We often ask this question at StoriesOut: What social network is best for publishing video content? Instagram? TikTok? Or LinkedIn?
So, we conducted a little experiment…
Don’t forget your apron, and put on your protective goggles for this test.
Phase 1 : Theme Selection
Each social media platform is different, and thus attracts a different audience (age, sex, usage…). TikTok and Instagram share a closer DNA, where LinkedIn is more of a distant, professional cousin in some base principles.
To keep things even and fair, we’ve selected themes that can be shared on all platforms concerned. We’ve chosen general and easy-to-follow videos for this experiment (TikTok and Instagram audiences, for example, wouldn’t be as receptive to corporate content).
The first video: 3 PR tips to help you better communicate.
The second video: redirects to a client event.
Phase 2 : Posting the video content
This time, we can personalize the content based on the platform!
According to the social network we’re using, we publish content at different times! A post done at the right time can be EXPLOSIVE (and not in a bad way, of course ).
- For Instagram : post at 5:00pm
- For TikTok : post at 2:00pm
- LinkedIn : post at 9:30am
Also pay attention to the days of the week that you post your content
Don’t worry, you can now program your LinkedIn posts.
Phase 3 : The results
We let things work in the background for 2 weeks, to analyze the impressions, likes, engagement… 2 weeks is normally when social media posts have reached their peak in terms of visibility and reaction.
First video:
Second Video :
Phase 4 : Analyzing the results
Let’s look under the hood and break down what we’ve found.
Impressions:
TikTok is the platform that allows for the highest visibility!
It’s a platform where we have the lowest amount of followers. At the same time, it’s the one that returned the highest number of impressions. Thanks, algorithm gods
Engagement and Likes:
The engagement rates on LinkedIn and Instagram are pretty similar. These platforms seem to be the best at engaging their audience via call to action.
TikTok is much higher. The attention span is much shorter on this platform, with an ideal video lasting only 21 and 34 seconds. So you only have a few, quick seconds to convince the user to watch the rest of your video – it’s rare to get likes from content in the first 5 seconds.
Phase 5 : What this experience teaches us
If your objective is to grow an audience, use TikTok!
Thanks to its algorithm, you can constantly touch new potential followers, while remaining true to your existing audience.
If your objective is to have an engaging community, shift your content more towards LinkedIn and/or Instagram. The audience, on these platforms, will take more time to look at your content more in detail and in a little longer form.
So we ask, what’s the best social media platform for posting video content?
Number 1 : TikTok is THE platform right now for posting video content.
Number 2 : Instagram. Their last updates have seen the platform push their Reels (short video) content more than earlier versions.
Number 3 : LinkedIn pushes their photo carousel posts, more than their video content. But with this, the stats show that it can still be advantageous to post video on this platform as well.
We would strongly recommend being on different platforms, to be able to touch different audiences, as well as to broach different subjects.
Be careful to not mix up the samples 
