If you want to flourish your business online, social media marketing is a must! Nowadays, everyone is on social media. People like following brands that they adore. They prefer communication via social media platforms. Not only this, social media is a great option to establish a brand’s reputation. You can connect with your audience and win their trust with social media.
But, the question is. Which social media platform is the best when it comes to paid marketing or advertisements? Is it Facebook or Instagram?
In this article, let’s take a closer look.
Source: unsplash.com
#1 A few statistics
Facebook statistics that you must know:
- 1.79 billion users use Facebook every day
- 300 million users use Facebook stories every day
- According to Facebook, businesses can use Facebook ads to reach 2.14 billion people
- Out of the total audience of Facebook, 43% are females while 57% are males
- 58% of marketers are planning to use Facebook ads over the next 12 months
Instagram statistics that you must know:
- 1 billion users use Instagram every month
- 500 million users use Instagram Stories every day
- Instagram advertising has a potential reach of 928.5 million
- Out of the total audience of Instagram, 50.9% are females while 49.1% are males
- Instagram has 2 million advertisers every month
The numbers indicate good news for both Instagram and Facebook. Yet, Facebook leads when it comes to the number of users and advertising. However, when it comes to stories, which are a popular mode of communication these days on both platforms, Instagram stories win the show with 500 million daily users.
#2 Algorithms
Now, if you want to find out which platform is the best for your brand, you need to understand how they work. In other words, what happens when you post something on Facebook and Instagram? How these platforms make your posts available to your audience and what factors are considered to keep your posts on top?
Decoding the Facebook algorithm:
Based on our judgement and research, Facebook always prioritises posts from friends and family. Then, it brings up posts that you want to interact with on your feed. So, a user’s actions and feedback play a major role in deciding what they want to see.
Secondly, Facebook always recommends genuine and authentic content. It takes into account who is posting the content. Whether you are an individual account, a brand or a news source. It hates spam and likes to deliver what people want to see.
So? If you want to excel as a brand on Facebook take note of these things:
- Post interactive content
- See what’s in trend on Facebook and create your posts around it
- Ensure people like and share your posts
- Keep your Facebook profile complete
- Interact with your audience as much as you can
Make sure you do not:
- Repeat content
- Ask people to like, share and comment
- Include any spam links
- Over promote your brand
Decoding the Instagram algorithm:
When we tried to understand the Instagram algorithm, we found that it always shows the content with which a user interacts the most. So if you follow 100 people but interact with only a few of your favourites, you may notice that most of your feed is filled with the posts of those few accounts only. Instagram cares about your likes!
Secondly, timeliness is also an important factor. It always shows recent posts on top. For instance, if you checked your feed at 5 pm and then if you check your feed at 9 pm, you will see posts that are published between this time frame first.
Instagram also pays attention to how much one uses this application. If a user opens this application once a day, they will see only the popular content of the day. However, if a person uses the app frequently throughout the day, they will be able to catch more content.
So? If you want to excel as a brand on Instagram take note of these things:
- Focus on building ‘relationship’ with your audience. Interact with them as much as you can
- Keep posting content regularly
- Check when users interact the most with your content and schedule your posts accordingly
- Use a variety of posts such as IGTV, Reels, Photos, Videos, Boomerangs & more!
- Add relevant hashtags to your post so that they can reach people
- Be authentic, Instagram is all about genuine content
Make sure you do not:
- Have an incomplete bio
- Post random or low-quality content
- Forget hashtags in your post
- Post boring or repetitive content
- Post just once in a while
- Buying followers and likes
#3 Managing Ads
You must know that both Instagram and Facebook allow a variety of advertisements to be displayed on their platform. These include:
- Image ads
- Video ads
- Collection ads
- Carousel Ads
- Stories Ads and more!
When it comes to ads management, it is super easy on both these platforms. While using ads on Facebook, one can manage ads on both these platforms through Facebook Ads Manager. You can set your budget and buy ads. You can even choose the demographics to whom you want to display your ads.
Instagram on the other hand offers a great deal as one can buy ads from the app, ads manager or Instagram partners. If you do not want to create separate ads, simply promote any of your posts on Instagram and they will appear as an advertisement of your account. You can set your target options like demographics, interests, types of audiences, and behaviour.
Instagram has a better way to target ads. Facebook, otherwise, allows you to set various objectives of your campaigns. You can test a variety of ad combinations.
Content is the key to decide your success on Facebook and Instagram
So now we have weighed the most important factors that affect Facebook and Instagram marketing. Both these platforms have their importance. Yet, it is the content that can affect your success over these platforms. Here are a few of the many things that you can post on Facebook and Instagram respectively.
Content suitable for Facebook:
- Facebook is text-friendly! You can tell stories, share blog posts, industry tips and more on Facebook.
- Take help with what’s trending. If you want to get more engagement, post something that is trending.
- Create high-quality graphics with your company logo, fonts and colours to set yourself apart from the crowd.
- Everyone loves videos! If you can post short, yet intriguing videos related to your brand to engage the audience.
- Infographics would work too! You might be surprised but yes, Facebook appreciates infographics.
- Share some news! You are bringing a new sale. There’s a giveaway coming up for your audience. You are launching a new product. Your brand received an award. Just spread the word.
Content suitable for Instagram:
- High-quality photographs and videos are always appreciated. Include vibrant colours, eye-catching captions and you are good to go!
- Add product tags! This is a sophisticated way to engage your audience. They can get to know a lot about your products with just one click.
- Reels!! This new feature is smashing trends and can help your brand stand apart from the rest.
- Behind the scene stories. You can give a real-time sneak peek to your audience and show them how your brand works. Show off your workforce through your posts, lives and stories. Win hearts!
- Announce milestones, share news and your experiences as a brand. If you are into community service. If you are helping in the pandemic. Spread the word and showcase your kindness.
- Partner with influencers. Influencer marketing is a big hit on Instagram and can take your brand through miles.
Wrapping up
Facebook and Instagram are unique on their own. You might find some overlapping features, yet the level of engagement varies on both platforms. Dean, who is a marketing expert at Assignment Help says, “one must do some research and analysis to find out which platform would be the best for your target audience. Take a keen look at the type of content these platforms demand and create something accordingly.” Do not just abandon one platform while focusing on the other. Divide your content accordingly and keep reaching out to more and more people.
With Crowdfire, you can find curated content, schedule your posts, engage with your audience, deep-dive into analytics and create custom reports. Try it for free.