Instagram vs Youtube Influencers: Which Is Right For Your Brand?
When considering dipping your toes into influencer marketing, a common question arises. Which is better, Instagram or Youtube influencers? We hear this question a lot, and the answer is that it depends.
Instagram records about 800 million active users every month, so it’s no wonder the influencer marketing industry is worth over $1 billion on the same social platform. It is expected to reach $2.3 billion in 2020. YouTube now has about 1.6 billion viewers, a number expected to reach 1.86 billion in 2021.
That said, gone are the days when Facebook and Twitter used to be the most preferred platforms for influencer brand promotion and campaigns. This is because visual content is much more engaging than other forms of content.
Nevertheless, a good marketing and influencer campaign will integrate all types of content. Influencers on YouTube and Instagram can induce user engagement with a brand and provide information that helps reduce perceived risks for brands.
So either platform – Instagram or YouTube – is fantastic for your marketing campaign and influencer promotions. However, as you will find out, the decision on which one to use may be influenced by your needs, kind of content, and of course, the nature of your marketing campaign among.
Instagram vs Youtube: Key Statistics
The influencer market is worth $1 billion. The Instagram influencer network now has about 14.6 million sponsored posts. The top 50 most followed influencers garner a total of 2.5 billion follower count between themselves. These influencers charge as much as $3000 per post on the higher side.
Further, about 48% of tech-savvy women use Instagram to engage with influencer content. Instagram Stories is also a preferred platform for sponsored campaigns by 55% of influencers.
Youtube
A YouTuber generates around $125,000 per post on average if they have one to three million subscribers. About 25% prefer using YouTube to consume sponsored content.
Further, videos created on YouTube by the top 25 YouTube stars earn more (about 3x) views than videos from traditional celebrities. The former also earned 12x more comments and 2 x as many actions. YouTube Stories stay for 7 days. Influencers can either post a video or talk about a brand in YouTube Stories.
YouTube helps subscribers to relate better to their favorite YouTube content creators: 7 out of 10 say they relate better to these than to their favorite traditional television or movie stars. 40% of millennials say their favorite YouTube content creator understands them better than their friends.
Pros & Cons of Youtube Influencers
With 1.9 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the second most visited webpage in the world. About 500 million hours of videos are watched daily on YouTube. Videos posted on YouTube are of any kind of genre – beauty, technology, health, travel etc, and these niches are becoming more popular by the day.
YouTube will be much preferable than Instagram in terms of the amount of audience and viewership – it is more popular and has much more users than Instagram.
About three quarters of Internet traffic on YouTube comes from video marketing. Hence, YouTube is most preferable even more than Instagram if you will be looking to using longer videos for influencer marketing.
That does not mean you must use videos with several hours of watching – indeed, about 30 minutes per video is more than enough. Not only is YouTube search-friendly, but it also ensures content stays for long and is evergreen with new content every day.
YouTube is more preferable for tutorials, educational, historical, technology, beauty, and other kinds of content. It is also more suitable for live streaming.
One of the challenges of using YouTube for influencer campaigns for your brand is that it is more expensive, laborious, and time-consuming to create content for YouTube compared to creating content for Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.
If your brand is looking for great unboxing content to drive sales, using a Youtube influencer will be your best bet.
Pros & Cons of Instagram Influencers
The influencer market on Instagram stands at $1 billion and every month, the platform records 80 million active users. By creating relevant content and engaging influencers who have that relevant followership, your brand is capable of gaining new direct customers and more leads. This can also help influencers to gain more followers and engagement.
You also shell out less money creating engaging content on Instagram than YouTube. It is most ideal for campaigns where the target audience does not have to spend long hours reading stories and watching videos. It is a more preferable option than YouTube when you want to use stories and texts combined with images and videos in your influencer marketing campaign.
It is a more preferable option for visually appealing content than YouTube, especially for travel, fashion, and lifestyle niches.
Instagram is also now a better influencer marketing platform with the newly launched Instagram Highlights and IGTV. With Highlights, influencers can retain their preferred stories permanently. Hence content on Instagram can last long.
Although very long videos are not attractive for promotion either on YouTube or Instagram, that option is also now available on Instagram through IGTV. This means Instagram can compete directly with Instagram for posting long promotional videos.
Influencers can also choose from among three different ways of posting video content on Instagram, making it a more versatile platform for branding and marketing campaigns.
Instagram Stories stay only for 24 hours and normal video posting on Instagram would allow for 60 seconds long videos only.
Selecting The Right Influencer For Your Brand & Goals
The most important aspect when selecting an influencer, influencer network, or the platforms are – the relevance of their networks to your audience, and the amount of relevant engagement he or she or they can generate once they start sharing posts relevant to your brand. The number of people you are able to reach through the influencer content is also worth noting.
Resonance – This is determined from the likes and comments an influencer gets in their posts. It measures the potential engagement that the influencer will generate from a brand relevant audience.
Relevance – This defines the number of your target customers using the platform and influencer networks. This can be identified by determining which platform is mostly used by influencers in your niche.
Reach – This is the number of people to be reached by the content posted by the influencer or their channels and pages. To get an idea about this, you can pay attention to the number of followers the influencer has.
High-quality videos with excellent visuals and videos will still be required to garner appropriate engagement on both platforms. Work with influencers who create appealing content that is also attention-grabbing and interesting, depending on your niche.
Finding Instagram Influencers Isn't Easy
Finding Instagram influencers that have the perfect balance of great looking content production, cost reach and engagement is a daunting task for any brand owner. However, there are shortcuts you can take to speed up the success of your influencer marketing efforts.
Our staff has compiled an influencer list with thousands of female influencers that produce great content for brands across the US. They are also active affiliates, which means they are already selling brand products on a commission basis. This gives them a leg up on other Instagram influencers that simply take money from brands without any concern for how their content performs from a business perspective.
The authenticity of an influencer is important, in which case you should be wary of influencers posting content from multiple brands all the time. This is because authenticity is the main reason many will listen to an influencer’s opinion. The influencer’s authenticity will be questionable if they collaborate with several unrelated brands in their campaigns.
The endorser’s competence, their expertise, honesty, morality, and trustworthiness matter in determining the success of the influencer campaign.
