Social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok have connected billions of people worldwide. Businesses, big and small, seek these platforms to build communities and promote their products.
Snapchat, a social media app launched in 2011 by Snap, boasts 347 million daily active users as of Q2 2022. It lets users create and share disappearing pictures and videos, fostering playful interactions. While primarily targeted at users aged 13 and above, Snapchat provides a spontaneous and creative space for brands to connect with younger audiences.
TikTok, a mobile app introduced in 2016 by ByteDance, has rapidly gained popularity with over 1 billion daily users by early 2022. It allows users to create and share short videos, often set to music and enhanced with filters.
With its focus on short-form video content, TikTok has captured a significant global audience. Brands have leveraged TikTok’s features, like challenges and contests, to engage users and promote their marketing efforts.
These platforms have distinct characteristics and user bases, making them suitable for different marketing strategies and audiences.
In this post, we’ll explore the key features, similarities, and differences between Snapchat and TikTok to help businesses make informed decisions about their social media marketing.
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Snapchat vs TikTok – Key Features of Both Social Media Platforms
Snapchat
1. Spotlight
Snapchat Spotlight is a section in the app that shows short video content, also known as Spotlight Snaps. These snaps can be 60 seconds long, and Snapchat uses its unique algorithm to show you the content it thinks will interest you based on what you’ve watched before.
The Spotlight tab does not include a comment feature and makes profiles private by default. To create a Spotlight Snap record, choose spotlight to send to the screen. Note that Spotlight videos should be vertical videos with sound.
Snapchat seeks to use the Spotlight feature to highlight quality content from creative users regardless of the following they command on the platform.
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2. Stories
Snapchat stories include a photo or video that you can post to your stories feed and they disappear after 24 hours. People can view your stories as often as they want within 24 hours, and once the time limit is up, Snapchat automatically deletes your content.
Snapchat stories allow you to share your day narratively. Stories are popular on Snapchat because there is no pressure on how many comments and likes you need to garner.
However, you can still leverage Snapchat stories with your large following, as it’s an effective way to share information with your followers.
In May 2022, Snapchat rolled out the Shared Stories feature as a way for users to build a community around the content they love sharing.
Shared Stories is an iteration of the custom Snapchat stories. Content sent to Shared stories is deleted after 24 hours and has no chat component, keeping all the conversation among friends.
With shared stories, content is moderated carefully to make it fun and safe for users. The app notifies you in case you joined a Shared Story with someone you had blocked and allows you to leave the story and ensure that you are in total control over who to share content with.
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3. Snap Map
Snapchat maps are interactive maps that you can use to share your location with friends. With Snapchat maps, you can also see friends when they share their location with you. This location-sharing feature is available to all users worldwide.
It uses mobile phone technology to find out where users are and what they are up to by clicking on their avatars to see their shared photos and videos.
You can choose who to share your location with by configuring the settings to only me, my friends, or select friends. The good thing about location settings is that they can be changed at any point through the settings function.
4. Explore Lens
Snapchat Lenses give you an AR experience that changes how you look and the world around you. You can use lenses when creating snaps to add 3D effects, characters, transformations, and objects. Snapchat lenses should not be confused with filters.
To learn how to use Lenses on Snapchat, explore Lenses and make it fun. You will encounter two types of lenses: Face lenses that turn you and your friends into something else like flower crown royalty, puppies, or even babies.
World lenses allow you to reimagine the world around you and bring some characters to life, like making the Eiffel tower puke rainbows. However, world lenses may not be supported on all devices.
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5. Snapcodes
Snapcodes are unique codes that Snapchat users scan to access features and unique content. Every lens created through the lens studio generates Snapcodes that can be unlocked by users everywhere.
You can share your Snapcode with people on social media once the code goes live and imprint it while ensuring that you follow Snapchat guidelines. Never modify your Snapcode unless when submitting the Lens to Snapchat for approval.
TikTok
1. Video Upload and Video Editing Tools
As a video-sharing platform, TikTok has a video uploading feature that lets you upload your creation to the app.
Before sharing your video, you can flip, crop, or rotate your uploaded video and do a pre-run with playback speed.
You can also record your videos straight from the app and select a song to lip-sync or dance to with the music from an extensive music library. Alternatively, you can choose to add your choice of background music after recording a video through the app.
TikTok’s video editor comes with numerous filters and effects, stickers, and animations to enrich your content.
Some of the effects you’ll find exciting are the AR effects, which allow you to alter your hair, and eye color or add various virtual elements to your head, i.e., hats, glasses, flowers, puppy ears, and more.
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2. Duets With Different Layouts
TikTok’s Duet feature allows you to create videos with other content creators. The good thing with Duets is that they enable users to collaborate alongside other users’ videos and automatically tag their accounts.
Traditionally, TikTok Duets places your video next to the original video in a left-and-right format. However, it is not limited to this layout as there are several other options to choose from.
From Duets, you can show your response to the original video through a picture-in-picture display. The top and bottom layout places your reaction video on top of the original one, while the three-screen structure allows more creators to collaborate in a single clip.
3. Stitch
A stitch is a creation tool that lets users combine another video on TikTok with the one they are creating. Stitch allows you to clip and integrate different scenes from a video produced by another user into yours.
Stitch provides fun opportunities to reinterpret, add new concepts to another creator’s video, and make it fun. While stitching, you can build on other creators’ stories, recipes, tutorials, math lessons, and more.
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TikTok allows you to choose who can stitch with your video in your settings. You can select everyone or restrict your stitch list to friends only. You can switch the stitch feature on and off with every video you create.
4. Reply With Comments and Pinned Comments
Replying to comments with a video is the best way to connect with viewers directly. Select a comment on an existing video and choose reply with a video. The selected comment becomes a custom sticker in your response video.
We cannot talk about comments and fail to speak about TikTok’s pinned comments. Pinned comments give you additional control over your comments section and allow you to engage more with your target audience by pinning a specific comment to the top of the comments board.
While TikTok will enable you only to pin one comment, you can replace your pinned comment whenever you feel necessary.
5. Add Text to Cover Images and Adjust Clips
Adding text to the cover image is an excellent way to tell your viewers about the video. A title or label added to your video will appear on the cover thumbnail, and users can quickly notice it when they browse through your Profile page, Sound page, or Discover page.
A creative title to a video can incentivize users to click and watch it.
On the other hand, adjusting clips is another exciting TikTok feature that helps you manage individual clips within a video. You can reorder, reshoot, or even trim clips with adjusted clips to craft your video how you want it to be.
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Snapchat vs TikTok – Pricing
Snapchat
Snapchat is a free app. Only recently Snapchat rolled out Snapchat+, which features a collection of exclusive, pre-release, and experimental features for $3.99 per month.
However, Snapchat+ is only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Australia, Germany, United Arabs Emirates, and New Zealand. Snapchat hopes to expand Snapchat+ to other countries with time.
TikTok
TikTok is a free video focused app. However, TikTok charges you to advertise on the platform. These charges vary from one demographic region to another. TikTok allows you to select your audience and set your budget.
Snapchat vs TikTok – Pros and Cons
Snapchat
Pros
- Snapchat is all about the experience. If you use it for business, your customers will be lucky to experience the more laid-back nature of your products, which can boost trust and credibility.
- The geofilters are a great way to tell friends, family, or potential customers that you are in the area.
- Snapchat is creative.
- Snapchat allows for real-time chatting, allowing users to build and maintain friendships.
- The length of the content is short, making it more fun to create and easy to consume.
- Snapchat is safe and secure, making it impossible to bypass privacy settings or breach privacy policies.
Cons
- Limited audience. On average, Snapchat users are between the ages of 12 and 34.
- The analytics on the app is still a work in progress.
- While the app allows you to save videos and snaps to your device, other users can only interact with your content within a limited time of 24 hours.
Dive deeper into Snapchat’s advantages and disadvantages with our comprehensive analysis of the ‘Pros & Cons of Snapchat‘.
TikTok
Pros
- TikTok offers wholesome entertainment. With TikTok, users can dance, hone their creative skills, and expand their friend network.
- TikTok offers instant publicity to users who wish to become famous without specialized talent or skills.
- It is a great platform to learn new things as users share a wide range of knowledge and skills.
- TikTok helps you stay on top of trends.
- It is an excellent platform to grow brand awareness and engage with your audience.
- TikTok gives you insights into your followers and how your content is performing.
Cons
- Some people use TikTok to make fun of other people’s communities, beliefs, or religions. It can also be used to portray others in a bad light.
- TikTok can be addictive. The app boasts an endless stream of content, where users are likely to spend more time on the app watching videos for hours.
Dive deeper into TikTok’s advantages and disadvantages with our comprehensive analysis of the ‘Pros & Cons of TikTok’.
Snapchat vs TikTok – Similarities and Key Differences
Similarities
TikTok and Snapchat allow users to create short form video content quickly and add effects, filters, and music. These platforms are popular among Gen Z, and it’s clear that these applications are a trend that will be around for a while.
Two apps are used by content creators, friends, publishers, celebrities, and brands. These two popular social media platforms are better to reach and perform, and if you choose to get your brands on either platform, you could open up your business to a world of possibilities.
Using these social network sites can be risky for kids though.
However, TikTok and Snapchat set rules for different ages and allow kids to use the apps safely with adult supervision.
Snapchat and TikTok have a user age limit of 13 years, meaning users below 13 years cannot post or comment, and Snapchat asks you for your date of birth before signing in.
However, it is straightforward for a child to circumvent the Snapchat and TikTok age limit using a fake date of birth as the platforms lack the means to verify identity and age.
You can post pictures or videos to your stories, which are automatically deleted after 24 hours on TikTok and Snapchat.
If you’ve used Snapchat before, you’ll agree that stories are what make the platform more enjoyable. TikTok stories are more recent. TikTok features stories as in-feed posts with a story tag at the top left corner.
When you post a TikTok story, your profile picture will be encircled in a clickable blue ring that directs users to your story. Your followers will see your story on their ‘For You’ page like regular videos are shown.
Interaction on TikTok stories is similar to traditional posts so that viewers can like, comment, and share your story.
Both TikTok and Snapchat run on Android and iOS devices.
Differences
While Snapchat and TikTok seem more similar, they are different when it comes to their content, marketing viewpoint, user base, and what they offer.
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One significant difference between Snapchat and TikTok is that content posted on Snapchat has a limited lifespan. Snapchat content will not last long as snaps automatically disappear from your feed within 24 hours.
TikTok relies on its filters and special effects to make content lively. On the other hand, Snapchat is wider in allowing creativity and being playful, thanks to its filters, doodles, lenses, and stickers.
When it comes to marketing opportunities, Snapchat has a variety of marketing opportunities for brand awareness.
On the other hand, since TikTok has a massive user base, it favors those who are pressed for money and can be an excellent platform for direct marketing, customer engagement, and reaching a large customer base.
However, TikTok is still in its early stages of marketing and advertising, and running ads on the platform can be expensive. Brands can leverage Snapchat’s AR and Lens capabilities for localized campaigns and for telling compelling brand stories.
TikTok is a fun and engaging video-creation platform for short clips that are set to music. Snapchat, on the other hand, is a video and photo messaging app focused on stories and different short-lived formations.
The goal of the TikTok app is to blend in while still offering viewers value. On the other hand, Snapchat is concise and eye-catching.
If you use Snapchat for advertising, your potential customers can easily see a clear CTA in under six seconds.
Verdict: Snapchat vs TikTok – Which is Better a Social Media Platform?
Considering the digital marketing landscape, both platforms offer unique opportunities to connect with target audiences.
While these platforms seem similar and prominent among Gen Z, they are used for different purposes compared to traditional social media networks.
Snapchat is more of an instant messaging tool with a clear focus on social interaction and linking. It’s more about personal experiences and less about fame, likes, and comments.
TikTok, on the other hand, is a short video-sharing app. It allows users to create, share, and discover short videos and is used as an outlet for users to express their creativity through dancing, singing, comedy, lip-syncing, and other fun activities.
Depending on your marketing strategy, leveraging either Snapchat or TikTok, or even both, can be a strategic move to enhance brand visibility and engagement.
