Guide
Strategy
Brands
TikTok and Instagram solve different jobs. TikTok's For You Page surfaces content to people who don't already follow the creator, based on interaction signals, which makes it the stronger platform for reaching new audiences with native video content. Instagram spans Feed, Stories and Reels to a broader, older-skewing audience, and its product tags now link out to your own site rather than closing the sale in-app. Match the platform to the objective — don't pick one exclusively.
The difference between TikTok and Instagram for influencer marketing doesn't start with the content — it starts with how each platform decides who sees it. That's what determines how much reach a collaboration can actually generate beyond the creator's existing followers.
TikTok is built around the For You Page (FYP). According to TikTok's own Newsroom, the system ranks videos using a combination of signals — recent interactions like videos watched, liked, shared or commented on, video information such as captions, sounds and hashtags, and account and device settings — and predicts how likely a user is to like, share, comment on or skip a given video. The part that matters for influencer marketing: the FYP isn't built around who you follow. A new or small account can in principle reach far beyond its own follower count if the content performs.
Instagram is more composite. Meta's head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has publicly confirmed that Reels are ranked primarily on watch time (completion rate and replays), sends per reach (how many people forward the video in DMs) and likes per reach — with sends now one of the strongest signals. Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore each run their own ranking model, weighting signals differently. Instagram's overall experience still blends content from accounts you follow with recommended content — it isn't purely discovery-driven the way TikTok's FYP is.
| TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|
| Core format | Short-form video — one format, the app is built around it | Reels (video), Stories, feed posts and carousels — several formats in one app |
| Discovery mechanic | The For You Page ranks content independent of whether you follow the creator | A blend of followed accounts and ranked content; Reels are ranked separately on watch time, sends and likes per reach |
| In-app commerce | TikTok Shop — shoppable video and LIVE with an in-app purchase flow | Product tags and a Shop tab, but native in-app checkout has been wound down in most markets since 2023–2025; taps now redirect to your own website |
| Audience (US figures, Pew Research Center) | Narrower, younger-skewing — about a third of adults use it, but 62% of 18–29-year-olds vs 10% of 65+ | Broader across ages — about half of adults use it, including 78% of 18–29-year-olds and 15% of 65+ |
| Production expectation | Native, unpolished, sound- and trend-driven content typically performs best | Tolerates both native UGC-style and more polished content across formats |
| Strongest for | Reaching new audiences, high-volume native video content, product demonstration | Building on an existing following, multi-format storytelling, driving traffic to your own store |
The most concrete difference for a brand selling directly is what happens when someone taps a product. TikTok Shop is built to keep the whole journey inside the app — from shoppable video and LIVE shopping through to payment, without leaving TikTok.
Instagram went the other way. Meta has, since 2023, gradually removed product tagging from Live and wound down native in-app checkout in most markets — today, tapping a product tag mostly sends the user to your own website to complete the purchase. Product tags, the Shop tab and shoppable posts still exist and work fine as a shortcut to traffic — but the platform no longer closes the sale itself inside the app the way TikTok Shop does. In practice, that means your own site and checkout flow carry more of the responsibility for conversion when the traffic comes from Instagram.
There's no official Danish breakdown that splits user numbers the way the US surveys below do — treat the figures as a pattern, not as Danish percentages.
According to Pew Research Center's January 2024 survey, around half of US adults use Instagram, versus around a third for TikTok. The age gap is sharp: 78% of 18–29-year-olds use Instagram versus 62% for TikTok in the same age group, dropping to 15% for Instagram and 10% for TikTok among those 65 and older. Pew Research Center's separate survey of teens (13–17) from December 2024 found that roughly six-in-ten US teens use both TikTok and Instagram — and that both platforms are used more by girls than boys (66% vs 59% for TikTok).
The pattern that holds across both surveys: Instagram has the broadest reach across age groups, while TikTok is more concentrated among younger users — but the gap isn't wide enough to write either platform off for a given age group.
Beyond algorithm and commerce, there's a practical difference that affects production the most. TikTok audiences expect content that feels native to the app — handheld, unpolished in its delivery, often built around a trend or a sound. Content that reads as an ad tends to get scrolled past faster on TikTok than on Instagram.
Instagram tolerates a wider range. A polished product shot still works in the feed, a Reel can be either raw or produced, and Stories work well for quick, informal updates. That makes Instagram easier to reuse existing brand content on, while TikTok usually requires content made specifically for the platform to perform.
This connects to format choice more broadly — see UGC vs influencer marketing for the difference between content built to look like a recommendation and content built to look like an ad, and when each fits best.
IF the goal is reaching genuinely new audiences you don't already have a relationship with → prioritise TikTok. The FYP is built to distribute to people who don't follow you.
IF you sell direct and want to keep the sale on your own site with full control over checkout and data → both platforms work, but Instagram's flow already routes traffic to your site.
IF you want the most frictionless in-app purchase path possible → TikTok Shop is closer to a complete purchase flow inside the app.
IF your audience skews broad across ages, or you sell to an older audience → lean Instagram, where coverage is broader across age groups.
IF you already have an established following and want to nurture it rather than find new customers → Instagram's blend of followed accounts and recommended content supports that better than TikTok's discovery focus.
Most ecommerce brands end up using both, for different jobs — see reach vs relevance for how the same principle applies to choosing an influencer, not just a platform.
The numbers below are hypothetical and illustrate only how a budget can be split between the two platforms — they are not a claim about expected results, and this is not a real Make Influence customer case.
A brand has DKK 30,000 for a campaign and splits it 60/40 between TikTok and Instagram by objective — TikTok to reach new audiences, Instagram to nurture the existing following. Both platforms use the same illustrative per-collaboration price of DKK 1,500 for a nano/micro creator, also used in influencer marketing on a small budget.
20 creators total for DKK 30,000 — but the two groups need to be tracked separately. Because the discovery mechanics differ, the TikTok side will typically generate more new traffic per collaboration, while the Instagram side will typically convert better per visitor, because it reaches an audience that already knows the brand. Blending the two into one combined conversion rate hides exactly the difference the budget split is designed to exploit.
In Make Influence's experience, the most common mistake is treating TikTok and Instagram as competing channels to choose between, rather than two tools with different strengths. We typically see the strongest results when TikTok is used to find and test new creators and new audiences at volume — because the discovery cost per new viewer is lower — while Instagram is used to retain and re-activate a following the brand has already spent time building.
That requires tracking each collaboration by platform, not just by creator — otherwise you won't know whether TikTok or Instagram actually drove the result. See how to turn influencer content into Meta ads for how content produced for one format can be reused in advertising on the other.
Rarely necessary. Most ecommerce brands get more from using both for different jobs — TikTok for discovery, Instagram for nurturing an existing following — than from picking one permanently.
There's no evidence of a systematic price difference between the platforms. Price depends on the creator's tier and negotiation, not the platform itself — see nano, micro, macro or mega influencers.
Yes, many creators are active on both. Still evaluate the content and following on each platform separately — a creator's TikTok followers and Instagram followers are rarely identical in composition.
No. Tags still work fine as a shortcut from a post or Reel to your product page — it's only the in-app payment step that has been scaled back in most markets.
Start from the objective, not a fixed split — see the decision framework and worked example above for how a budget can be divided based on whether the goal is new audiences or an existing following.
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