As we know, Facebook and Instagram are the biggest social media platforms worldwide, owned by Facebook, Inc. They are supported today by millions of users. Let’s dive deeper about them.
Growth: Monthly Active User
Instagram – Last June 2018, Instagram reported has over 1 billion monthly active users, with over 80 million user photos uploaded each day. Here are the leading countries based on the number of Instagram users as of January 2019.
Facebook – Last December 2018, Facebook has over 2.32 billion monthly active users (MAU) in worldwide. Here is the data of leading countries based on the number of Facebook users as of January 2019.
Even though both are social media platforms, they still differentiate each other in the market, with different functionality, algorithm, target audience.
Instagram is more than just a visual platform. It’s about arts – focuses on showing original content like photos and short videos and connecting each other with similar interested or intention by hashtag. Meanwhile, Facebook is connecting with people whom you know and sharing original content to others. So here, Instagram tends to be a social media platform and Facebook is a social media network – communicating with each other by sharing, likes, and comments.
Algorithm: Affect Marketing
Then what about their algorithm affect marketing – let’s explore more!
Instagram concerns include Engagement, Relevancy, Relationships, Timeliness, Profile Searches, Direct Shares. Time Spent. Meanwhile, Facebook concerns itself more in Friends and Family Post, Engagement, Encouraging Engagement, Image and Videos, Bait is demoted, Promotional posts are demoted.
Instagram is well used for engaging customer, attracting awareness, showcasing new products, shopping comparison, and brilliant in the influencer marketing segment.
Facebook, has a good section, which is better in funnelling as compared to Instagram. Facebook allows link sharing on posts which could be used to generate traffic by directing users to, for example, online stores. On the contrary, Instagram does not allow link sharing on posts, except those appearing on the profiles’ bio.
In Marketing – Facebook is good to share or post curated content and brand news, whereas Instagram is good to build brand reputation and relationships. Paid advertising, is more effective since it is possible to reach an older group of people as compared to Instagram. Facebook offers a bunch of feature in targeting, such as locations, detailed targeted based on interest or behaviour, connections, custom audience.
The conclusion is, since both of them has its own advantages, it would be better to align their strengths with our needs.
For additional information, according to research, organic marketing on Facebook declined by 63% since 2012, while it increased by 115% on Instagram.
Demography
Instagram is more powerful and mainly used by users aged under 30, teens. On the other hand, Facebook is more targeted to the older age group of people. Facebook is really good at targeting audiences, so it may be good for businesses who need a more targeted audience or not (since Facebook cover more people in age).
Revolution: Journey
Here is the journey of Instagram and Facebook.