Instagram vs. Facebook: Which One Works Better For Businesses?

Instagram and Facebook are both great social media marketing tools that help entrepreneurs looking to spread the word about their products and services. Both platforms offer the user different features and abilities that will reach different audiences and will help you convey your message in different ways. But which audience uses which platform? Should I spend on ads? How is this different than regular paid advertising on platforms such as Google? The pros and cons to each site are worth considering when determining which social media platform you use to reach certain audiences. Below is a breakdown of the pros and cons for Instagram and Facebook, which can help you determine which you should focus on more heavily based on your products or services and the buyer persona you are trying to reach:

Pros for Instagram:

• You will reach a younger population who is more “up to date” on technology and social media trends (most users under 30).
• 800 million people currently have Instagram accounts (500 million daily active users).
• Allows you to share videos on your profile of your content’s brand and overlay your videos with text and words to share information about your products with the user.
• Can post multiple pictures or videos to one “post” (audiences can see multiple pictures by scanning more easily on mobile devices to view all pictures).
• Uses hashtags (#) to help connect terms users search for to your product and your posts.
• Engagement rate is much higher when interacting with posts than on Facebook.
• Can show “Live” events.

Cons for Instagram:

• You will generally miss out on reaching older audiences who are more familiar with Facebook than the newer platform Instagram.
• Smaller user-base than Facebook so you reach less overall people than you would on Facebook.
• Users may have lower incomes as they are younger and still building their careers and income levels up to what the older generations are earning (less disposable income means less sales).

On the other hand Facebook has its own pros and cons to offer, including:

Pros for Facebook:

• Will reach an overall older, more mature demographic.
• 2.23 billion monthly active users, that’s a lot of people to reach.
• Potential for more social interactions and engagement, and therefore more exposure to people seeing your product.
• Reaches more consumers that live in more rural settings.
• 65% of all Facebook traffic is from mobile devices (great way to get in touch with people on mobile devices).
• Older audiences will have general higher levels of income (more disposable income to spend).
• Also shows “Live” events.

Cons for Facebook:

• Miss out on reaching younger populations of consumers.
• Users tend to interact less with posts on Facebook than on Instagram (may mean that users aren’t “engaged” with the content as they are on Instagram).
• Many young people will want to move on to “newer” apps and Facebook might get left behind the trends.

Both Instagram and Facebook have their perks and their drawbacks. It will largely depend on what audience you want to reach as to which platform will better suit your business’s needs. It’s also a good idea to keep at least semi-active profiles on both sites so you are able to reach more and more users from all demographics, based on the demographics that each site draws in compared to other forms of social media. I’d love to hear from you about the pros and cons that you see of Facebook and Instagram!