Advertising On Social Media: TikTok Versus Instagram - Forbes
However, on TikTok, the audience tends to prefer organic or user-generated content and usually doesn't react well to traditional social media ...
major shakeup
Social media continues to be the main platform on which many brands and companies advertise. However, with the rise of TikTok, there has been a <anchor>major shakeup</anchor> in advertising performance across the board. We’re seeing more advertisers on Instagram changing their strategies to mimic TikTok’s style, while others are maintaining the template they’ve curated over the last few years. Some may be wondering what the right method is—and even considering abandoning Instagram altogether. Despite the “TikTokification” of Instagram, key differences between the platforms remain.
Advertising Has Changed And So Should You
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# Advertising Has Changed And So Should You

Forbes Agency Council
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Sep 29, 2021,07:15am EDT

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The advertising landscape has rapidly shifted over time since the evolution of traditional streams, like print and television. The first television commercial aired in the U.S. in 1941; it was a shaky 10-second image. Fast forward to the extensive and rapidly changing environment of digital and social media today, and more than 6 billion people in the world have smartphones constantly delivering advertising content through different channels to the palm of their hands. Many of the most dominant mediums for reaching consumers, such as TikTok and Instagram Stories, have only existed within the last few years, and expectations for content marketing volume continue to grow annually.

While working at a top ad agency, I noticed that our traditional processes of creating and getting advertising to market didn’t translate well with the modern social media sphere. It was expensive and slow. Now take that one execution on one channel and put it into the context of today’s channels. The modes for finding content have multiplied, and marketers have to meet consumers where they are. Succeeding in this environment requires an advertising process that is agile. This concept is at the core of our company’s business strategy today. Agile advertising is an approach to optimize efficiency and achieve your marketing goals in the modern advertising landscape.

Here are some of the necessities for agile advertising.

Test And Learn

At the heart of agile advertising is the methodology of testing and learning. Brands must create new content, share it and learn from its performance to strengthen their future strategy. Bain & Company found that marketing leaders (those leading in revenue and market share growth) are more likely to use an agile approach. These leaders use a “test-and-learn discipline” to deliver the right message in the right context. The digital world provides the opportunity to run experiments and assess the impact of your marketing efforts with data insights that continue to improve. Instagram, for example, just added new engagement insights for Reels and Live broadcasts to help brands and creators interpret their content’s reach. In order to test your goals, you have to determine which metrics to value. While large volumes of likes and comments may be rewarding, marketers need to assess the data that most effectively translates to ROI.

Keep Up With The Shifting Landscape

An agile marketer has to stay on top of shifts in platforms, algorithms and features. TikTok, for example, has quickly grown in popularity, offering marketers an opportunity for easy awareness with an average of 118% organic reach for brands. The platform isn’t just good for top-of-funnel metrics; it’s proven to be a strong conversion channel. An Adweek survey found that 49% of TikTok users have purchased a product or service they discovered on the app. In the summer of 2020, Instagram launched Reels as a TikTok competitor. Recently the platform added paid ads to Reels. With all of this change and innovation in ad formats, a key aspect of your marketing strategy should be adopting a test and learn approach to these new formats to quickly identify new opportunities to reach consumers.

Tap Into Influencer And Content Creator Talent

The freelance content creator community is a great way to create unique content assets and gain awareness with different networks of consumers. The last year has helped illustrate why creators can be so powerful for your operations as the pandemic forced brands to step outside the bounds of traditional advertising practices and tap into creator communities to keep up with the high demand for content across all advertising formats. This method allows brands to tap a broader range of talent outside of traditional sources because influencers and content creators are flexible and adaptable in ways that traditional methods just aren’t. They also provide a diverse point of view and more broadly represent your consumer, and they provide an opportunity to build brand awareness and promote trust and authenticity.

According to an Advertiser Perceptions report, 41% of the advertisers surveyed believe the pandemic boosted the importance of influencer marketing and many have increased their budget to accommodate it.

Identify what platforms or talent characteristics are optimal for communicating with your target audience, and then test and learn to find the best fit.

Optimize Efficiency

The ultimate goal of agility is to optimize your methods and content creation to give your team a competitive edge when it comes to producing advertising that breaks through again and again and again. The byproducts of outsourcing elements of the process can strengthen your organization, whether that involves consumer insights analytics or content production. Bain & Company found that marketing leaders are 1.6 times more likely than others to incorporate vendors into their content creation process.

Many organizations, including ours, saw the necessity for collaboration and agility in response to the impact of the pandemic. The lockdowns heightened the value of digital engagement and forced a pivot in production practices and planned brand messaging. In December 2020, we teamed up with a well-known brand to produce a TV commercial through creator content filmed entirely remotely. The brand quickly received 118 video assets from creators, reduced its production time by 50% and cut 30% of its traditional production cost. The success of this unique piece of content resulted from testing a new agile approach.

Advertising has changed, and in order to stay relevant, brands must adapt accordingly. The last year has only clarified reasons why adopting an agile approach to advertising will strengthen your strategy and lead to more impactful relationships with consumers. Agile advertising is about using tools to enable a collaborative content creation process and unlock insights that will lead your team to continuously create something worth sharing.

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