Facebook and Instagram are undeniably the two most prominent social media platforms worldwide. As a business owner, how do you utilize these online avenues to grow your company? 

In today’s post, let’s take a closer look at advertising on Facebook and Instagram properly and how best to traverse social media marketing to grow your business.

Grow Your Business When You Advertise on Social Media

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram allows you to set a variety of ad objectives and formats, targeting options, and advertising goals.

While these two social media sites are owned by one entity, they don’t necessarily offer the same advertising benefits. 

Let’s take a look at the main differences between advertising on Facebook and Instagram. We hope the information you find today will help you understand the distinctions between these two social media sites. 

These key distinctions will help you determine which advertising strategy is more beneficial for your business: advertising on Facebook, advertising on Instagram, or both.

Primary Benefits of Advertising on Instagram

Almost 60 percent of social networking usage in the United States comes from Instagram. In fact, it has surpassed Facebook as the most used social media platform in the country. 

It’s a social media site that’s extremely popular among the millennial age group.

This fact alone makes advertising on Instagram an extremely viable social media marketing strategy for an organization. 

Advertising on Instagram Improves Brand Awareness

This social media site is a highly valuable and cost-efficient online platform to improve brand awareness. 

This, in turn, creates a strong imprint in the minds of your target audience.

On top of that, the photo-centric approach of this social media site can foster a sense of familiarity and comfort with your organization’s presence.

However, advertising on Instagram requires time, effort, and resources. You will need to actively participate on the platform as a brand on Instagram to maximize its advertising benefits. 

While it’s not unheard of to purchase Instagram followers, nothing beats organic engagement.

To make sure your business Instagram page garners a huge following, your posts and content need to be high quality, engaging, and captivating.

Many digital marketers claim that advertising on Instagram has generated an increase in their website traffic. 

With the right strategies in place, you can utilize your brand’s Instagram page as an effective tool to raise your website traffic.

Most internet users spend a significant portion of their day on various social media sites. Thus, it’s not surprising that a person following a brand on Instagram decides to visit the actual website of that business.

With your website traffic improving, this can also positively impact your business website’s search engine rankings.

Another advantageous use of Instagram is lead generation. Before you focus on lead generation on Instagram, you must first determine if your target audience is present on that channel.

If not, then it’s better to look at lead generation and advertising on Facebook rather than Instagram. 

Suppose you already have a definition of your target market. You should examine social media demographics to see if they match with your target audience. These demographics are available to you on Instagram and Facebook.

To utilize Instagram as an effective lead generation machine, you need to understand and do the following. These same principles can also apply to advertising on Facebook. 

• Publish high-quality, informative, and relevant content.
• Apply strategic social media targeting and advertising. Use the appropriate ad format to connect with prospects. 
• Introduce contests and raffles with prizes to increase engagement.
• Host a live webinar or live video. 
• Always measure your social media campaigns and performance (audience engagement, hashtags, keywords, conversations around trending topics, brand mentions, competitor mentions, etc.)

Primary Benefits of Advertising on Facebook 

Advertising on Facebook offers a multitude of advantages, including:

• This year, there’s an estimated 2.9 billion active Facebook users. This is way higher than Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or any other social media platforms.
• All age and gender demographics are present on Facebook. 84% of Facebook users are between 25 and 30 years old.

• B2B and B2C businesses have done successful advertising campaigns on Facebook.
• Facebook is the most used and visited social platform today. Research shows that 75% of Facebook users go on the site multiple times a day.
• Facebook advertising offers a host of ad formats and ad features. These help marketers set custom social media targeting and advertising strategies that fit their brand and connect with the right prospects.

Should You Advertise on Facebook or Instagram or Both?

Ideally, it would be beneficial to advertise on these enormous social media platforms. However, if you are low on advertising budget, time, and resources, it’s better to pick one platform and focus on it.

However, there is no standard answer to the question above.

Instead, here are the vital considerations you should look at before running a social media marketing campaign. 

Industry

The industry you are in is an essential factor when using the right social media advertising platform. For instance, restaurants, fashion brands, or businesses in the creative or visual industry tend to do better on Instagram. 

On the other hand, just about any other brand and industry can see positive results advertising on Facebook. 

However, the top three industries that are thriving on Facebook advertising are Ecommerce, auto, and fashion. 

Audience

You want to advertise where your target market is present. Experienced marketers can help you define your target market and identify how to reach them.

As for social media demographics, all age groups are present and active on Facebook. Naturally, if you want to reach a wide range of consumers, you will most likely find them on Facebook. 

On the other hand, while Instagram is a widely popular social media site, it has a narrower audience: specifically the millennial and Generation Z age groups. 

While this is a smaller social media audience, they hold a massive amount of spending or purchasing power. 

Social Media Advertising Goals

Your advertising goals will help shape your social media campaign.

Whether you run advertising on Facebook or Instagram, you should define your advertising goals clearly before initiating an ad campaign.

Hire the services of a a professional social media advertising agency to help define, set, and achieve your advertising goals.