Instagram vs. Youtube vs. TikTok for influencer marketing - an in-depth comparison

If you're considering doing influencer marketing to promote your product, the first key decision to make is to select a platform to start with.

There's a particular cadence to follow to get the best results:

1. Instagram
2. Youtube
3. TikTok

That's it, you don't really need to read the rest of this post. But follow along for my reasoning and to find the pros and cons of each.

Instagram - Pros

Ease of getting started
Instagram is one of most mature platforms of all that are available. Creators on IG are more likely to say yes thanks to it being the lowest friction ways to start creating content while still reaching a huge number of people.

Prices
Instagram creators are open to affiliate-only deals and usually don’t demand high upfront fees for shoutouts (if they like your product). This means you stay profitable when you start out and only spend money when you get sales. Nano and micro influencers (<100k) are key here.

Instagram - Cons

Ephemeral results
This is a consequence of the content being so easy to create. It’s also short lived. Most stories peak out in their first 8-12 hours of being live and most posts within the first 24 hours. You will not see long term consistent traffic coming from Instagram shoutouts, only spikes.

Be emotionally ready for this, don’t expect one creator to drive consistent traffic for weeks.

You can work with this though, if you have a set number of creators posting about you every week, you can get a roughly fixed amount of traffic from Instagram every week.

Youtube - Pros

Long term traffic
Youtube’s content brings long term value. It spikes out in the first week or two of launch (so even the spike is long lasting) and keeps generating traffic to your website for a long time, potentially forever, if the creator uses the right keywords in their description and if your ad is placed in a relevant video.

High Converting Audience
Placements on IG and TikTok are still advertisements. People didn’t ask for them. Placements on Youtube are more relevant to viewers because they either searched for the video topic or found it through recommendations (which means Youtube thinks they’ll find it useful).

This makes an average eyeball on Youtube much more valuable than one on TikTok or Instagram. Viewers on Youtube are much more likely to try new products recommended by creators.

Youtube - Cons

Old Boring Content
Content on Youtube is pretty standard. Everyone creates the same 10+ minute videos and has the same “let’s take 30 seconds to thank our sponsor”. If you are not mindful, you’ll end up being the ad that everyone skips.

You want to avoid this. Ask your creators to make the placement feel more organic and authentic, never do the “30 second sponsor segment”. It will generate subpar results. Your product should be weaved into the video, not mentioned for a short segment.

TikTok - Pros

Novelty
Tiktok is new enough to be growing fast as a platform but it’s old enough to not be the wild wild west. You get to piggy back off the growth of the platform and build your brand. Plus, creators on TikTok are generally the most open to affiliate-only deals.

Unique
TikTok creators tend to be the most quirky and funny of them all. If it fits your brand’s image, give them the creative freedom and watch them create attention-grabbing content for your brand.

TikTok - Cons

Hard to get conversions
There is no “Swipe up” or “Link in description” for TikTok. Creators have to add the links in their bio (which usually is a linktree with a lot of other links). Their audience has to click on their profile, visit the link in bio, and find your link there.

Don’t expect as many conversions for every TikTok video as you expect from an Instagram story for example. It's better for brand awareness, which is why it's also the last channel you should try.

Variability in results
TikTok’s algorithm is extremely stochastic and not predictable. On Instagram or Youtube, you can take a guess on how many views on average a creator with 100k followers would get. On TikTok, you can’t.

The best way to mitigate both these cons is to make 3-5 video deals with creators and spread the posts out across a month or two. This way their audience gets to see you multiple times, and your results average out.

Thanks for reading all the way, I appreciate your attention away from the cat videos you could've watched instead 😸

TL;DR: Start with Instagram to build momentum, partner with Youtube creators to create long-term value, then move to TikTok to capitalise on vitality.

If you have questions, I'd love to chat 👇