A total combined active user base of 3.30 Billion+ users, Facebook & Instagram are definitely the stallions in the Social Media Market place. Even though both have their own advantages but when it comes to the technicalities both are different in their own form. Facebook is a complete 360 degree package for any brand/company where as Instagram is all about visual representation.
Instagram was acquired by Facebook in the year 2012 for a whopping $1 billion. Practically both are owned by the same company and have the same ad insights interface but for any business or brand using social media they are a separate entity with different marketing goals for promotion.
Here in this blog Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing we will be focusing on various points of importance for brands/companies/content generators while selecting which platform they should prioritize their resources & time.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Algorithm
Facebook Algorithm: Facebook’s algorithm edge rank has been tweaked a number of times since its inception. In initial days of Facebook, you must have realized your feed contained a lot about your friends status updates, pictures, videos etc. But with increase in the number of active users, a lot of content was being uploaded every second and the algorithm changed. The focus now is more about relevant, spam free content and scaling up the ad revenue for Facebook. In a much needed algorithm update, click baiting posts are now demoted in news feed. The current algorithm is highly in support of marketers, i.e more priority is given to sponsored content.
Read More – 9 Brands Ruling The Facebook Video Marketing World In 2018
For Example- You might not be able to see a status update of your friend in your timeline but might see a popular content from some other Facebook page, whose genre can be related to your past engagements.
Note: According to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook, edge rank (Algorithm of Facebook) may get back to its older form in coming times, where users would be able to see updates from their friends in their timeline on priority.
Instagram Algorithm: As the name suggests, it’s all about clicking pictures and uploading it instantly. Initially the algorithm was showing posts based on chronological order but after acquisition from Facebook, the algorithm became almost similar to that of Facebook. The only difference is the organic reach in Instagram is on the higher side comparatively & hashtags do have an importance here.
Marketers apart from the sponsored posts and stories, can surely leverage the high organic reach. Here engagement of your past posts is also compared while showing your recent post in the feed & time & day of upload also matters. After getting minimum of 500 followers, an Instagram account starts performing better organically.
Winner: Clearly Instagram is the winner considering the fact that marketers can achieve a good organic reach by using the relevant #tags.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Organic Reach
Facebook Organic Reach: Much to the dismay of marketers and emerging businesses, organic reach of Facebook is almost negligible or dead compared to initial days of the social media giant. Expert Digital Marketers claim the organic reach of Facebook is somewhere around 2-3% of your total fans, excluding reach through engagements on your posts. The main purpose of reducing the organic reach is to encourage companies use more of sponsored post feature by Facebook for marketing their product/service. Also unlike Instagram & Twitter, #tags (hashtags) have no importance in organic reach for your posts in Facebook.
Facebook supports 7 types of posts mentioned in decreasing order of organic reach:-
Facebook LIVE >> Video >> Slideshow >> Stories >> Image (Normal & 360 Degree) >> Mobile Canvas (Mobile Only) >> Carousal Posts >> Status Update >> Links
Creative videos always have a better organic reach in Facebook.
Hack for Marketers: The best way to increase your organic reach is either invite people to like your page and thereby making a formal request to share your Facebook page in their timeline or share your posts mostly Facebook videos in groups with good number of members (preferably more than 10K).
Read More – Top 35 Digital Video Marketing Campaigns from India with a Social Message
Instagram Organic Reach: Compared to Facebook, Instagram has a higher organic reach and is mostly #tag & engagement driven. Based on experiences shared by most Instagramers in different public forums it has been observed that organic reach shoots up once an Instagram account reaches 500-1K+ followers.
Instagram supports 4 types of posts mentioned in decreasing order of organic reach:-
Instagram LIVE >> Stories by Using Filters or Image >> Story Video >> Image Posts >> Video Posts
Hack for Marketers: Use #Tags in stories (Max 2) with a higher search volume and do add creative filters. This would increase the account visitors and increase the chances of getting followers. Follow the same for posts but here you can use a mix of #tags max upto 21 to promote your account & post widely. While using #tags do a research on the trending location of the #tag based on your targeted area.
Winner: Instagram when it comes to organic reach & Facebook when it comes reach as number of active users in Facebook is 3X that of Instagram. So it’s a tie.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Engagement Rate
Facebook Engagement: People say organic engagement in Facebook is also dead with organic reach. Its true engagement has reduced but the sheer number of active users in Facebook just gives enormous opportunities for brands to create engagement manually. The game might change completely in future as Facebook is set to make changes to its algorithm giving more importance to updates made by profiles rather than pages. In this case the engagement rate would be a crucial metrics for brands to get visibility in Facebook.
Hack for Marketers:
# Increase your page followers though Sponsored Likes Campaign.
# Share in different groups.
# Ask employees to share.
# Collaborate with others for cross posting.
#Focus on Videos
# Share informative & creative ads for users to share.
Instagram Engagement: Engagement rate of Instagram is the highest if all the leading social media platforms are considered. According to Locowise, engagement rate of Instagram is on a rapid decline rate even though it manages to stay at the top. Forrester conducted a study on how audience engage with top 50 brands of the world. They concluded that it is most likely that an user from the target group will engage with the Instagram account of the brand rather than any other social media platform.
Read More – How Top Brands Are Using Instagram Video in their Marketing Strategy
Hack for Marketers: Make the best and effective use of stories by adding the relevant & trending #tags to increase the visibility of your Instagram account. This increases the chances of getting more followers and thus more engagement.
Winner: The picture says it all.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Demographics
Facebook Demographics: Demographics of active users in Facebook according to a study conducted by Pew Research:-
Percentage of Internet Users active in Facebook: 79%
Percentage of Female Internet users active in Facebook: 77%
Percentage of Male Internet users active in Facebook: 71%
Most Active Age Group: 18-64
Instagram Demographics: Demographics of active users in Instagram according to a study conducted by Pew Research:-
Percentage of Internet Users active in Instagram: 36%
Percentage of Female Internet users active in Instagram: 42%
Percentage of Male Internet users active in Instagram: 33%
Most Active Age Group: 18-49
Winner: Clearly Facebook with a larger & varied audience base leaves Instagram behind with a much younger audience base.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Avg CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Impressions)
Cost of Facebook Ads: CPC and CPM in Facebook Ads are cheaper when compared to Google Adwords but costlier if compared with Instagram Ads. Lead Generation Ad type in Facebook is the most costliest amongst all available ad forms in Facebook. According to a 2015 study, Facebook Ads in desktop have 8x higher CTR & Facebook Ads in Mobile have 9x higher CTR compared to other form of Online Ads. Facebook Ads or Facebook sponsored posts have a better engagement rate compared to engagement rate through paid ads in other social platforms.
Cost of Instagram Ads: CPC & CPM in Instagram Ads is the cheapest form of online paid ads at the moment. Although the options available are not as diverse as that of Facebook & Google AdWords but the cost effectiveness helps in branding for any brand/company.
Although both Ad forms are managed by Facebook Ads Manager, the rate of money spent per ad in Instagram is faster comparatively to Facebook, i.e budget for an Instagram marketing campaign is consumed faster compared to the same Facebook Marketing campaign with the same targeting & ad copy.
Winner: Equal scores for both as both the platforms have their own advantage one is diverse in nature & the other is cost effective.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Online Marketing Effectiveness
Effectiveness of a Facebook Marketing Campaign: According to Digital Marketing Experts worldwide, Facebook Marketing campaigns have the 3rd most marketing effectiveness after SEO & Google AdWords when organic & paid Digital Marketing are considered as a whole & 2nd when only paid Digital Marketing platforms are considered. With an active user base of 2.7 billion+ users combined with diverse ad options & real time tracking through Facebook pixel, Facebook Ads truly is a blessing for any marketer looking to target an audience out of the 2.7 billion active users. Moreover the different ad objectives/types available gives a Digital Marketer a freedom to experiment and try out new forms of creative marketing.
When it comes to organic Social Media Marketing, although the reach is less compared to Instagram but the variety of features like Facebook group, Events, Facebook Multi Camera Live broadcasting wins it over the picture social media app.
Sales Conversion rate is 2nd best compared to all forms of paid Digital Marketing platforms/channels available.
Effectiveness is measured based on the quality of leads & Marketing funnel Top 100 brands in the world were able to create from Facebook & Instagram (Based on a research).
Expert Alert: Explore Facebook Re-Targeting, Custom Audience & Lookalike Audience Feature in Facebook Ads Manager.
Effectiveness of an Instagram Marketing Campaign: Instagram helps in branding and increasing the brand visibility in Digital Medium. Although one can also generate leads from Instagram, but the conversion rate & quality of leads is very low. Moreover Instagram loses to Facebook in terms of the numbers (2.27 Billion+ Vs 1 Billion+ Active Users).
When it comes to organic Instagram Marketing, the reach is higher which helps brands/companies do cross platform promotion of other social accounts and divert budget meant for boosting social followers/social engagements in other social media platforms instead of Instagram.
Expert Alert: Make the best use of Instagram stories both paid & organic. Try to reach 1K+ subscribers A.S.A.P. Instagram accounts with 1K+ subscribers can add link in their stories, which have a good organic reach, thereby helping get more website visitors from Instagram. Instagram Videos are limited to 1:00 so try to promote full videos in IGTV and send users to your IGTV channel through your stories.
Winner: Facebook would leave Instagram behind by a whisker considering conversion rate in both platforms.
Effectiveness is measured based on the quality of leads & Marketing funnel Top 100 brands in the world were able to create from Facebook & Instagram (Based on a research by a leading agency).
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Use of #Tags (Hash Tags)
Use of #Tags in Facebook: Unlike Twitter & Instagram where #tag helps in discoverability and a better organic reach, #tags in Facebook is just limited to highlighting the text with a # before it. It doesn’t have any other support for your posts other than this. Facebook did have a organic reach and trending #tags column in the news feed in the past.
Use of #Tags in Instagram: #Tags play a very vital role in the performance of an Instagram account/post organically. Instagram also has a feature of following a particular #tag and check out posts posted using the same #tag. This feature helps people filter posts only relevant or of their interest in their feed.
For Example: To take maximum leverage of this feature, leading mobile company Apple started this #tag of #ShotonIphone to promote the camera quality of the newly launched Iphones through word of mouth. This strategy was soon followed by other mobile companies.
Winner: We have a clear Winner- Instagram.
Facebook Marketing Vs Instagram Marketing: Integration e-commerce Business
Integration of e-commerce Business in Facebook Marketing: After the e-commerce boom worldwide, Facebook was one of the first social media platforms to integrate in-Facebook e-commerce promotions and offers. But there were a lot of challenges and the interface was not at all appreciated by e-commerce companies. Also the payment feature was limited to few countries. Although there have been many updates to the e-commerce section of Facebook but the look & feel looked forced and companies did not get that much success.
Integration of e-commerce Business in Instagram Marketing: Unlike Facebook, Instagram was swift in its approach towards integration of e-commerce into its platform. More importance was given to the look & feel as a user is more likely to convert in e-commerce segment if the look and feel sends the positive vibe. Moreover with its in app payment feature, Instagram has mastered the art of selling for e-commerce companies in social media.
Winner: Undoubtedly Instagram..!
Scoreboard
Instagram with 6 points clearly beats Facebook with 4 points. Engagement rate, organic reach, #tags & e-commerce are the key points that helped Instagram become a favorite for brands. Although certain points do come in support of Instagram as the most preferred platform but Facebook as a whole is a bigger entity and would do wonders if you got deep pockets, on the hands Instagram is best while getting started with an Online Business.
Thanks for reading the blog. If you are a brand/agency and want deeper insights related to your video marketing campaigns then reach us at 8527863094 or send in your queries at marketing@vidooly.com
