Instagram and Facebook: Do I need to market my business on both social media channels?
Updated: Sep 27, 2020
Ah the eternal question: which social media channel - Facebook or Instagram - should you invest your time, effort and hard-earned budget in?
Who owns who? And does that matter to anyone?
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of Instagram vs Facebook; keep in mind that Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and has been developing the platforms independently of each other ever since.
So why does that matter? The two channels are connected, so you can automatically share your posts from Instagram to Facebook (once you have connected your accounts). You can also post directly from Facebook to Instagram using Business Suite. However: I DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT recommend getting involved in Facebook’s Business Suite. In theory, Facebook’s Business Suite sounds wonderful, but has too many pitfalls to be discussed in this blog.
In order to answer the Facebook-Instagram conundrum we need to determine two important points: (1) your marketing goals and (2) your target markets.
Your marketing goals
Any discussion of marketing must begin with establishing your marketing goals; which are always centered around three main issues:
Exposure
Brand recognition
Education
One issue doesn’t cancel out or take precedence over any other issue. They are all equally important.
So what are your goals?
• More clients?
• Better client type?
• Change client type?
• Brand exposure?
• Teach people value of your service/product?
Your target market(s)
Next: what are your target markets? It is the answer to this question that will enable us to determine which social media channels deserve the lion’s share of your investment in time and money. So, who are they?
Millennials (born between 1981 – 1996) This is the ‘selfie generation’. They love Instagram! The issues on their minds are themselves, social responsibility and from a business-point-of-view: response time (the company who provides the quickest online response can win their business).
Gen Z (born between 1997 – 2012) They are the video generation and while they love videos, they do not have the patience to watch full video-time advertising - they'd rather hear from an influencer (someone they trust personally or a known personality) . They love YouTube, Instagram Stories and IGTV and Snapchat and of course, Tik Tok.
Both Millennials and Gen Zers do spend some daily quality time on Facebook as well!
So now let’s talk about the over-40 crowd:
About 79% of the 40 to 50 crowd use Facebook, as opposed to about 47% of the same age group that use Instagram.
About 68% of the 50 to 65 crowd use Facebook, as opposed to about 23% of the same age group that use Instagram.
While about 46% of the over-65 crowd use Facebook, only about 8% of over 65ers use Instagram.
Now before you decide that Instagram is not worth your effort for your older target market; remember that every target market has a secondary market. These are the people closely associated with your target market – whether they are service providers of or children and grandchildren of – who will hear about you on ‘their’ social media channels. And may be, in many cases, the decision-makers for certain products or services you provide.
Meet experts in your field on Instagram
Instagram is also a welcoming place to meet and learn from other experts in your field. Within the world of Instagram you will find a treasure trove of information and How-tos and so much more. From a professional community point of view, Instagram can help you become part of larger group of professionals and help you "up your business game" in ways that LinkedIn cannot provide.
Some Facebook and Instagram marketing differences
Here is a quick look at five differences between the world of Facebook and the world of Instagram:
While both Facebook and Instagram are both image and text based. Images are vital on Instagram! Without them there is no point in posting to this channel.
You can post to Facebook from both your computer and your phone, while Instagram allows posting only from your phone, all other activities from viewing to commenting is possible from your computer.
While each channel gives you in-depth posting insights, Facebook enables you to provide your followers with detailed information about you and your business, as well as the ability to add a never-ending number of links to your About section and to your posts. Instagram only allows one link in you bio and they are very stingy in the amount of text allowed in your bio. All other business information must be developed in your posts.
Facebook has Groups, while Instagram has hashtags, which can take more time and effort to learn to utilize successfully. In Facebook, you can reach thousands and tens of thousands of viewers on any given post by simply sharing to Groups, while reaching the 10K followers mark on Instagram is a tough goal to reach.
This means that to be successful at Instagram marketing you need to post daily and develop your hashtags thoughtfully, to be successful in Facebook you can post once to twice a week and share to countless Groups.
So bottom line where should you be investing your marketing time and money? On BOTH Facebook and Instagram! (Obviously, don't forget any other industry-specific social media channels.) The question of how much time and effort you should be investing in either one must be determined in your marketing strategy and then calculated into your budget.
Need help developing your marketing strategy and help improving your social media presence? Contact us today!
(Blog image credit: Narin Seandag from Pixabay)
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