One of the most effective methods to get users to stop scrolling is to use video content. These days, it’s much simpler to keep your audience’s attention with vertical movies of shorter duration. Video-sharing platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok are preparing to optimise their channels for content producers and companies in light of the fact that 89% of marketers want to boost their marketing strategy using short-form video content.
Which video marketing platform do you find to be the most effective? This essay will examine the similarities and differences between Instagram Reels and TikTok, including their features, functionalities, and user base.
Instagram reels: what are they?
Instagram, a social media platform for sharing photos and videos, introduced Instagram Reels in August of 2020. With this update, Instagram users may now share short videos with one another. Users may edit together footage, apply filters, and score their reel to songs stored in the app’s collection.
Instagram Reels provides a unique platform for people to showcase their best work. Since it has the potential to be featured on Instagram’s Explore page, it also encourages interaction. The purpose of a reel is to increase exposure and build a name for yourself in the public eye. However, Instagram Stories, another popular in-app function, restricts user-creator communication to private messages.
What Sets Reels Apart from Stories?
Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels have visual similarities but have distinct purposes. Real-time updates are best communicated through stories, while your filmmaking chops may be shown off in a reel.
Instagram videos range in length from 15 seconds to one minute and fifty seconds. Each narrative may be up to 15 seconds long, but the app was made so that you can upload several clips of that length during the day.
Instagram Stories is a content format that allows users to upload and share short videos, photographs, and GIFs in addition to content from their regular Instagram feed. On the other hand, Instagram Reels is dedicated just to video. A slide video presentation is one option for showcasing a picture collage in video format.
Instagram Reels uses background music to round out the video. Instagram Reels is an audio and video editing app that works much like TikTok. You may also record an original soundtrack and share it with the Instagram community so that others can utilise it in their own videos.
Instagram Stories restricts your followers’ ability to like, comment, and even see your content, but Instagram Reels does not have these restrictions.
Similar to regular Instagram posts, you can annotate your Instagram Reel with captions and hashtags. Captions are not used on Instagram Stories. Hashtags can be added to your stories, but they won’t always increase your visibility.
Gaining attention: Your highlight reels are made to increase your Instagram followers and give you more opportunities to go viral. The Explore section of the site is where users may find new reels to watch. Although stories can’t be used to attract a new audience, they can be used to increase loyalty among your current customers.
Time to expiration: Instagram Stories is well-known for capitalising on the “fear of missing out” (FOMO) of its users. The lifespan of a narrative is exactly one day. Reels, meanwhile, can remain online for as long as you like. Instagram Reels are accessible through a dedicated Reels section of your profile.
Instagram Reels may be shared in many places at once, including the Reels tab, the main Instagram feed, and Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories is more like a library where you may save and share your own content as well as that of others.
Instagram has optimised its features for vertical video content, demonstrating the effectiveness of videos in capturing attention, building relationships, and increasing revenue. Recent data shows that compared to video posts published on Instagram’s native feed, Reels receive 22% higher interaction.
This comprehensive guide will teach you all you need to know about making and sharing Instagram Reels. Adding Instagram Reels to a marketing plan that already includes carousels, IGTV content, and regular picture and video postings on the Instagram grid may help brands and artists reach a wider audience.
TikTok: What Is It?
TikTok, which was formerly known as the popular lip-syncing app musical.ly, has recently exploded into a video-sharing app with a billion monthly users who can participate in trends (including lip-syncing) and share short videos (usually between one and three minutes in length) such as bite-sized educational content, ASMR vlogs, and mind-blowing life hacks.
YouTube Reels vs. TikTok Specials
Both Instagram Reels and TikTok are geared towards the distribution of vertically-oriented short videos. At first sight, the two may seem interchangeable; after all, they both provide the same user interface and editing tools.
TikTok’s Short Videos vs. Instagram’s Highlight Reels
TikTok and Instagram Reels both added support for 15-second videos. Currently, videos on Instagram Reels can be up to 90 seconds long. Over time, TikTok has added the ability to upload longer videos. TikTok initially allowed for films up to one minute in length, then in July 2021, the app was updated to allow for videos up to three minutes in length. Beginning in February 2022, TikTok will allow videos up to 10 minutes in length.
Instagram Highlights vs. TikTok
TikTok’s roots as a lip-syncing platform mean that it offers a variety of effects and filters to help users express themselves creatively through their videos. TikTok also recognised the need to address specific difficulties and developments in video editing, so it expanded its already extensive repertoire to include these effects.
Until 2023, Instagram lacked voice filters, but now they’re available in Instagram Reels.
Instagram Highlights vs. TikTok: A Discussion on Closed Captions and Text-to-Speech
The functionality of applications is being simplified to make them more accessible for users with impairments. In 2021, Instagram Reels introduced text-to-speech with its voice filters.