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The latest videos by ace YouTuber Carry Minati aka Ajey Nagar created a stir online. Carry is known for his roasting style,He roasted TikTok users recently and suddenly all records of YouTube India were shattered. In his video, he subtly claimed that the content created by TikTok ‘stars’ is ‘cringe’ and all of them lack talent, however, they have become popular without doing any major ‘hard work’. Carry’s video invited many reactions from Tik Tok stars. Post Carry’s roast, Dino James, a musical artist as well as YouTuber released a rap song against TikTok users in collaboration with Girish Nakod. The song is titled Chamkeele Chuze in which Dino has taken a sharp dig at Tik Tok ‘stars’ and called them people lacking talent. Within a span of a day, Dino has received around 2.5 million views on the song while more than 6 lac people have given a thumbs up to the song. Seems like the YouTube vs TikTok fight is getting intense. Do you think Tik Tokers would respond to this rap?
Well who are we to judge this battle “ Youtube vs Tiktok” ? Is it really “Content vs Cringe”? Or is it viral vigilantes turning Youtube vs TikTok into a weapon of hatred just for the sake of views?
But here is the real question ? Which platform is best out there for video marketing? Is it youtube or tiktok?
Video marketing has become a major part of just about every artist’s marketing campaign and has fueled an uptick video content creation. But choosing which platform to release said content on has become a tricky choice and often depends on which meshes better with a given artist’s brand. Video marketing has taken the world by storm and is now being incorporated into almost every marketing campaign. This has led to the rise of video creators across several platforms. Pick any type of video – music, comedy, beauty, gaming, sports or even food there are influencers for each of them with a large following. Deciding which video platform suits your brand and message can be a daunting task and choosing the wrong platform may lead to disastrous results.
Let’s find out which is best for you!
YouTube has been the market leader for video creators, but now TikTok is becoming popular with a different generation of creators and fans. How do you decide which is ideal for the entertainment marketing of your brand? Let’s examine both platforms and you decide which is ideal for you.
TikTok
TikTok is as a result of two apps known as Douyin/TikTok and Musical.ly. Both of these apps have their origin in China and have their audiences in Asia and the West respectively. TikTok was formed when Musical.ly was bought in 2018. It soon became one of the most downloaded apps in the world with even more numbers than Instagram. TikTok makes it easy to combine music, filters, and several effects into a 15-second video, making it easy for people to express themselves. It is immensely popular among young audiences as about 41% of the users are between the ages of 16 and 24.
TikTok Pros
- It is easier for creators since the content is shorter and requires less budget than YouTube videos.
- It can be used to reach Generation Z demographics because it has a large population of them.
- There is a great engagement on TikTok when it comes to challenges and hashtags.
TikTok Cons
- It does not have a fully formed ad business model yet, making it hard for creators to monetize.
- Maximum length of a video from a 6 to 15 seconds.
- Takes longer to create a perfect video.
YouTube
Is there anything we can tell you about YouTube that you don’t already know? YouTube is a video sharing platform that allows users to upload, rate, view videos, and subscribe to the channels of other users. YouTube has recorded a consistent increase in its number of viewers and is one of the most popular platforms for entertainment marketing. It is easier for creators to monetize their content on YouTube. It is reported that YouTube takes up to 45% of all the ad revenues of creator videos. Its the second largest search engine in the world behind Google, just video based.
YouTube Pros
- Longer videos can be recorded compared to those on Tik Tok.
- Gives a better chance of delivering promotional videos.
- It offers a wider variety of videos to choose from.
YouTube Cons
- It requires higher production values to make a video than Tik Tok
- Its algorithm favors longer videos and channels that are updated regularly.
- There is an increased criticism of it becoming more unfriendly towards creators.
- It is harder for newcomers to get noticed.
Ultimately, the platform you decide to use for entertainment marketing is your choice, one thing they both have in common is that the videos that get the most attention are those that are entertaining. Whichever platform you choose, it is important you have a reliable marketing partner who can maximize your reach as well as minimize your cost-per-view (CPV).
Which one is more sticky: Youtube or Tiktok?
Youtube has been the most effective and popular social media network for video sharing. Google bought Youtube back in 2006. It is a platform on which there are no limitations on the length of the videos. On the other hand, TikTok is only for creating short videos like 15 seconds for the fun or showing some kind of talent that could be summed up in a short duration. If you are a food blogger or gym trainer or a teacher etc. then you need longer videos to deliver your message. This is why people who create longer content prefer Youtube.
The impact and popularity of Youtube can not be doubted. Youtube has been facing all the competition since the beginning. And it has been dominant throughout all these years.
TikTok is coming as a new threat to Youtube and its popularity. It has been the most trending social media network for video sharing in recent years especially among youngsters.
Youtube is not going to be irrelevant easily. It is a platform where millions and billions of people come daily.
TikTok has gone viral. And many people are predicting that it is going to outperform both Youtube and Instagram. In the way of summing up, Youtube vs Tiktok is a battle of the best video sharing platform. Youtube has been the most dominant and effective platform for years. People are earning a lot of money off this platform by creating videos.
TikTok is a new video-sharing social media platform. It is the buzzword right now. Everybody is talking about TikTok and the success it has got in recent years. It is believed most influencers are going to use Tiktok over other social media platforms.
Let’s look at the statistics
Well battles are fought with numbers and this isn’t a showdown. So, it’s pretty difficult to figure out who beat who? Which platform is great for marketing? Which platform has more customer base? What’s the growth in number of downloads of these apps? Don’t you worry guys. Team Explified has broken it down to bits and the numbers are pretty mind boggling. So, to cater to the geeks and future entrepreneurs we have come up with STAT Wars. Go ahead and the feed your inner geek.
The battle of Revenues
In this section, we will compare numbers, demographics , prospects and speculations of different brands and keep you updated about the latest marketing trends. So, today we are going to host the Stat wars between Youtube and Tik-tok.
Before we go into the depths and analytics of numbers we have some recent updates and developments from Youtube. It was always a question that which brand would make its first move to stamp its authority and the red brand made it so.
YouTube used to be the cool kid on the block, but then TikTok showed up and everything changed. Now, YouTube is looking to compete directly with the short-form, user-generated content app by reportedly launching its own version called “Shorts.”
Shorts will allow people to upload brief videos into a feed inside the mobile app, much like TikTok, and take advantage of licensed music that YouTube Music has in its catalogue. Those songs can be used within the videos. TikTok operates by letting people choose from a selection of audio, music and otherwise, and create videos using those sounds. MSNBC’s Dylan Byers added additional confirmation on Twitter shortly after this development became viral.
- Differences
Take a look at any state-of-mobile report and it’s pretty obvious why YouTube wants a piece of the action. TikTok saw more than 125 percent in growth over the last two years, according to a January report from App Annie. The app has hundreds of millions of users and is a cultural force. The Information noted that TikTok had approximately 842 million first-time downloads from both Apple and Google’s app stores over the last 12 months — a 15 percent increase year over year.
This isn’t the first time that YouTube has developed its own version of a popular feature on another social platform. YouTube also brought over its version of Instagram Stories to the site. Considering its massive user base (more than 2 billion monthly active users) and its deep music licensing agreements, building a version of TikTok isn’t surprising. Facebook has also developed its own version of TikTok — Lasso — which they’ve been quietly testing in markets like Brazil, according to The Information.
Let’s compare some key statistics to get an overview and then look at some whooping numbers.
Key YouTube Statistics
- There are 2 billion monthly active YouTube users.
- 73% of US adults use YouTube.
- YouTube is the most-downloaded iOS app in 2018.
- As of December 2018, YouTube is installed on 5 billion Android devices.
- One billion hours of YouTube content is viewed per day.
- 500 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute.
- 250 million hours of YouTube is viewed per day on TV screens.
- YouTube is localised to 91 countries, and accessible in 80 different languages.
Key TikTok Stats
- TikTok’s monthly active user base is estimated at 800 million
- TikTok is downloaded 738 million times in 2019,
- Total TikTok downloads is over 1.5 billion – making it the seventh-most downloaded app of the 2010s
- It is estimated that 57% of the TikTok/Douyin userbase is based in China
- India is top market for TikTok downloads in 2019 (if we exclude Chinese Android downloads), with 323 million
- US accounted for 46 million TikTok downloads in 2019.
Youtube Revenue Statistics
Total YouTube 2018 revenue was pegged at $9.5 billion by eMarketer– a 22% increase in 2017. These are predicted/estimated figures, and cannot be read as gospel. In fact, this net YouTube revenue figure might even be on the low side. An Alphabet-employed analyst estimated that 2018 YouTube revenue came to $14 billion.
In the middle we find BMO analyst Dan Salmon’s estimate for 2017 YouTube revenue, which he placed at $12.4 billion – equal to 11% of Alphabet’s total revenue for that year ($110.9 billion). Salmon estimated that YouTube revenue would rise to $24.7 billion by 2020, 13 % of the estimated $189.9 billion he predicts Alphabet will bring in that year.
- YouTube ad Revenue
According to eMarketer, YouTube 2018 ad revenue was worth $3.36 billion in the US alone, an increase of 17.1% year-on-year, and worth around 11% of Google’s total US ad revenue for the year.
- YouTube Premium Revenue
In May 2018, Morgan Stanley suggested that subscription services could see YouTube increase its revenue per user by 13 times. Every million subscribers could contribute an extra 1% of revenue, according to this model. IHS Markit predict that we will see YouTube Premium revenue more than double between 2018 and 2021. It estimates current revenue from the service stands at a little under $0.75 billion, with the lion’s share coming from North America.
- Alphabet revenue
Total Alphabet ad revenue came to $116 billion in 2018 – up from $95 billion in 2017, and $79 billion in 2016.
- YouTube valuation
Clearly, YouTube is an invaluable asset to Google. Well, when we say invaluable, we don’t really mean that – as everything has its price. According to what Barron’s describes as a “bullish Alphabet analyst”, YouTube is worth $140 billion. Furthermore, Laura Martin, the bullish analyst in question, thinks that Alphabet should in fact spin it off.
Tiktok Revenue Statistics
TikTok revenue statistics from Sensor Tower show that TikTok brought in $176.9 million in revenue over 2019. TikTok is still in the early days of revenue generation, having slowly brought in ads over the course of 2019 (see below for more detail). 2019’s total, therefore, while relatively small, still accounts for 71% of all-time TikTok revenue.
Q4 2019 represented by far the best quarter for TikTok revenue to date, with quarter-on-quarter growth standing at 100%, and year-on-year growth at a stunning 500% (albeit from a relatively low base). TikTok is still in the early stages. If we look at equivalent stats for other apps that shared the same sense of global virality in the early stages, we see a similar story.
- TikTok advertising
Initially TikTok did not feature paid advertising. It has been slowly opening itself up. It was reported that ads were being tested by the platform in January 2019. A beta version of a ‘managed service platform’ – bringing TikTok into the biddable ads space followed in April 2019.
- ByteDance revenue
ByteDance is reported have brought in $2.5 billion of revenue in total over 2017, rising to $7.2-7.9 billion in 2018 (around 50 billion yuan). This was the lower end of its revenue target for the years. ByteDance’s revenue target for 2019 was to double this to $14.8 billion. In September 2019, it was reported that it was well on the way to meeting and beating this target, with revenue in the range of $7 to $8.4 billion (50-60 billion yuan) generated over the first half of the year.
- ByteDance funding rounds
ByteDance’s huge valuation came on the back of a funding round which saw investors led by SoftBank invest $3 billion in October 2018. ByteDance was reported to get a syndicated loan worth $1.3 billion in April 2019, from a group dominated by Wall Street Banks.
- Final thoughts on this Stat Wars of revenues
The best ideas often seem painfully simple in retrospect. That there is a centralised online repository for short video content now seems like a basic fact-of-life. TikTok is one of those apps that separates the old from the young – one of those which inspires a spate of explainer articles.
While its appeal is not limited to younger users, this is a Generation Z app. The short format seems to lend itself perfectly to the irreverent sense of humour of the first generation of true digital natives.
Now, YouTube is about much more than content, of course. Content and the eyeballs that it draws in might be said to be the fodder that feeds the real beast: online advertising. In this, YouTube once again is defined and defines the modern world, being a key part of one of the biggest advertising operations in all history. YouTube’s ubiquity makes it invaluable to Google-Alphabet in this regard, being able to offer targeted global reach that only Facebook can rival. We are only able to speculate what YouTube’s contribution to Alphabet’s revenue streams might be for the time being, though certainly it seems to safe to say that they are significant. User-created content, mobile optimisation, content algorithms, the primacy of video, embedded content, internet celebrities, likes and dislikes, channels, subscribers, playlists: YouTube has played a part in bringing all of these notions to the mainstream.
So, when it comes to revenues YouTube is the real winner for now and Tiktok has a lot of catching up to do. But ummm. Are revenues everything? Certainly not. Factors such as brand engagement, usage statistics and growth rates are inevitable in a war of statistics and numbers.
User Base
- Tik tok user statistics
Let’s look at the tiktok users statistics
TikTok is available in over 150 markets around the world, in 39 languages. The latest available official statistics show that there are 500 million TikTok users around the world (monthly active users).
The 500 million figure, however dates back to an official announcement in July 2018. ByteDance has not released anything more recent. We can assume that given its huge popularity, the figure is higher. In September 2019, TikTok VP Blake Chandlee suggested that while it was not up to 1 billion, it was not at half that level either.
Hootsuite and We Are Social have set the figure at 800 million. This would make it the sixth-most used social app in the world. Only the various Facebook properties, YouTube, and WeChat rank ahead of it. Notably it has leapfrogged Tencent’s QQ and QZone.
It is estimated that 57% of the TikTok/Douyin userbase are based in China.
- TikTok download statistics
We can speak with a bit more clarity on download statistics. These show us, unequivocally, that 2019 was TikTok’s year.
According to AppTrace, TikTok jumped from 269th to 4th in global app download rank in February 2019. It has remained in the top-20 since (as of February 2020), and currently sits in fourth position.
Sensor Tower stats reveals TikTok was downloaded over 738 million times globally in 2019. This is a significant increase on the 655 million downloads recorded in 2018. TikTok downloads crossed the 1.5 billion threshold in November 2019.
Download activity peaked in Q4, when the app was downloaded 219 million times. TikTok seems to show a pattern of rising downloads throughout the year. This pattern was somewhat disrupted in 2019 by virtue of what looks like an overspill of enthusiasm from the last quarter of 2018.
Up until the end of 2019, TikTok counts a total of 1.65 billion downloads. 2019 downloads account for 44% of the total downloads.
India was the number one market for downloads in 2019 (only counting iOS App Store and Google Play Store downloads), with 323 million downloads, accounting for 44% of the total figure.
This is despite the fact that TikTok was in fact temporarily banned in the country, for two weeks in April 2019. Legislators believed the app would expose children to pornographic content, sexual predators, and cyberbullying.
TikTok managed to persuade the authorities that it had tightened regulations and the app duly found its way back onto the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. The ban cost the app an estimated 15 million new users in what looked set to be TikTok’s best month to up until that point in the South Asian mega nation.
- YouTube user statistics
As with other big names which belong to bigger umbrella groups, Alphabet (Google) doesn’t always break out numbers by channel. We can, however, rely on a steady stream of YouTube data and statistics from Alphabet quarterly reports or occasionally standalone YouTube conferences.
So, how many people use YouTube? At a marketing event in May 2019, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki revealed that YouTube currently counts 2 billion monthly active users – which would represent a 5% increase on the 1.9 billion logged-in users reported in July 2018. Going further back, this compares to 1.5 billion YouTube users in June 2017.
While there may well seem like a bit of slowdown, it’s probably worth noting that the total number of internet users in the world is currently pegged at 4.4 billion. That would mean YouTube users account for 45% of world’s entire online population…
We might also note that Alexa ranks YouTube second in the world – as well as in the US. There’s not really anywhere an app can go from there, unless it overtook Facebook
If we consider YouTube as a social network – as well we might, given its user-generated content and its numerous opportunities for communication/connection – it is the world’s second-biggest, according to YouTube data and statistics in We Are Social and Hootsuite’s Digital 2019 report. Only Facebook commands more active users.
We don’t have official statistics for how many people use YouTube Premium subscribers but leaked data indicates a 60% increase between March 2018 and March 2019.
A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that YouTube users outnumber those of any other platform in the US, with 73% of US adults identifying as users. Only Facebook, at 69%, comes anywhere near.
- YouTube downloads
YouTube’s prominent place in the app landscape looks safe for now. Indeed, 2018 YouTube statistics show it was the most-downloaded app in the iOS App Store that year– improving on its 2017 rank of second. This put it ahead of Instagram in second, Snapchat in third, Facebook Messenger in fourth, and Facebook itself in fifth place.
Despite its being on the market for around 15 years, YouTube statistics show that it is still the app with which to compete. Indeed, its dominance looks set to continue. Cisco found that video accounted for 75% of online traffic in 2017. This is predicted to climb as high as 82% by 2022.
And where does one go to watch video on the internet, be it from a mobile or desktop device? YouTube remains unchallenged. Indeed, with the exception of short ‘stories’ style videos on Instagram or Snapchat, or the full episode or film-length offerings of Netflix, there is no other short video-focused medium in the top-20 most downloaded apps on iOS.
It is harder to get a clear picture of YouTube statistics related to Android devices, onto which YouTube comes as part of the pre-loaded suite of default apps. As of December 2018, YouTube had been installed on 5 billion Android devices.
Conclusion
So, as of now YouTube has the number game in their backyard in terms of user engagement but the growth curve of Tiktok is certainly alarming for all other digital platforms out there.
