Instagram or YouTube? Which platform is the best for influencer marketing? If one has to make a choice, which is the favorite pick? Let us find out here.

Influencer marketing is now a $10-15 billion industry, with brands rushing to collaborate with influencers to endorse their products and services. Finding relevant influencers and the right platform is challenging, though.

Why Instagram for influencer marketing?

With 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is a powerful platform for brands to advertise their products. Nine in ten marketers believe in the power of Instagram for influencer marketing. Around 70% of the brands spend more on Instagram for marketing. It has a powerful impact on people’s shopping journeys. Moreover, its features such as Reels, stories, IGTV, and Instagram Live help influencers easily connect to their followers.  

• Easy to create content-

More than 80% of the brands prefer Instagram posts and stories for influencer marketing. These formats are easy to navigate and look more authentic. Instagram stories and posts are easy to create. Instagram offers fun ways to create stories through special effects, stickers, audio, and image filters.

The posts, reels, or stories get approved on Instagram easily. If the marketer is well-versed with the format features, they can upload it fast in a hassle-free way.

• Easy to find influencers-

Instagram has over half a million influencers. The majority of them have followers in the range of 15,000 to 100,000. 15% have it in the range between 100,000 to half a million. The influencers with fewer followers have the highest engagement rate. Marketers prefer to work with these micro-influencers because their content is more authentic and engaging.

It is easy for brands to find influencers on Instagram. One challenge, though, is to find relevant influencers. This task is made easy with an influencer marketing platform. It helps marketers find Instagram influencers for any product niche. Also, it designs campaigns if companies want to save time, effort, and money in creating content and posting it on Instagram.     

• Easy on the pocket-

For startups and small companies, the cost factor is crucial in influencer marketing. The posts and stories format on Instagram is a more affordable option. It requires less spending to create content and post them. Also, the fee for hiring influencers just for posts and stories is less when compared to the video format of YouTube.  

Why YouTube for influencer marketing?

Seven in ten people vote for YouTube influencer marketing. YouTube has an advantage in deeper brand involvement. When the audience wants to understand a brand, its values, products, and work, YouTube influencers are more effective in conveying the same. Also, collaboration with influencers for creating demo videos or unboxing videos on YouTube gives better results when compared to product placements on Instagram.  

• Easy to tell the story-

YouTube has around 2 billion users worldwide. 500 minutes of videos are uploaded every minute. Do you know that Apple was the biggest advertiser on YouTube with 2.23 billion impressions? What makes YouTube unique for brands and influencers? It is the ability to story tell and connect with the audience. It offers a personal association through vlogging. The emotive element appeals to consumers.  

• Easy to educate the customers-

YouTube offers visual branding opportunities and traffic to your site. It educates consumers about your brand and drives conversions. About 55% of the brands prefer the YouTube video format for influencer marketing. Influencer marketing works on the economy of trust. If the influencers put across the message authentically, their audience trusts it.   

• Easy to influence buying decisions-

Brands create great content with influencers and build a rapport with the audience. Any highly publicized product launch or limited edition launch ads gain large viewership, and the product line gets sold within minutes. The YouTube influencers have the power to increase consumer buying decisions that benefits your business.    

Instagram Vs YouTube- Which platform is the best for influencer marketing?

Before marketers select the right social networking channel, it has to outline its influencer marketing strategies to help achieve its goal.

A qualified influencer marketing platform will help brands select the relevant influencers and the right channel. It also designs conversion-driven influencer marketing campaigns to maximize brand reach and ROI.

Now, let us see which platform is the best for influencer marketing, YouTube or Instagram.

• How will you showcase product content?

The answer is simple. Instagram is the best influencer marketing platform to convey product features and benefits through visuals. Products such as fashion, clothes, accessories, and travel are portrayed best in visual styles. A glimpse and a short description are enough to grab the viewer’s attention.

Fashion is the most active segment on Instagram. 25% of all the sponsored posts are related to it. Food comes second at 12%, and entertainment is third at 11%. Instagram is the least preferred destination for technology and automotive sponsored posts.

On the other hand, if your product requires an influencer video describing its benefits, YouTube is your go-to place. Gadgets, electronics, automotive, and services like finance and education are best explained through videos. For instance, a video better explains the features or specifications of a car than an image.

• Where is your audience?

Even though Instagram is good for visual content and YouTube for videos, go where your audience is. If your target audience is on Instagram, be active by collaborating with influencers. Instagram supports video content too. You can use different formats based on the time duration of the video.

• Insta Feed- 3 to 60 seconds (1 sec to 2 mins for sponsored ads)
• Instagram Story- 15 seconds (max 2 mins for ads)
• IG Reels- 15 to 30 seconds
• IGTV- 1 minute to 15 minutes (60 minutes when you upload content from desktop)
• IG Live- 4 hours maximum

Sponsored ads, unboxing, product demo, and use-cases can all be explained in short videos.  

Similarly, if your audience is on YouTube, target them with engaging videos. It is no use being active on Instagram with influencer posts if your audience is on YouTube.    

• How famous is your brand?

Startups and growing businesses need aggressive influencer marketing to establish their brand. They have to use all formats of Instagram and YouTube to increase brand awareness before they start focusing on product selling.  

But Nike, Uber, or Gucci are already familiar brands. People will not be interested in knowing the brand or its story. On the contrary, people will be curious to know about the new product launch. Brands use influencer marketing consistently to sell their products.  

• Which gives a better ROI?

Undoubtedly, Instagram gives a better ROI with both its photo and short video format. Instagram is affordable too. So, why go for YouTube? Because it helps brands establish their name fast.

For instance, if you want to promote your restaurant, you can collaborate with food vloggers on YouTube. It gets you more popularity than a video on Instagram. Similarly, travel agencies collaborate with influencers on YouTube and showcase travel destinations with amazing videos. This format will not give you expected results on Instagram.

Read More: What major analysts are saying

In A Nutshell

Companies should use the positive aspects of both Instagram and YouTube influencer marketing to reach the audience. With YouTube, you build credibility and stay connected with the audience. Instagram gets you the initial traction to reach new audiences easily.

So it is Instagram or YouTube for your brand? Which have you used, and what are the results? Share in the comments below.   

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