Do you remember Vine? the six-second looping video app was launched in early 2013, but within 4 years it’s discontinued by Twitter in 2016. Since then, we’ve seen many apps like Snapchat and TikTok fill Vine’s place. These two apps allow users to express their creativity through short mobile videos and also have lots of new filters and features compared to other social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter.

Snapchat vs TikTok Comparison

At this moment, both apps continue to grow on the market. Snapchat has around 210 million daily active users globally while TikTok recently surpassed 800 million monthly active users. 

To know the strength of these two apps, Hubspot made a poll to the U.S young of over 350 people to find out which app they regularly log into Snapchat, TikTok, or neither. At the end of the poll result, both apps have a close number of votes. 

What is Snapchat

Snapchat, which is launched in 2011 allows users to exchange pictures, videos, and text which is called snaps. Unlike most other social apps, Snapchat content expires immediately (10 seconds) or after 24 hours. This photo-sharing platform encourages its users to create content that is more joyous and uncensored than other more public-facing social media platforms.

How it’s used: Snapchat offers many ways for users to keep up with friends, popular trends and relevant news, Bitmoji Tv, and more. Snapchat has been investing so much in AI and AR capabilities features (or ‘Lenses’) to give brands and users more creative abilities like try-on effects, object scanning, and 3D environment interactions.

Advertising. Snapchat offers a wide range of advertising options through its self-serve ad platform, from standard Snap Ad units that appear between stories to ads that use branded filters and AR lenses. It also has an e-commerce component with shopping ads, and personalized audience targeting ads with a native checkout feature.

What is TikTok

TikTok is the fastest-growing video-sharing app that was launched in just 2017 by Chinese tech company ByteDance. It is similar to the Vine app in that manner it allows users to create 10 to 60-second looping videos and post them on their profiles. TikTok was the most downloaded app in the U.S in the year 2018 and it reached 1.5 billion downloads globally at the end of 2019.

How it’s used: TikTok users create and post short, looping videos from its massive library of music and sounds. TikTok isn’t the place for serious life updates or connecting with friends. Most TikTok videos are dance choreographed, lip-syncing, hashtag challenges, and reaction videos. 

Advertising. TikTok’s ad product is still it’s in the early-stage process and TikTok’s self-ad-service platform is still in beta. As of now, advertising in TikTok is offered on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions) as Ad units currently available include:

• In-feed native video ads
• Brand takeovers (a full-screen ad that appears when a user first opens the app)
• Hashtag challenges
• Branded filters
• Topview ads (similar to brand takeovers but uses in-feed content)
• Influencer brand partnerships

Best Platform for Brand Marketing 

Both TikTok ads and Snapchat ads offer a great opportunity for brands to connect with audiences, especially young people. Specifically, the TikTok ad marketing strategy can be effective for driving awareness with user-generated content (UGC) in the form of brand challenges, reactions, or filters. Snapchat platform is better for sharing fleeting life moments and surfacing relevant content that the user might care about – like original series or Stories.

So choose these marketing platforms based on your needs and focus to improve your brand awareness and promote your business products or services.