Facebook and Instagram both are big platforms when it comes to marketing. Both platforms have millions of users that log on to it every day to connect with their friends and share their lives details.
While Facebook has more users than Instagram, Instagram is a better option when it comes to promoting products to a younger audience because most of its users are teenagers and young adults.
The Fast-paced world
This is a digital era where everything is evolving at a rapid pace. Everything is becoming faster, online, and flexible. It is very easy to reach hundreds and thousands of people in a matter of a few hours. To stay abreast of this fast world, you need a fast-paced internet too like AT&T which offers 1-gigabit connection through fiber optics. AT&T internet packages are very affordable and through smart Wi-Fi provides coverage for your whole floor or house.
Coming back to marketing techniques, they have changed and evolved considerably over time — this is the era of e-commerce and the digital world. Today, even in this Pandemic, online businesses are thriving. Amazon, eBay, and other B2C platforms have job openings because they are getting short of people to handle orders.
Most brick and mortar retail stores that are non-functional because of the lockdown have shifted online and are marketing rigorously to increase their digital reach. These days the world is falling into recession however, online business is still thriving and online marketing is playing a huge role due to increased demand and competition. In such scenarios choosing the best marketing approach becomes very critical.
Let’s have a look at individual analysis of two of the biggest social media platforms:
The good part about Insta is that it has highly engaged users. There are 1 billion active users out of which 500 million users use the platform daily to upload videos and stories, like posts, etc.
Given that users are so active on this platform, it is a wise decision to leverage it. For this you can create an ad from any of the 4 types of ad:
- Carousel advertisement
- Video advertisement
- Photo advertisement
- Stories advertisement
Carousel advertisement: It allows people to swipe up to almost seven to ten photos or videos, each with a button or shortcut that allows them to go to the website or connects them to the brand’s website.
Video advertisement is basically the same as a photo advertisement. The difference is that instead of the photo, a video of the product is displayed and it can be up to 60 sec long.
Photo advertisement: is basically when you are on your feed or scrolling down on Instagram that you notice a random brand advertisement sometimes comes up. These ads can be of clothes, shoes, makeup stationery, or anything for that matter. This is a way of making you familiarized with the product— it is sort of a conditioning technique.
Stories advertisement: You may have noticed that once you have watched a story, an ad pops up and it is full-screened. It can be of anything like someone promoting their personal brand or what business they do. In story advertisement, you can either add a video or a post
These steps allow more traffic to the brand, many viewers can find an eye-catching product and maybe buy it. This is one of many ways why Insta is best to boost your business. People also use hashtags which is also beneficial because it can help your product to appear in popular searches and allow people to see your product more often.
The right hashtag is very important; you have to make sure not to spam and keep it relevant to the product or service you provide. However, keep some of the generic so that your post appears in more searches.
You can approach different influencers, celebrities, or YouTubers through Instagram to endorse your product. You can volunteer to be their sponsor this way their audience will get to know about your product/ service or personal brand. A lot of people do give away or unboxing videos, you can send those influencers PR packages and ask them to do an unboxing and review on their page.
This will also increase the likelihood of some of their followers becoming your followers, which is helpful in generating brand awareness and eventually sales. On Instagram, the key is to do good brand photography. When people search for your brand, appealing aesthetics increase their chances of purchase.
Facebook is a good platform with a lot of different things to promote your business but the problem is that it is normally used by people aged 25 and above and is not as productive in generating sales as it was back in the day. Nonetheless, a lot of people still use the platform. Daily 1.66 billion people log into Facebook.
Same as Instagram it has many types of advertisement styles you can use to promote your product. It has a total of 11 different styles but 6 of these are mostly used:
- Video advertisement
- Canvas advertisement
- Slideshow advertisement
- Image advertisement
- Carousel advertisement
- Collection advertisement
Video advertisement is the same as Instagram. As Instagram is under Facebook so it basically does the same thing.
Canvas advertisement is actually a feature that allows you to add all images and videos of the product you want to launch in one ad video. You can add animations, pictures that people can swipe left and right on, gifs, and some really cool things as well – it’s like making a brochure come to live.
Slideshow advertisement It is basically a normal ad feature that allows ads with motion sound etc.
Image advertisement is the same thing as the one on Instagram’s “photo advertisement”
Carousel advertisement allows you to add seven to ten videos or images each with its own link in a single advertisement.
Collection advertisement It is basically a cover photo (it can be a video too) followed by a few more product Images. It can be a video featuring your product lines, your recent launch, or even highlights.
The thing with Facebook is that it is now considered as a platform for the older generation. Facebook attracts more adults than younger audiences like adults or “boomers”; millennials usually prefer Instagram now.
Plus, there are a lot of fake profiles on the platform too, around 83 million as per CNN so there is always a trust factor that seems to be higher on Instagram than Facebook these days.
Verdict!
If we look at both of them, both are good at marketing and boosting up a brand, but Instagram has a younger audience that spends a larger chunk of their time on the internet, hence Instagram has a higher reach. However, for example, your target audience is people aged 40 and above, then Facebook might prove to be a better option. You need to understand your target audience first and then decide accordingly.
