TikTok vs YouTube – Which Should You Choose?

TikTok Vs YouTube: Introduction

About TikTok

ByteDance launched the social media platform and short-form video sharing service TikTok in 2017. The website, formerly known as Musical.ly, features a huge selection of short videos that are between 15 and 30 seconds long. The first version of Musical.ly was a music and lip sync app for creating amusing and entertaining videos. More songs, sound effects, and video-sharing features are now available on TikTok.

Users are not restricted to music, humor, or brief, enjoyable skits. You can find videos in other categories, such as dance, fashion, food, business, and so on. The ability to add videos from your mobile device and edit them with stickers, filters, and background music is one of the app’s standout features. Additionally, they can share their videos on TikTok and receive likes, remarks, and responses from other users. Users can record their reactions to videos using the react feature, add music, filters, and other effects, and share it with their audiences.

Top brands use TikTok to raise brand awareness even though it is primarily used to produce more passive content. The platform offers businesses a plethora of fresh chances to market themselves and interact with customers.

The outcomes? The last few years have seen tremendous growth for TikTok.

TikTok Key Statistics

Even the statistics show TikTok is killing it. People adore what it brings to the party. You should take note of these vital TikTok statistics. Around a billion people use TikTok globally, according to Business of Apps. This includes Douyin, the TikTok equivalent in Chinese.

TikTok has more than 2 billion downloads worldwide across the Google Play Store and App Store, according to Sensor Tower. With over 315 million installs on both Android and iOS, TikTok generated the highest download volume for any app ever in the first quarter of 2020.

On a daily basis, users spend an average of 858 minutes on TikTok, according to Statista. It’s not surprising given that the platform’s bite-sized videos foster an immersive experience and encourage users to binge more content.

Demographics of TikTok 

Similar to other significant social media platforms, TikTok has a sizable user base of teenagers and young adults. 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24, according to research from the Global Web Index. Why is today’s youth so dependent on it? TikTok’s ability to go beyond its original function as a social media platform to serve as a creative hub for anyone is one of the main factors that appeal to Gen Zs.

Young people are enticed to join in and let their inner creativity loose by platform features and viral trends. What else? The videos are brief but incredibly engaging, authentic, lively, and raw. It’s not even necessary to follow anyone or post videos in order to view their content.

Although Gen Z audiences (younger audiences) predominate on TikTok, older millennials aren’t completely excluded. In the US, 31% of TikTok viewers are 40 and older.

Geo Distribution Of Users On TikTok

TikTok’s expanding user base gives businesses access to a sizable global audience. Millions of people use TikTok in more than 150 countries around the world.

The majority of users are from USA, closely followed by China in terms of geographic distribution. In terms of engagement and daily usage, according to recent studies, the US is in the lead, followed by the UK and France.

Target Audience

The statistics we’ve provided above indicate TikTok wants to appeal to a larger audience. The platform provides innovative and affordable ways for brands to captivate audiences and generate outstanding engagements. However, 13 years old is the bare minimum age requirement for using TikTok. Additionally, the statistics indicate that younger millennials and members of Generation Z make up the majority of the audience. That’s because it displays the lighter side of things while imparting important brand information.

So if you’re looking to reach younger audiences below 50, then TikTok is the place to be.

Average Video Watch Time On TikTok 

According to a report from App Annie, users now spend more time binge-watching videos on TikTok than on YouTube (every month.) According to the report, users watched content for 24 hours in June 2021, compared to 22 hours and 40 minutes for YouTube users. What caused this increase in watch time and audience participation? The content loop on TikTok helps viral videos gain more viewers.

TikTok increases a video’s rating and makes it visible to more users when viewers watch it repeatedly. This encouraging feedback starts a cycle that makes the video popular and encourages repeat viewings from viewers.

About YouTube

Google owns the online video-sharing service YouTube. YouTube is the second most popular website in the world, with over 2 billion monthly users. Users, companies, and creators can upload videos to YouTube and share them with the world. The platform has maintained its dominance and growth over the years due to a number of factors, including

• Accessibility and usability
• Apealing to a larger target audience
• A large user base
• Volume and variety of content

You’ll have almost all the information you need thanks to the more than 500 hours of content that are uploaded every minute. A variety of content is available on the platform, such as news, politics, entertainment, science, and medical information.

YouTube prioritizes longer videos, in contrast to TikTok, which favors shorter videos. Users can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long by default, but verified accounts can upload videos that are longer than that.

With the recent introduction of YouTube TV, Music, and a host of other features, it’s clear that YouTube’s golden age isn’t over just yet.

The platform keeps growing outside of its core services, opening up new markets and giving users more options. Users gain access to a more diverse entertainment experience overall that goes beyond user-generated content.

YouTube for Business

Brands have a tremendous opportunity to expand their audience, increase engagement, and strengthen their brand thanks to YouTube for Business. Additionally, companies can monetize their content as their subscriber base expands.

TikTok is a novel way to express yourself creatively, but YouTube is also growing quickly. The recently launched YouTube Shorts offer the experience of short-form video and directly imitate the TikTok features and video format. Short videos of no more than 60 seconds can amuse viewers and promote brands. Our photo to video maker can help you quickly share photos of your products that many eCommerce brands want to include in their videos.

Key YouTube Statistics

According to YouTube statistics, they are succeeding in the video-sharing market. The platform has experienced phenomenal and unmatched growth. Five times as many YouTube channels now have one billion or more views than there were three years ago.

YouTube is the most widely used video marketing channel, with 55% of marketers using it, according to a 2020 industry report by Social Media Examiners. Every day, people watch more than a billion hours of video, resulting in trillions of views.

YouTube is regarded by marketers as a gold mine. Because of this, YouTube continues to be the most widely used platform for video marketers. The platform is used by 87% of video marketers, and another 89% of brands intend to increase their YouTube spending.

YouTube appears to have a promising future. By 2024, there will be 228.1 million YouTube users in the United States, predicts eMarketer.

According to statistics, YouTube is quickly catching up in the short video market in the YouTube shorts vs. TikTok showdown. Around September 2014, YouTube introduced a beta version of Shorts in India. Before being introduced in the US in March 2021, YouTube Shorts had more than 6.5 billion daily views worldwide. YouTube Shorts had surpassed the 15 billion daily average views mark in more than 100 nations by July 2021.

YouTube Demographics

YouTube appeals to a wider demographic than TikTok. A staggering 85% of teenagers use YouTube, according to the Pew Research Center.

The majority of US adults use YouTube, with 81% of them actively using it. Only about 21% of US adults, according to the study, use TikTok.

Furthermore, a sizable proportion of adults under 65 claim to engage in YouTube activity. YouTube is actively used by 95% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29, 91% between the ages of 30 and 49, and 83% between the ages of 50 and 64. However, among adults aged 65 and older, this percentage significantly decreases to 49%.

Users Geo Distribution

YouTube has localized versions in more than 100 nations and 80 different languages. India, with an estimated 227 million users, is the country with the most, followed by the US with 127 million users.

Target Audience

A diverse audience finds YouTube more appealing because of its extensive selection of content. Users of the platform must be at least 13 years old.

Kids in the UK watched YouTube for about 75 minutes in 2020. In the US, the figures increased to 86 minutes. The majority of Gen Z teens (those between the ages of 13 and 17) say YouTube has aided in their quest for knowledge. According to Think with Google, 70% of Millennials (aged 21-36) visit YouTube to learn new things. It’s interesting to note that Baby Boomers are also included. 78 percent of baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) go to YouTube to learn new things or get assistance.

The general YouTube audience consists of young adults, seniors, kids, and teens. So, if your company is trying to reach these customers, YouTube has everything you need to succeed.

With the advent of YouTube shorts, businesses can now entice younger audiences with hip sounds, effects, and design elements.

YouTube Videos Watch Time

In terms of the amount of time UK and US users spend watching videos, YouTube lags TikTok a little. Due to its larger user base than TikTok, YouTube has a higher average watch time.

Since other viral platforms have emerged, YouTube has shifted its focus away from views and toward time spent watching and viewer satisfaction. Recently, the platform modified its search algorithm and feedback loop for content so that videos are now ranked according to how long users have watched them and how much they enjoyed them.

The artificial intelligence (AI) behind YouTube uses clever recommendation algorithms to lengthen users’ online sessions. These algorithms monitor and analyze users’ past viewing patterns, likes, shares, and comments to identify and suggest additional videos they’ll enjoy.

YouTube can retain users by making it easier for them to find videos to watch and enjoy.

Nowadays, video metrics like the estimated time watched are available to content creators. The quality of YouTube’s content overall and its rate of engagement have both increased as a result of this algorithm update. The intention is to prod content producers to produce outstanding work that entices viewers to stick around.

So how do you raise the overall quality of your content and increase engagement? Using a video maker that offers a sizable selection of the creative resources and assistance you require to power your content marketing strategy is a great place to start.

YouTube vs. TikTok: How To Choose The Right Platform For You

Both TikTok and YouTube enable user-to-user communication on a global scale. Brands, businesses, marketers, and influencers are also included. TikTok and YouTube provide useful features that can help businesses grow. Let’s examine how TikTok and YouTube differ in terms of promoting social connectivity and helping businesses succeed.

YouTube for Business

The data is accurate. For increasing traffic, audience engagement, and revenue, YouTube is useful. Businesses of all sizes promise to keep maximizing YouTube. What else? YouTube users simply cannot get enough brand-sponsored video content.

With more than two billion users, you can market your goods and services to a larger target market. You can rank highly, build authority for your brand, and establish brand recognition by making interesting videos.

YouTube is wonderful because it encourages active content marketing with a strong call to action. You can encourage your viewers to visit your website or social media pages, watch other videos on your channel, subscribe, and leave comments.

YouTube supports a wide range of business objectives, which is another excellent reason to use it for business. YouTube can help you with all of your goals, including brand awareness, lead generation, conversion optimization, viewer education, and customer service. Marketers can switch from lighthearted to serious content to increase sales because the platform allows for more flexibility with tone and seriousness.

Not only that. Longer videos can be played on the platform, so you can:

• Create bite-sized commercials to introduce your brand and attract customers
• Tutorials and how-tos to help customers understand your product better
• Behind-the-scenes looks at your company culture
• Inspirational video to help viewers develop a positive mindset and more
• Create features and documentaries to celebrate cultural and social trends and special events

Major Brands Using YouTube

Nike, GoPro, and Redbull are just a few of the companies that have used YouTube to power their video marketing strategies over the years and develop their brands.

Sports are celebrated as a motivator and a vehicle for bringing about positive change, as in Nike’s popular “You Can’t Stop Us Now” campaign. In addition to 40 million views on Twitter, the campaign has received over 45 million views on Nike’s official YouTube channel.

YouTube Shorts

Additionally, YouTube Shorts fill the need for brief yet engaging content like FAQs, product announcements, viewpoints, etc. Similar to TikTok, they give brands the creative tools they need to produce audiences-pleasing short videos. Plus, content producers, brands, and influencers can profit from their work thanks to the YouTube Partner Program.

With the help of our YouTube video maker, making videos for the platform is now easier than ever. No matter how skilled you are at video editing, it has over 110 million videos and photos, as well as an easy-to-use video maker. You can produce professional YouTube intro and outro clips, advertisements, business videos, and more quickly and efficiently.

The Advantages of Advertising Your Company on YouTube

Depending on your business objectives, you can create YouTube ads in a variety of formats, including:

• Massive advertisements
• Responsive display ads
• Advertisements on mastheads
• Skippable in-stream advertisements
• Non-skippable in-stream advertisements
• Video discovery ad

Here are some reasons why you should create YouTube ads for your business.

• Reach a Larger and More Diverse Audience

YouTube attracts a broader audience with diverse interests such as news, sports, fashion, entertainment, and education. By advertising your business on YouTube, you’ll be sure to reach the right people.

• Options for Audience Targeting

YouTube provides several options for targeting your audience, including:

• Placements for specific keywords
• Interests
• Demographic groups, among other things

Businesses can target niche audiences based on who they are, what they are interested in, and the type of content they prefer.

The Find My Audience feature on YouTube provides a more in-depth understanding of your prospects’ habits, interests, and purchasing behaviours, among other things. You can use these useful insights to improve your ads and achieve better results.

• Profitable ROI

According to YouTube statistics, advertising on YouTube has enormous benefits for businesses. YouTube advertisements are 84% more likely to capture the attention of viewers than TV advertisements. Whether you want to raise awareness or drive conversions, YouTube ads can help you get there.

• Analyze the Outcomes

YouTube provides real-time insights into the performance of your advertisements. Understanding how people react to your video ads will allow you to make adjustments and achieve better results.

TikTok for Business

The number of TikTok users is growing at an unheard-of rate. Therefore, companies have a fantastic opportunity to connect with a large and expanding audience. Even though the videos are brief, they have a way of grabbing attention and making viewers like your brand. Big budgets are not necessary to produce captivating and engaging content.

However, the platform seems to favor shorter videos and a younger audience.

How does this affect your companies? TikTok is your best option if the majority of your customers are young. TikTok is also good for producing passive content, which doesn’t require viewers to take any particular actions. It’s interesting that younger viewers aren’t looking for advertisements. They only need entertaining and engaging content. TikTok is therefore excellent for spreading brand awareness through brief videos.

Align your content with current trends, viral challenges, and more to make a bigger impact. You’ll amuse your audience, increase brand recognition, and market your product by doing that. For instance, Chipotle debuted the #GuacDance challenge in 2019 along with the song “Dr. Jean’s Guacamole.” Record-breaking video submissions and sales were produced by the challenge.

As a result, Guacamole orders at Chipotle increased by a record-breaking 800,000. With more than 250,000 video submissions and 430 million views in just six days, it also became one of TikTok’s best-performing challenges in the US.

Overall, YouTube gives businesses more options for marketing their brands and a wider audience.

However, TikTok is a great place to start if you’re looking to build brand awareness or appeal to a younger target audience. Leading companies like Nike, Pepsi, and Chipotle have already benefited from it.

The Benefits of Advertising Your Business on TikTok

TikTok advertising is a powerful tool for promoting your brand in addition to uploading videos to your channels and collaborating with influencers. You can connect with an audience that is eager to connect with you because the platform thrives on quick exchanges in a relaxed environment. Create entertaining content that connects with your viewers using our video ad maker.

To assist brands in extending their reach, TikTok for business provides a variety of ad formats, such as:

• TopView Ads
• In-Feed Ads
• Branded Hashtags
• Brand Takeovers
• Branded Effects

Here’s what TikTok ads bring to the table

• Effective Reach and Audience Engagement

You can reach a sizable user base and increase traffic to your business with over a billion users across 150 markets and counting.

• Access to Apps for Different Marketing Goals

Users can access a variety of apps with TikTok Ad Managers. These apps (TikTok, Babe, TopBuzz, and Buzzvideo) cover a variety of industries, such as news and entertainment.

• Precise Targeting 

You can target audiences with TikTok ads based on factors like age, gender, and interests. Additionally, you have access to various ad formats, including videos, images, or square, horizontal, or vertical ads, depending on your target audience and campaign goals.

• Track and Improve Ad Performance 

To track the effectiveness of your advertisements, TikTok Ads Manager provides comprehensive data and tailored reports. You can track user behavior and conversions on your page using the TikTok pixel to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Despite the fact that TikTok represents a growing market for brands, their largest user base only serves a small audience. Additionally, brands might need to change their content strategy to accommodate the specialized content on TikTok.

YouTube, on the other hand, appeals to a wider range of users. Additionally, companies can host a wide range of content, such as amusement, news, sports, etc.

Understanding TikTok’s Algorithm

TikTok leverages the power of AI to serve users with content that appeals to them. TikTok’s algorithm ranks videos and recommends them to viewers based on a combination of several variables.

When new users visit the app, TikTok collects information and gradually adjusts content based on their interests and what they aren’t interested in.

It doesn’t stop there. The algorithm goes on to track:

• User interactions – liked or shared videos, comments, accounts they follow, and the type of content they create
• Video information (sound, captions, and hashtags)
• Device and account settings – preferences, language preference, country setting, and device type).

These elements are used by the algorithm to curate the “For You” feed and suggest original content. TikTok enables users to take advantage of a never-ending cycle of videos by sharing content that is catered to their interests.

Additionally, videos that perform well in terms of watch time, rewatch, likes, comments, shares, and hashtags will rank higher, get more views, and become popular.

Preferred Video Length

TikTok is a platform for sharing exciting, 10- to 15-second-long, short videos. They stand out from the competition thanks to this format, which has been a significant growth driver. The maximum video length on the platform has recently increased from 60 seconds to three minutes.

What Type Of Videos Does the YouTube Algorithm Favor?

Compared to TikTok, YouTube offers a wider variety of content options. You can find videos covering a variety of markets, locales, languages, and niches, as well as business, social, serious, and casual content. Commentaries, product reviews, tutorials, comedies, and reactions are a few of the most watched YouTube videos.

Preferred YouTube Video Length

For verified accounts, YouTube supports videos up to 12 hours long; for unverified accounts, the maximum is 15 minutes. In general, 10 minutes is the ideal time for a YouTube video. Videos between 5 and 15 minutes, though, tend to perform well depending on the kind of content you’re producing. They can assist you in communicating with your audience without boring them.

Interaction

YouTube’s algorithm recommends relevant and personalized videos to their viewers on different sections of the tool, including:

• Home page
• Suggested Videos
• Trending
• Search
• Subscriptions, and
• Notifications.

Based on their interactions and engagement with related content, YouTube provides users with a selection of videos they are more likely to watch. These interactions range from remarks to likes, subscriptions, previously watched videos, etc.

How YouTube’s Algorithm Works

Before 2012, YouTube’s algorithm gave more weight to videos that got more views and clicks. This caused a huge amount of annoying clickbait content with misleading titles and thumbnails to flood the web. Since creators started making content for clicks, both the quality of the content and the user experience have gone down.

In 2012, YouTube changed its recommendation system to give more weight to the amount of time spent watching videos or on the site as a whole. So, the people who made the videos made them shorter so that more people would watch them and the videos would rank higher.

But you’ll agree that time spent isn’t a good way to judge quality or how happy a viewer is. So, YouTube changed its algorithm in 2015 to rank videos based on how happy users were with them. YouTube now uses a mix of signals, such as surveys and engagement metrics like likes, dislikes, and the “Not Interested” button, to figure out how happy its viewers are. The system then sends the most relevant videos based on how well the video did, what users said about it, and what they did on YouTube before.

What kinds of videos does YouTube’s algorithm like best?

YouTube has more options for content than TikTok does. You can find business, social, serious, and casual videos from a wide range of industries, countries, languages, niches, and other areas. Some of the most-watched videos on YouTube are commentaries, reviews of products, how-tos, comedies, reactions, and so on.

How Long Should a YouTube Video Be?

YouTube can handle videos that are about 12 hours long for verified accounts and 15 minutes long for accounts that are not verified. In general, 10 minutes is the best length for a YouTube video. But depending on what you’re making, videos between 5 and 15 minutes tend to do well. They can help you say what you want to say without getting people bored.

Interaction

The algorithm on YouTube suggests relevant and personalised videos to users in different parts of the site, such as:

• Home page
• Suggested Videos
• Trending
• Search
• Subscriptions
• Alert notifications

YouTube has a list of videos that users are more likely to watch based on how they have interacted with other similar content. Some of these interactions are comments, likes, subscribing, watching old videos, and so on.

YouTube vs. TikTok Similarities

Here are some of the striking similarities between YouTube and TikTok:

• YouTube and TikTok are video-sharing platforms that cater to content creators, businesses, and other user categories.
• Both platforms encourage user-generated content. In addition, users can upload video content they’ve previously filmed.
• They both provide features for interactions (likes, comments, and replies, subscribe and follow buttons).
• YouTube and TikTok algorithms are similar in the way they recommend videos to users. They serve content to users based on their preferences, interaction, previous activity, video’s overall performance, and account settings.
• YouTube and TikTok offer analytics, including video views, watch time, impressions, reach, comments, likes, followers, etc.
• You can add captions and text overlays to videos on both platforms.

TikTok vs. YouTube Differences

Here are some of the features that set both YouTube and TikTok apart.

Maximum Video Length

TikTok: TikTok is famous for short bursts of videos with a maximum length of three minutes.
YouTube: YouTube has longer and more in-depth content with a maximum length of 15 minutes for unverified accounts and 2 hours for verified accounts.

User Base

TikTok: Over a billion monthly users.
YouTube: More than 2 billion monthly users.

Content-Type

TikTok: TikTok favors fun, unserious and trendy content types such as musicals, dance, sports, humorous videos, and lip-sync challenges.
YouTube: YouTube has a rich blend of different content types ranging from business to social to serious to casual.

Content-Type

TikTok: TikTok favors fun, unserious and trendy content types such as musicals, dance, sports, humorous videos, and lip-sync challenges.
YouTube: YouTube has a rich blend of different content types ranging from business to social to serious to casual.

Ad Formats

TikTok: With TikTok for business, marketers can create varying ad types, including:

• TopView Ads
• In-Feed Ads
• Branded Hashtags
• Brand Takeovers
• Branded Effects|

YouTube:

YouTube for Business offers different ad types and formats, including:

• Bumper ads
• Responsive display ads
• Masthead ads
• Skippable in-stream ads
• Non-skippable in-stream ads
• Video discovery ads

Direct Messaging

TikTok: TikTok has a direct messaging feature.
YouTube: No direct messaging feature.

Demographics

TikTok: TikTok is well-suited for younger audiences (Gen Zs and Younger Millennials).
YouTube: YouTube has a more diverse audience of Kids, GenZs, Millennials, and Baby Boomers.

Content Monetization

TikTok: Creators don’t earn money based on ad revenue. Instead, TikTok rewards creators based on a combination of factors, including:

• Number and authenticity of views.
• Level of engagement.
• Compliance with TikTok Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.

YouTube: Content creators can monetize their content and get paid based on shared ad revenue.

Ads Manager

TikTok: TikTok relies on third-party platforms to track ad conversions, impressions, users’ in-app actions, and click attribution.
YouTube: YouTube offers advanced tools to enable marketers to track ad performance. Users can also leverage third-party tracking tools to measure their YouTube campaign.

FAQs

How is TikTok Different From YouTube?

While YouTube videos can be as long as two hours for verified accounts and up to 15 minutes for unverified accounts, TikTok only allows users to create videos up to three minutes long. The ability to save videos to local devices on TikTok is another notable distinction between the two platforms. Downloads to local devices are not supported by YouTube.

How Many People Have TikTok?

According to TikTok, more than a billion people use the platform globally every month.

What is More popular, TikTok or YouTube?

TikTok was the most downloaded app globally as of the year 2020. In the US and the UK, it has also surpassed YouTube in terms of viewers’ average viewing time. Regarding audience size and duration of viewing, YouTube continues to be superior to TikTok. On YouTube, one billion hours of video are watched daily.

In addition, TikTok is more prevalent among younger audiences while YouTube caters to a broader audience of both kids, adults, and the elderly.

Which Short-Video Format Best Suits You?

The majority of people use multiple social media platforms, and most TikTok users probably occasionally watch YouTube Shorts as well.

It’s more a matter of preference because those who don’t like this kind of content are unlikely to watch it either. A few YouTube Shorts each day may be sufficient for some users, while for others, watching them is a way to discover new communities to join.

Three-minute videos, better customizability options, and a somewhat reasonable chance for going viral are all available on TikTok. You can promote your other YouTube videos and possibly reach a broader audience by using YouTube Shorts.