Product positioning teardown: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook compared

Explain how Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube differ from one another as products. Organize your comparison so that the most important contrasts between the four are easy to see. ```hint Choose the axes first Pick a handful of dimensions, such as why someone opens the app and whose content they end up seeing, and place all four products on each one. Contrasts appear that a product-by-product summary hides. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should the comparison center on people who watch and browse, on creators, on advertisers, or on all three? - Should each product be taken as a whole (Facebook with Groups, Marketplace and Messenger; YouTube with long videos and Shorts) or only its main feed? - Is there a market or age group to focus on, or should the comparison be global? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A small set of comparison dimensions chosen for a reason and applied consistently to all four products. - The core user need and the mode of use each product serves. - How content is created and distributed on each: whose content you see, and why. - Business models and how creators earn on each. - Where the products now overlap, and what still sets each one apart. ### Follow-up Questions - Instagram and YouTube both added short vertical video feeds. Why hasn't that erased the differences, and what protects TikTok's position? - Pick the dimension where TikTok is weakest relative to the other three. What would you build to close the gap? - A teenager uses all four apps every day. What job does each one do for them?