Which video platform is best for your content?

With so many platforms to host video content, like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and others, it can be confusing to drum up a strategy of where you should be.

The answer may not be of comfort: You should be on them all, but your videos don’t need to be the same for each one, a pair of experts recently advised.

You may notice features are similar across all platforms. But some outlets are better than others depending on what you want to do.

For Brian Walker, owner and CEO of Shop Marketing Pros, YouTube is the best place to be because it also allows you to embed those videos on your shop’s website.

Not to mention that YouTube is the second most-used search engine out there. “And they’re owned by the first-largest search engine in the world. You really want to put your videos on here as you want them to be found,” he pointed out during the session Rev Up Your Marketing with Video Advantage at the Midwest Auto Care Alliance’s Vision Hi-Tech Training & Expo in Kansas City.

Then consider your target audience. Facebook is the largest social media outlet for people aged 35-44, Walker said. And just about everyone across all age groups has a profile anyway.

“You can pretty much count on [the fact] that your clients are on Facebook,” he added.

On Instagram, even though there’s a pretty even split between male and female users overall, Chris Enright, owner of Enright Automotive, said virtually all of his 72,000 followers are male. Keep that in mind when you’re making content for that platform, he noted.

Instagram is also good for shorter, 90-seconds-or-less content, preferably even under 60 seconds. It also has Live, which allows you to do real-time Q&As, information sessions or whatever you like with your followers.

TikTok has fewer active users than Instagram but skews to a younger demographic overall. But Enright will tell you his audience is on the older side with that platform. It comes down to what you’re creating there.

“It depends on the type of content you’re putting out. So it does make a difference,” Enright said. “Not everybody that follows you is going to be young just because the mass majority of people on TikTok are younger than the other platforms. The content matters.”

For Enright, when he started putting effort into TikTok, his following grew quickly. It stands at almost 62,000 followers. He does consistent Live shows now and has drawn upwards of 20,000 viewers.

“That’s the type of reach that you can get,” he said.