Instagram and Facebook are both quite popular and used all over the world. For that reason, they are really useful tools to improve your company and for brand strategy. But how and when do you use them in your business? Instagram vs Facebook, who is the winner of the game? You will find the answers according to your business in our contents.
Well, we cannot say there is a winner, because there are times that one is better than the other. It is actually about the audience and the engagement of these social media platforms. Both Facebook and Instagram are very popular. As the pioneer of the new social media understanding, Facebook saw Instagram’s potential and bought it in 2012. So, we may say that it is Facebook trying to reach out to a different audience. Yet, it is doing it with another platform, which is very clever. Now let’s take a look at when to use which one, Instagram vs Facebook.
What Is Facebook?
Facebook has beaten all kinds of competition between social networks, and since its inception, it has gone from being a tool to stay in touch with friends to a total platform where you can search for news, comment, and share all kinds of content. Each person can keep a diary of events on Facebook and decide who to share them with, can publish photos, videos, words, and links from external sites, and dare to “like” posts shared by friends or even from the pages following. Facebook is a platform intended for networking and connecting with friends; its main purpose is to stay connected with known people with whom it is also possible to chat through the Messenger.
What Is Instagram?
Instagram was born as a smartphone application for sharing multimedia. Currently, Instagram also lets you share videos and post stories, which have become a strong social network. The stories, which are also on Facebook but are present less used, allow you to share special moments and are different from normal posts because they disappear 24 hours. Instagram has become an essential tool for companies, brands, and VIPs, because its “engagement,” ie, the possibility of reaching interested users, is higher than Facebook.
Differences Between Facebook and Instagram
Here are some key differences between Facebook and Instagram compared:
The Photos
Facebook is a generalist site that allows users to create online profiles, share photos and videos, send messages, and stay in touch with friends, family, or colleagues on a common platform. Instagram works like Facebook but is primarily a photo-sharing application.
If you want to publish photos, you can decide to publish them on Facebook or Instagram, with the difference, however, is that Instagram is used to share a few well-made photos to attract as many views as possible. Simultaneously, on Facebook, it is also more suitable to publish entire holiday albums to be preserved over time and not necessarily shared to attract likes.
Besides, Instagram requires high-quality photos that are special and enhanced with photo editing tools. If you don’t have photos to post and if you don’t spend some time making them beautiful, it’s almost pointless to use Instagram (except to see other people’s photos). Instagram is not even suitable for posting memes or images made of text, which are always very successful in sharing on Facebook. In other words, if you find a funny picture on Google, it can be shared with satisfaction on Facebook, but not on Instagram, where you are asked to post your photos. Therefore, Instagram requires to be unique and creative, unlike Facebook, where few contents are unique and original.
The Videos
Today’s Facebook has become a video platform with the clear intention of competing with Youtube. There is a special section dedicated to videos where you can see the ones with the most likes, the funniest, or the most interesting, watching them one after the other. You can then use Facebook to share original videos with no length limits, as long as they respect copyright rights. However, on Instagram, videos can only be published in short form, in stories with a limit of 15 seconds or the profile with a limit of 1 minute.
Then, both platforms allow you to go live video taken with the in-app cameras from the smartphone. The difference between Facebook live videos and Instagram videos is that on Facebook, the video can remain saved in the profile, thus becoming permanent and leaving it to be commented on even in the following days; on Instagram, however, the live videos disappear after 24 hours. While live videos on Facebook seem preferable, on the other hand, when you go live on Instagram, a notification is sent to all followers (while on Facebook, it only sends it to some friends). The video is also shown in the stories section, giving you more chances to be seen.
If you want to save videos you have seen on Facebook. You can take a look at Facebook Video Downloader.
Sharing of Information
Facebook works well and gives users full freedom when it comes to sharing links, blog posts, or other informational content from newspapers or other sources. However, on Instagram, it is always necessary to share an image or photo, under which you can write a free text. Instagram, however, is not made for sharing links, which are completely prevented. Therefore, it is impossible to share posts from external blogs or web pages on Instagram, and external links cannot be published. The only way to share links is to use your bio, which is the only space on Instagram, where external links are clickable. Recently, the ability to create clickable external links in stories has also been added, but this is a function available only for those with more than 10000 followers and verified accounts.
Facebook, which is the best social network for publishing links to sites and blogs, also allows its users to create and plan events and have a more in-depth biography that includes personal information, work, etc. Facebook is also useful for creating advertisements for sale and participating in small groups that don’t exist on Instagram.
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An important difference between Facebook and Instagram is also in the re-sharing: on Facebook, it is normal to re-share the posts and images of others on Instagram; instead, this cannot (or rather could not) do. The Instagram account is personal and concerns one’s activities and not those of others. It’s about you and your business, not everyone else’s content. So don’t fill your feed with other people’s posts.
The Audience of Instagram vs Facebook
The demographics comparison between Instagram and Facebook can be a good criterion to choose one of them for your business. We can conclude comparison results in terms of demographics between Instagram and Facebook in that order:
- Facebook has a broad range in terms of age demographics; it has users of almost all ages and mostly in the 18-29 age group. Instagram also has many users, and most of them are below 20 or in the 18-29 age gap. The difference between Instagram and Facebook is the age group. Instagram is more preferred by younger people, while it is the opposite of Facebook.
- In terms of household income, Facebook again has a broader and safer range. You can find people from different economic groups. Instagram is not far away from Facebook but has users who have higher household income.
Engagement Comparison Between Instagram and Facebook
For engagement, Instagram and Facebook offer different things:
- Facebook has a different layout that allows us to share more posts in different types. You can share photos, videos, articles, etc., making Facebook better to inform people and access them. Facebook is a better option if someone prefers to use different post contents for your business.
- Instagram has a specific layout and focused on visual content. But Instagram is known by challenges and popular streaming videos. That’s why Instagram is a good option for an engagement, especially towards the younger audience.
Conclusion On Facebook vs Instagram
Both Instagram and Facebook are widely used apps all over the world. Suppose you want to use them as marketing tools and decide who the winner of the Instagram vs Facebook battle is and define your audience and expectations. Your audience will show you the right path that you need to follow.
If you want to learn more about Instagram and Facebook, please check out our articles on both categories.
2 Comments
Instagram vs Facebook is perhaps the hardest dilemma there is. Personally I use Instagram more, but I do get Facebook.
Here’s the thing — FB’s interface is starting to feel outdated. Facebook has a new look, but underneath it all it’s still the outdated interface. I guess Facebook compensated by adding more features such as meta, but it comes across as clunky and overstuffed. Like as if they’re trying to be their own browser akin to America Online of yesteryear. The thing is I don’t think FaceBook has been able to pull this off yet. They’re trying very hard. Instagram is more attractive because it uses a more modern and simple interface to view and/or share content such as videos and photos.