Facebook vs Instagram: Comparing Strategies for Small Businesses

If you are running a business, you are possibly leveraging the social media landscape to advertise your brand effectively.

Social media marketing is a powerful, cost-effective tool, customized to fit your brand’s requirements. If your strategy aligns with the customer’s demands, you are likely to strike a chord with them. It allows you to enhance brand recognition, boost traffic, and improve your conversion rate comprehensively. Regardless of your size and position on the ladder, you need a good understanding of which platform is perfect for your marketing campaign. After all, social media marketing can be expensive if one doesn’t know their way around it.

Among all the options in the market, it is found that two social media platforms have made their mark with the audience and promises remarkable ROI – Instagram and Facebook. Although the parent company of both mediums is the same, it is understood that they both have different approaches.

For the past 18 years, Facebook has held its position as an early bird and played a crucial role in shaping the way the world interprets social networks and expanded its reach among people. On the other hand, Instagram is the newbie that was launched in 2010. It has grown consistently to earn the badge as the fastest growing social media platform globally.

There are several options for marketers to integrate their digital strategies across the options. Yet, you can’t apply the same technique for both Facebook and Instagram. Let’s understand the differences between them to help you fine-tune your brand presence.

Comparing Strategies: Facebook vs Instagram

Audience Reach

Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms. With 1.84 billion users, Facebook is becoming increasingly popular. As per a study, Facebook reaches 59.0% of social media users. In terms of reach, it isn’t easy to compete with Facebook’s popularity.

Instagram offers some great functionality like stories, IGTV, reels, hashtags, and explore tab. These features can help you reach audiences with personalized content. You can use up to 30 hashtags to reach different kinds of users.

Engagement Scope

With more than 2.80 billion monthly active users, the engagement scope of Facebook is much higher than Instagram. The large audience base of Facebook makes it easier for small businesses to reach potential customers with ad campaigns.

On the contrary, 500 million people check Instagram stories daily. So, when it comes to engagement, Instagram can give a tough competition to Facebook. Also, these days Instagram is all about influencer marketing. Asking help from an influencer to promote your brand can increase brand awareness and engagement exceptionally well.

Different Types of Ads

Facebook ads allow you to target a wide range of customers based on their demographics. You can target customers with location, gender, profile information, age, and interests. From image ads to lead generation ads, with Facebook, you can create various ads to drive more engagement.

Instagram lets you experiment with four different types of ads. For instance, photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, and stories ads. In general, B2C and entertainment-based companies see the most success with Instagram ads.

Wrapping Up

As you can see, both platforms have similar yet different strategies. Facebook is more of a text and story-based platform, while Instagram is a visual platform. So, it’s not a wise decision to put all your eggs in one basket. And, in the end, which platform you choose depends on your business goal and user preference. So, as a business owner, you have to understand your customers’ needs. Sometimes, using both platforms can give the best results.