on Youtube and syndicate them on TikTok.
An example of a Youtuber who does this is Thinkmediapodcast.
He cut off a fraction of his videos on Youtube which makes sense.
And post them on his Tiktok channel, and that alone generated over 237.3k followers which is more than that of his Youtube channel subscribers of 88k.
In other words, you can use TikTok to create awareness for your brand and when your videos go viral, cross-pollinate your viewers to actually watch the complete version of the video on your youtube channel. that way you are leveraging both platforms and that can easily give your youtube channel some early traction it deserves. It is a win-win.
But apply 70% of your efforts on Youtube because videos on Youtube are usually evergreen and don’t usually fade over time, unlike TikTok.
A practical video on how to do a given task will remain for years on Youtube and never fades away.
For example, this video on how to tie a tie was made 12 years ago, and it still generates views like crazy, with about 103 million views.
And it also ranks on Google as well.
In other words, this video is also generating views from 2 traffic sources, Youtube and Google search as well.
While on Tiktok, the video fades over time the moment people stop engaging with it.
And that is one big advantage that Youtube has over TikTok that TikTok can not surpass in a few years to come.
So let’s talk about their similarities and Differences.
Similarities
- Both platforms are both video sharing platforms
- Their algorithm favors videos that have Higher engagements
- Both platforms allow you to create shorts lengthy videos
- Both platforms allow user-generated content
Differences
- Videos on Youtube are evergreen and can be watched for many years to come while Tiktok usually fades with time as video engagements decrease.
- Youtube is a search engine, so videos are found based on audience interests while Tiktok videos are mostly created based on trends and the creator’s idea.
- TikTok videos can easily go viral with even no subscribers, unlike Youtube where you need to have a decent amount of subscribers before you go viral.
- Youtube videos don’t have a video length requires, you can upload a 5hrs video if your audience requires it but TikTok only supports videos of at least 10 mins long.
- Channels get monetized on Youtube after attaining at least 1k subscribers and 4hr watch time while on Tiktok creators, creators must have at least 10,000 unique views and 10k followers in the last 30 days.
- Youtube shares its ad revenue with content creators while on TikTok, it is based on multiple factors.
- Once videos are optimized correctly, videos on Youtube can also get views from Google whereas Tiktok is based on users related videos only.
Which one are you going to try first?
Are you going to focus on Youtube only or Leverage Both Youtube and Tiktok for your business?
Either way, I would love to hear from you in the comments.