Well, if it isn’t the question of the century, “Instagram Vs Facebook, which is the best when it comes to brand promotion?”. Well, both of these social media platforms are now owned by the same company, that is Facebook, but still, there is a strong tug of war between these two when it comes to advertising your brand. However, before understanding the pros and cons of each social media platform, you must understand that the dynamics of these two websites are very different. Where on Instagram you have to focus more on how to get followers, on Facebook you have to think about how to get Facebook likes. Because most likely if you’re a business on Facebook, you’re operating as a page rather than an individual account. And if you do that, you need to know how to get followers and how to get Facebook likes, because that is what the algorithm wants you to have, to promote your business.
Social media marketing has been growing at a rapid rate. With more than 32 billion dollars being invested into SMM in the year 2017, and with a forecast of more than 48 billion dollars being invested in 2021, social media marketing is a new form of advertising and highlighting your brand. If you want to capitalize on this opportunity as a brand, then which website would be better for you? Would it be Instagram, or would it be Facebook? Without further ado, let’s dive right into that discussion.
What do Facebook and Instagram offer?
Facebook is pretty much the oldest player in the race of all social media platforms. Being launched in 2004, its initial goal was to get people connected, but now it has moved on from that particular use case to helping create businesses and then getting them in touch with the consumers. Earlier people used to assert their dominance by telling you the number of friends they had on Facebook, but that slowly moved on to how many followers you have, when Instagram was launched. Now as compared to Facebook, Instagram is a younger app in this industry, being launched in 2010, Instagram recently completed a decade in the market. Unlike Facebook, Instagram is a more visual platform. With people engaging with more photos on Instagram, it is the best place for creatives to grow. Since it showed rapid growth in its early days, Mark Zuckerberg bought this company in 2012 and now both Facebook and Instagram run under the same company. That was all about the history of Facebook and Instagram as rivals in the social media industry. Moving on to the business part, let’s look at some stats both have to offer.
When it comes to engagement, Facebook is a bit behind in comparison to Instagram. On a Facebook business page, only 32% of the audience engages with the brand, whereas on Instagram, more than 68% of people engage with brands. More than 70 percent of US-based companies use Instagram for marketing their products and over 80 percent of the users on Instagram follow a business page. Meaning Instagram is a tad bit better in terms of brand engagement. However, this does not mean it gets more eyeballs than Facebook. Facebook gets a total of 8 billion video views every day and hence is a much better platform when it comes to reacting to a video. On the other hand, photos do well on Instagram.
Now that you know what each of these social media platforms offers, let’s take a look at which one is better, based on a few criteria:-
Target audience
Well if you’re running ad campaigns, one thing that you should keep in mind, is the target audience. Where Facebook contains people that are on average from 24-34 years old, Instagram has a much younger audience that comes in at an average age of 18-34 years. However, one interesting thing to notice is that both genders are not equally active on Instagram. Meaning if you’re trying to get GenZ and millennial females to follow you, then Instagram is the best place to advertise. However, if you’re trying to target older females and get Facebook post likes from them, then the former is where you should advertise. However, more of what you should focus on is to get Instagram followers and Facebook likes if you’re trying to run a campaign on both.
Mobile-friendliness
Since the revolution of smartphones came in, everyone has been trying to optimize every piece of software and every piece of the website for mobile phones. Now, why is that important? Well, when you’re trying to launch a campaign on either of the two social media platforms, you need to make sure that the ad sets you make are friendly to all types of users. Instagram, as a social media platform is mainly used on smartphones and hence it lacks a desktop experience, whereas, Facebook was predominantly built for people using desktops, hence the target demographics are very different. If you’re trying to put up an ad on Instagram, then you better do it in a way that looks good on your phone, whereas if you’re trying to market on Facebook, then you have to take care of both the desktop users as well as the mobile users.
Types of ads
Since Facebook has been in the marketing industry for quite a long time, it has a lot more tools available for you to use. On Facebook, you can create more than 11 different types of ads whereas on Instagram you can only create about 4 different types of ads. On top of that, Facebook is coming up with AI-supported technology that creates your adsets even more interesting and hence makes people more susceptible to buy. The winner is clear here, when it comes to ad variety, Facebook is the best.
Cost
Well, since no social media platform is cheap, especially Instagram and Facebook. The CPM on Facebook is about $7.19 and on Instagram, it’s about 7.91 dollars. Both of these websites are equally expensive o advertise on, but the cost of the adset depends on the type of ad, the quality of the ad, demographic, and much more. So when you’re trying to run an ad on either of these platforms then do keep extra cash in your hand.
Conclusion
Well, both of these websites are great at what they do. They are both helpful to businesses that are trying to flourish on the internet, hence it feels equally great to advertise on both. Now coming to the question of which one is better? Well, the answer is not as simple as you’d like it to be. Where on one hand, Facebook is for more experienced advertisers and bigger businesses, Instagram is more suited to beginners or small companies. This is the major difference between both of these websites. If you’re trying to get more variety then Facebook is the place to go and if you’re trying to get a bit more engagement, then Instagram is the best place for your business. However, deciding on which one to use depends on a lot of factors, like the target audience as well. So if you’re trying to get more young people connected to your campaign, then Instagram is more suited for you. However, it all boils down to get followers on Instagram and how to get Facebook post likes. Once you’ve mastered that with the help of your content, then advertising can be of really good help. Till then keep advertising!
