If you’re running a small business, social media has probably been your most trustworthy online source of advertising for quite some time now. We may be biased, but with millions of people across the world using social media every single day, it’s no wonder that it’s become an amazing way to spread the word about your products and inspire new customers to try out what you have to offer.
As you should be!s
And while you are likely making use of multiple social media platforms for your company, it begs the question: Which is the best for you in 2022? To help make things easier for you, we’d like to discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook and Instagram as far as being effective advertising outlets go.
You might even be saying “No one uses Facebook anymore. Facebook is now used only by parents and grandparents. And since Instagram is more preferred by millennials, I should choose Instagram for our business.” And vice versa.
Before you jump to conclusions, let’s first consider the advantages and disadvantages of both Facebook and Instagram. In this article, we will be exploring the strengths and weaknesses of both the platforms from a business POV and how you can determine the relevance of each platform for your business. Chances are you would want to leverage both platforms for your business marketing strategy. However, you are free to choose whichever one works for you.
FACEBOOK
Facebook is the third visited website in the world, beaten by Google and YouTube who rank first and second respectively.
Out of 4.48 billion active social media users globally, 2.85 billion of them are active Facebook users. This doesn’t mean that the social media platform has the highest engagement rates though. One thing, which Facebook has done exceptionally well, is that it has attracted users across all ages. The younger crowd represents a whopping 82% of participation which is extremely high considering the growth in users and overall time spent on the site. Because of this, there is a great potential for increased ad visibility because these advertisements will be viewed by a lot more people than would usually see them if they were only seen on other websites.
It seems all roads lead to Facebook when it comes to advertising – which can be good or bad depending on your audience. On the bright side, this means you have more creative freedom with how you sell your brand, products, and ideas. If you’re considering paid ads to promote your blog, other relevant products, or landing pages – Facebook will give you more flexibility in this area so consider it if those are part of your plans. Also with the ability to add direct links within posts, Facebook allows for easier impulse buys.
Marketers and business owners who use it to achieve brand awareness and increase revenue swear by its effectiveness in boosting and achieving their business and financial goals. Despite its huge user base, Facebook is a platform many strive to be present on.
You may be well aware of the controversies that Facebook has been through over the past few years. The social media giant faced a misinformation scandal a few years ago, followed by scrutiny from the media and the public. How did all of this impact the future of Facebook marketing? Despite hitting numerous roadblocks, Facebook continues to be one of the best social media platforms for promoting advertising and marketing businesses online.
The Perks of Facebook Marketing
Some of the benefits of joining the Facebook Marketing train in 2022 include:
1. Increased Brand Awareness
Looking to establish and grow your social media presence? Say no more! Increased brand awareness is one of the gazillion benefits that come along with choosing Facebook for marketing your business. Facebook can help you establish brand credibility and grow a loyal community. With almost 3 billion users on this platform, there are endless opportunities to reach a wider audience, the result of which often is increased brand awareness, which means more (potential) customers, resulting in a significantly higher ROI!
2. Effective Targeting
Another unique Facebook feature is that it enables businesses to target their preferred demographics. This feature is particularly useful when the business is looking to boost its Facebook posts. If you’re looking to grow your number of followers and reach a wider audience, Facebook allows you to set specific parameters and target audience by their location, age, gender, social activity, and various other characteristics including things they are searching for or are interested in!
3. Drives Website Traffic
Experienced social media marketers will always leverage Facebook to drive relevant traffic to their websites. This is another advantage of choosing Facebook for your business. Including website links in the captions of the posts is convenient and the odds of it being clicked are high because of Facebook’s full-width thumbnails. As a result, you can easily link the website posts to blogs, articles, landing pages, and other pages from the website.s
4. Market Research and Facebook Insights
Interested in comparing your performance with that of your competitors? Look no further! Facebook allows businesses to conduct market research.
You can easily see what your competitors are up to regarding their social media strategy in a bid to maintain the competitive edge. Facebook Page Insights comes in handy while conducting market research as it is an extremely effective tool that enables a business to gather enough information regarding the page viewers. This gives you a better and a deeper understanding of the people in the demographics that you are trying to reach.
The Drawbacks of Facebook
1. Time-Consuming
Setting up a Facebook page for your business can be time-consuming. In the initial stages, you can’t expect people to like and follow your business without having adequate knowledge about it. Keep in mind that you reap what you sow. That being said, maintaining your business Facebook page also requires an investment of a lot of time and effort. It’s not as easy as it seems, and the person/ team managing the business page must have prior experience navigating Facebook’s tricky terrain. If that’s not possible, you are going to want to hire someone who does, to maximize your marketing efforts on the platform.
2. The Decline in Organic Reach
When Facebook was launched, the first question most brands asked was, “How do we get more followers/ likes on Facebook?” While devising the marketing strategy, the main focus was around the number of page likes that you had, the higher the page likes the more people you could reach organically, only with your Facebook posts i.e., without needing to boost the posts. However, the Facebook algorithm has drastically changed a lot, especially with “Meta” being the biggest change that happened in the latter part of last year.
Most brands were impacted by a significant decline in organic reach. Brands with a robust content marketing program, earlier, could expect an organic reach for their content of approximately 5%. However, with the latest algorithm change, this organic reach has dropped to 1-2%.
3. Budgeting
If you want to maximize Facebook for your business and take your social media marketing to a whole new level, allocating a budget solely for Facebook advertisements is key. It’s also crucial to understand why social ads should be made a part of your overall marketing strategy.
4. Dealing With Negative Feedback
Just like in our daily lives, we can’t expect to be liked and enjoyed by everyone. There will be instances where you’ll be required to deal with negative people, feedback, and even hate comments on Facebook. People may have alternate opinions, disagree, and even criticize you for not having similar opinions. In such situations, being calm and maintaining a degree of professionalism is of utmost importance.
INSTAGRAM
It amazes us to see how much Instagram has evolved over the years. Businesses nowadays are exploring the benefits of Instagram to expand their social media marketing efforts. Instagram’s Business Account was launched in 2016, providing business owners with adequate tools to understand their audience.
According to Instagram, there are over 25 million business profiles worldwide, with over 2 million advertisers who are now using Instagram to share their stories, maintain consistency and drive their business results.
The Perks of Instagram
Instagram is currently the perfect platform for reaching a more youthful audience. Users that are generally below the age of 30 hold a very strong demographic for marketers here, especially in the fashion, photography, and beauty sectors. Below are some of the advantages of using Instagram marketing in 2022.
1. Visuals, Visuals, Visuals!
Instagram has always been a visual platform, and that is one of the strengths that separate it from all other social media platforms. It is solely composed of photos and videos, IGTV, and reels (short videos) providing opportunities to ignite your marketing campaigns. Video content specifically has become popular on Instagram – so popular that studies show an 80% increase in the overall time spent streaming video content on Instagram. Ultimately, this social media platform provides a visually satisfying experience to its users.
2. Increased Brand Awareness
Like Facebook, Instagram assists businesses to increase their brand awareness and credibility. The concept of hashtags is extremely popular and is one of the crucial driving forces for businesses and brands looking to be discovered by a wider audience. There’s no doubt that Instagram in recent years has undergone numerous updates and launched new features, one after the other. Popular features like Instagram Stories, IGTV, and reels give rise to more opportunities for businesses to promote their brand, products, and services.
3. Influencer Collaborations
Instagram has become a hub for social media influencers looking for opportunities to collaborate with different brands and businesses. The number of influencers on Instagram continues to grow, and businesses have started seeing this as an opportunity to increase their brand exposure. Many businesses such as food and beverage, fashion, beauty and lifestyle, health and fitness brands have already started maximizing this trend.
The Drawbacks of Instagram
1. Instagram Algorithm
Instagram’s changing algorithm has caused mixed feelings over the past few years. “Why are my posts visible to some users?” Remember the time when the posts on your Instagram feed appeared in reverse-chronological order? This is one of the few challenges that businesses will have to face if they decide to go ahead and use this social media platform. Every time the algorithm changes, your business will also have to reevaluate and alter its existing Instagram marketing strategy.
2. Targeting A Specific Audience May Be Difficult
Dominated by a younger age demographic, Instagram is a social platform that is by and large used by millennials or Generation Z. Although there are older users too, on Instagram, it may be worth considering only if the targeted audience of your business is much older, and is present on Instagram; because what are the odds of finding the older generation on Instagram?
At the end of the day, both platforms have their share of benefits and drawbacks. Ultimately, it all boils down to your business objectives and goals, and which of the two platforms align best with your marketing strategy.
Being the best digital/ social media marketing agencies in New York and San Diego, Brandemix, has one piece of advice to close on – Irrespective of the platform a company/ brand opts for, always choose quality over quantity while deciding on the social media strategy.
Enormous amounts of effort go into managing a successful social media channel; hence, it is crucial for brands to not spread themselves too thin. We have some clients who choose to manage a channel on Facebook, however, advertise for the same on Instagram. This technique allows them to “kill two birds with one stone”. Although not as morbid as this sound, the brands using this technique can reach their target audience on both platforms.
To get the best traction with Instagram and Facebook, contact us to help you research and fine-tune the best social media strategies specially tailored for your business.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
