YouTube

Dimensions and Layout

For IGTV videos in vertical format are preferred by the audience, remember that Instagram is mostly used in smartphones. So videos are better watched there with a vertical format, with dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels or an aspect ratio of 9:16, the same used for the stories. These videos are made for specific purposes, with close-up shots, and the time limit is 1 hour.

The horizontal format is the preferred for this platform, even when the same dimensions are the favorites 1080 x 1920 pixels. But the ratio changes drastically to 16:9 because the videos shown there need to portray more content, besides that now you can transmit it to your smartTV. The time limit for videos on YouTube is up to 10 hours per video, which offers many options to the users. 

Analytics and Insights

IGTV presents fewer analytics compared to YouTube. However, the insights are quickly in this platform. Instagram can show you how many likes and views the video has. The senses can be demonstrated within three days because the engagement is fast but the shelf life is short. 

YouTube offers the best analytics that any respected marketer and content creator wants. With this feature, the platform shows a deep result of video success. This can come in a group or individual for the videos posted on any channel. Among the analytics, any user can get: watch time, audience retention, rewatch, engagement, impressions click-through rate, and so much more.  

SEO and Discover

Here IGTV is losing and losing big! Let’s see, to discover a video on Instagram, you must search for it manually or to follow an account dedicated to posting videos or reels. You can use hashtags, but pretty much if the video doesn’t become viral, it will be hard to give it the correct promotion. 

YouTube is a Google branch, which means that it uses the same SEO algorithm. If you search for something on Google automatically, it will display YouTube results. And it goes beyond that. The website will show you content that will be interesting to you even if you aren’t a subscriber to that channel. The videos posted on YouTube can be embedded into any website and blogger platform. You can use up to 30 keywords to help with the searches. It also shows the most popular videos and rewards those channels with tons of subscribers.  

Engagement and Ads

IGTV can easily have better engagement on its platform, showing likes, views, and comments quickly. About the ads, it has started showing some in partnership with some important accounts and advertisers. Still, only in the US, the plan is to expand this globally in 2021. For now, it is a work in progress.

Engagement on YouTube is an interesting thing because it will depend on several factors, but mostly on the video or channel’s popularity. The platform will show the likes, shares, comments, and complete views within a certain amount of time. Actually, YouTube has the power to freeze views on a popular video, to check if these are organic, and not through a bot. With ads, well, YouTube is a king for them, just because the platform is the second most favorite for a primary audience, only after Netflix. So it’s normal that advertisers want to invert ads on it!

Influencer Marketing

Instagram is the preferred field for influencers. This is shown with the many features and tools for partnerships and brands to work with different influencers. These tools help the influencers, and their teams track the paid content and results that brands can also check.  

YouTube was the first social media platform where brands partnered with important channels to promote their products before the term influencer started. Right now, the video platform is also showing great tools for influencers. But its main benefit is the long life span of the videos. You can find videos of even 5 years ago.

Social Shopping

Here IGTV is winning thanks to Facebook, don’t forget that the social media giant is the owner of Instagram. It shows many tools for social shopping, including buying directly from the account and checking the catalog. Instagram and Facebook are improving this every day. 

YouTube doesn’t allow social shopping or commerce, but it’s a great ally for many eCommerce businesses. The main reason why YouTube hasn’t upgraded into social shopping is that it’s first and foremost a video platform website, so the videos are its main product. But many businesses can promote their products through a video!