The Hopla! team
For years, the advice fitted in one sentence: “a shop belongs on Instagram”. It wasn't wrong. But habits have changed, and an owner with little time for social media deserves better than a reflex. They deserve to know who is where, and where they stand a real chance of being seen.
Who is where, in Belgium
DataReportal's Digital 2026 Belgium report gives the audiences the platforms report themselves, at the end of 2025, among people aged 18 and over:
- Facebook: 6.20 million, or 65.3% of adults.
- Instagram: 5.10 million, or 53.7% of adults.
- TikTok: 4.03 million, or 42.5% of adults.
These are advertising audiences, not people counted one by one, but the order of magnitude is clear: four in ten Belgian adults are on TikTok. Not everyone, far from it. But enough for a good share of your customers to be there.
For actual usage, the most detailed study covers Flanders: the imec.digimeter 2025, based on 3,001 Flemish people aged 18 and over. It shows that 38% of them use Instagram every day. TikTok has 17% active users overall, but 65% among 18 to 24-year-olds, and those who use it spend an average of 59 minutes a day on it. Facebook, meanwhile, now has more active users among 55 to 64-year-olds (68%) than among 18 to 24-year-olds (62%). It's a Flemish study: treat it as a pointer for Brussels and Wallonia, not as a measurement.
What each network does well
Facebook remains the network of your most loyal local customers, and often the oldest. Its town and neighbourhood groups are the right place to announce an unexpected closure, the street fair or your stall at the Sunday market. Little discovery, plenty of word of mouth.
Instagram is the shop window people check. A customer who found you on Google Maps often looks at your profile before coming in: your hours, your products, the atmosphere. It suits visual trades well (bakery, florist, beauty salon, restaurant), and its direct messages are used to order or book. Instagram also recommends reels, its short videos, to people who don't follow you, and a fresh video can travel fast there: according to Meta (April 2026, global figure), more than 30% of reels recommended on Instagram and Facebook were posted the same day.
TikTok is for being discovered. The app doesn't only show your videos to your followers: it decides for itself who to show them to, including people who have never heard of you. Its format is the vertical video lasting a few seconds, and what works there for a shop is your craft in action: the fresh batch from the oven, the haircut, the sauce poured over the cone of chips.
Why we recommend TikTok first
It's not about fashion, it's about room. On Instagram, your croissant video sits between those of bakery chains, recipe accounts and the bakeries in your town that are already there. On TikTok, try this: search for your trade followed by your town. You'll probably find videos posted by customers, but hardly any neighbourhood shop posting every week. That's where there's room for you.
Two more reasons count:
- You can start from zero. A brand-new account with no followers can see its very first video shown to strangers.
- Nothing is wasted elsewhere. The vertical video you film for TikTok can be posted as it is as a reel on Instagram and on Facebook. You're not choosing one network over the others: you're choosing where to put the effort.
Let's be honest: it's not a guarantee. A video can go unnoticed, and so can the next one. It's a reasonable bet: where almost nobody in your trade posts, a regular video has a better chance of being noticed than in the middle of a feed that's already full. To get started step by step, read our TikTok guide for local shops.
Instagram and Facebook, without burning out
Keeping Instagram and Facebook up to date doesn't take extra content. It takes three habits.
- One video, three posts. Edit your video once, keep the file on your phone, and post that same file on TikTok, then as a reel on Instagram. From Instagram, you can share it to your Facebook page at the same time. Avoid reposting the version downloaded from TikTok, with its logo burned in.
- A profile that answers in three seconds. On Instagram: your opening hours in the bio, a link to your Google profile, story highlights called “Hours” and “Getting here”. On Facebook: accurate hours and a recent cover photo. An account frozen since last year looks like a shop with its shutter down.
- Messages answered the same day. Behind a direct message there's often an order or a booking.
Your customers decide, not your tastes
TikTok first is our default advice. Your customers may adjust it. If you run a village butcher's whose regulars are mostly retired, Facebook and its local groups remain essential for them, and TikTok will mainly help you attract the next generation.
To decide, try the mirror test: ask your next five customers where they spend the most time, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. Their answers are worth more than any national statistic.
Example
The owner of a chip shop in Liège puts the question to his first five customers on Friday evening: four say TikTok, one Instagram. Every Wednesday he films the basket dropping into the fryer and the sauce of the month, posts it on TikTok, then puts the same file up as a reel on Instagram. His Facebook page is now only used for opening hours and to announce the closure on 11 November.
Where to start this week
To do this week
- Search TikTok for your trade and your town, and see how many neighbourhood shops really post there.
- Open a TikTok business account under the name on your shopfront, with the same profile picture as on Instagram.
- Film a video of your signature move, post it on TikTok, then the same file as a reel on Instagram.
The trap
Running three accounts with three different sets of content: it never lasts long. And on TikTok, don't put the hit song of the moment on your video from a personal account. A business account draws on TikTok's Commercial Music Library, whose tracks are cleared in advance for commercial use.
As for the time you post, it matters far less than people say: we explain why in our article on when to post.
