Facebook vs. Instagram: which one is better for your business growth?

Any company or organization interested in launching a successful business campaign will consider a host of social media websites and decide which one works best. Among the social media sites, the most popular ones are Facebook and Instagram. While one focusses on posts for information sharing, the other emphasizes on images, as an image is worth a 1000 words!

So, which platform is the best bet for promoting your business? Let us compare Facebook and Instagram and find out!

How is Instagram advantageous?

An analysis of Instagram includes identifying its role in being business-friendly. So, what works in its favor?

1. Reach: Instagram has 1 billion active users as opposed to Facebook’s 2.41 billion plus users (as of 2019). However, Instagram boasts of nearly 500 million daily active users. These are people who log in every day to check out new posts and comment on the interesting ones. The other fact to keep in mind is that nearly 80 percent of Instagram users are not from the USA. The number of users and the visibility afforded across the globe is a big bonus. Did you know that there are more than 2 million advertisers in Instagram?

2. Engagement: A factor that makes Instagram unique is its number of engaged users. These are not idle users who log in once in a while, but remain active regularly. They share about 95 million photos and videos in a day and the overall “likes” exceed 4.2 billion in a day. Imagine the sheer scale of engagement involved. In fact, Instagram offers the highest audience engagement among all social media sites. This was concluded after a 2015 study conducted by Forrester on social media user engagement across 50 global brands. Even though photos and videos are the main elements shared in Instagram, it still encourages textual engagement to a good degree. For an increasingly entertainment-dependent young audience, Instagram offers the right mix of image, videos, and text that can have immediate and lasting impact.

3. Traffic: A social media site’s success is decided by the traffic it attracts. Instagram enjoys good engagement as well as high traffic, and on an average, a visitor spends about 192 seconds here, which is much higher than most other sites. According to research, Instagram users stay 45 percent longer than visitors to Facebook and 40 percent longer than Twitter.

4. Demographics: Social media sites have varying demographic participation, with the youths in the age range of 18 to 29, on an average, being more active than the middle aged and elderly people. Also, some sites like Instagram have more female users. If your organization markets services or products catering to women and young people specifically, Instagram might be just the perfect tool for your business.

Let us move on to the uber-popular Facebook to assess its features and why it is good for your business.

1. Reach: Facebook is the clear winner in the reach, with nearly 2.4 billion users and offers excellent visibility. Facebook is the go-to place for social media marketing.

2. Engagement: Despite having a massive user base, Facebook still doesn’t have the impressive engagement that Instagram enjoys. However, it holds the second spot in engagement, far above any other social media site. Businesses find Facebook an attractive base for showcasing their updates, news, support, and contests in an easy way and enjoy excellent user interactions and feedback.

3. Demographics: Nearly 72 percent of online adults are Facebook users and just like Instagram, Facebook is more popular among women than men. Facebook enjoys popularity among a wide range of ages, with the 18 to 29 age group being the most avid users.

4. Advertisement performance: Advertisements in Facebook are really popular and have been performing very well. Facebook made $6.8 billion in advertisement revenue way back in 2016, which was a 59 percent growth from 2015. In 2019, its net ad revenue touches $16.6 billion. Clearly, advertising your services or products on Facebook has a clear advantage to boost sales and visibility.

Instagram vs Facebook: Which Is Better?

1. Instagram offers better engagement:

When it comes to engaging the audience and motivating them to stick around for longer, Instagram emerges as the winner.

This was evident while comparing the average number of likes for posts in Facebook and Instagram for the same brands.

2. Facebook offers better visibility:

Facebook is the default giant in the social media pool and has the advantage over Instagram when it comes to audience reach.

With a massive number of users, it offers a much higher chance of being noticed and followed. With a dedicated team for posting captivating stories and engaging content, Facebook can help boost your sales.

3.Instagram has a better appeal for young audience:

It is the most coveted sharing platform among users. The idea of sharing photos and videos is an attractive option for the youthful generation. Certain companies design advertisements specifically to target the young population.

A good case in point is the campaign conducted by Harley Davidson. They developed a bunch of carousel ads related to the biking culture and in merely three weeks, they reached over a million users and received above 8000 clicks.

4. Facebook is perfect for distributing information:

Those who use Instagram will know how it’s not easy to link an Instagram post instantly to blogs and product pages. While users can share Instagram links to blogs through captions and sponsored posts, clicking will only lead to the landing page. Facebook is much superior to Instagram in that aspect. It lets you share any number of links and distribute the information across blogs and websites.

At the end of the day, whether you use Facebook or Instagram for your business needs largely depends on the type of product or service you wish to market, the target group, and a few other factors. The benefits vary and what works well for one business might not necessarily be useful to another. The best way to use social media marketing to your best advantage is to invest time and efforts in doing a bit of research, especially the responses to companies similar to yours. Once you identify which works best, it is a good idea to set up a small team to exclusively focus on social media marketing. It’ll make a marked difference in gaining popularity and building a customer base online.