Instagram VS Facebook. Which app is more effective and why?
Facebook and Instagram are among the biggest social media platforms across the globe, with over 2.32 billion and 1 billion monthly active users.
While both are the two most popular social media platforms out there, they have their fair share of differences on various fronts. Instagram is all about photos and videos. it’s a photo-sharing application.
Facebook, on the other hand, is multifaceted which lets you do anything; you can create and join groups, shop, share photos and videos, create an event, and more. Instagram is a neat app without much clutter which makes it easy to navigate and work your way around, whereas Facebook, on the other hand, is a multi-purpose application with lots of features which makes it a little hard to process everything that’s going on around Facebook.
Let’s look at some of the key stats.
One of the first differences that jump out is Instagram’s younger user base. According to the data, the larger group of active users are younger in age, while in comparison older age ranges aren’t as active. A majority of Instagram users are under 30, and many are in their teens
Facebook is largely informational. You can find out things about a company through its Facebook Page whether it’s business hours, an address, or upcoming events. Facebook historically has always focused on text because it’s detail-driven. That’s why it takes longer to create a profile on Facebook than it does on Instagram. They serve different purposes.
Instagram is about capturing moments. People don’t open Instagram to find out your company’s business hours or to see if their friends have been to your store. They use Instagram to engage. That’s what makes it so effective for building your brand and gaining popularity.
Which network is best for your brand?
The type of content you publish on Facebook or Instagram is also important. A big mistake that companies make is treating Instagram like Facebook. Content that works on Facebook doesn’t always translate well to Instagram. I recommend testing your content on both Facebook and Instagram to see which platform returns the best performance.
Curated Content
Facebook is a great platform to curate content. You’ve probably noticed quite a bit of content shared on Facebook isn’t original. It’s generally curated blog posts, news, or content that’s just being shared from other accounts.
Instagram, on the other hand, is all about original photos and live videos and stories. Although you may run into a reshared meme or two while you are scrolling through the app.
Company News
Your first stop for publishing company news should be Facebook. Since Facebook is more text-based, you’ll have a better chance of people reading the entire update. For instance, if you have to close down for reconstruction you’d want to make a Facebook post about it. Instagram is where you could post pictures of the reconstruction in progress. See the difference?
Image Contests
Image contests are all about engagement, and we know that Instagram is the king of engagement on social media. Use Instagram as your platform to host the contest and make a hashtag to keep track of it all. You can promote the contest on Facebook to help push traffic to your Instagram account. You might even consider running some Facebook Ads.
Facebook isn’t a replacement for Instagram and Instagram can’t replace Facebook. You have to identify your audience, think about the type of content you want to publish, and then find a happy medium. In the end, the question isn’t which social network is better. The question you have to ask yourself is how can your company use each one to reach your audience and grow your social media presence.
