Facebook VS Instagram – The Ultimate Comparison

Facebook dominates social media marketing on campus. Facebook has 2.38 billion active users as of June 2019, making it the largest social media network. Facebook has changed how we view social networks and boosted commercial use of social media during the past 15 years.

Instagram is a newer platform. Since 2010, Instagram has grown its active user base significantly. Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users as of June 2018, making it one of the fastest-growing social media networks. This growth is expected. Users worldwide spend more time accessing the web on mobile.

These social media platforms are powerful and offer many options for your brand to communicate with consumers with billions of active users. Even better, Facebook and Instagram are working to unite their user bases. Instagram placement for Facebook ads and Instagram Story sharing directly to Facebook are two ways these platforms have developed synergy for marketers and users.

Let’s compare the two to assist you in deciding where your brand should focus.

Understanding The Stats/Metrics of Facebook and Instagram

Facebook Metrics

• Facebook boasts 2.38 billion monthly active users.
• A staggering 96% of active user accounts engage with Facebook through mobile devices.
• There are 65 million small businesses that maintain Facebook Pages.
• Approximately 40% of consumers claim that Facebook is their primary platform for watching videos.
• An impressive 89% of marketers include Facebook in their brand social strategy.

Instagram Metrics

• Instagram commands a user base of 1 billion monthly active users.
• A noteworthy 500 million users engage with Instagram Stories on a daily basis across the globe.
• A substantial 60% of Instagram users visit the platform every day.
• In the United States, 37% of Internet users are active on Instagram.
• Instagram is utilized by 65% of marketers as a key component of their brand social strategy.

Facebook VS Instagram

If you look more closely at the statistics, you’ll see that Facebook and Instagram have particular differences that make them more appropriate for different types of marketing efforts.

Audience demographics

The audiences on both social media platforms are not the same demographics. Instagram primarily caters to a younger audience, mostly those under 30.

31% of Instagram users worldwide who were active as of Q4 2021 were in the 18 to 24 age range. Those under the age of 34 make up more than half of Instagram users worldwide.

It’s well-liked by people looking for new trends, innovative ideas, style inspiration, and information about influencer activities. Instagram visibility is crucial if your brand wants to connect with a younger, visually-savvy generation of millennials.

Facebook’s user base is more diverse in terms of age groups. The platform is geared toward adults, young people, and older people; however, it is more appealing to those in the slightly older age range. (Roughly 32% of Facebook users are currently in the 25–34 age range, and 18% are in the 35–44 age range.)

Its broad audience demographics can be helpful for more widely appealing brands that wish to target different audience segments in different places.

Facebook’s ability to target particular user demographics (such as age) and then further divide this group based on location, occupation, and interests is one of its greatest advantages for businesses.

You can easily tailor an ad campaign on Facebook to target individuals in your desired age range or other demographics (more on this later). 

Functionality

Facebook and Instagram serve various purposes. Instagram is designed for sharing videos and photographs, whereas Facebook allows for a wider range of post kinds.

Facebook gives a wealth of information to its users and caters to a wide range of demographics with varying expectations. People use the internet to watch videos, read posts, see Stories, read the news, play games, and learn about upcoming events. Users can also access personal information about persons, a company’s history and contact information, and events that the company hosts.

When Instagram users check-in, they want clear and visual information. It’s simple to scan an image and a few lines of supporting text in the caption.

Thinking about the capabilities of each platform will help you develop a marketing plan that capitalizes on the strengths of your selected channel.

Engagement

When comparing Instagram users to Facebook users, we find that Facebook users visit the app eight times a day on average, and they spend 35 minutes a day on it. More activity occurs on Facebook per minute than any other social media network worldwide, with over 317,000 status changes, 54,000 links, and over 147,000 photographs shared by users worldwide every 60 seconds. Despite the impressive statistics, 40% of users do not use Facebook Pages to connect with customers.

Conversely, 80 percent of Instagram users adhere to a business strategy, which increases firms’ chances of success on social media compared to Facebook. The user base on Instagram is still very active. Studies show that Instagram users like and share over 4.2 billion posts daily, in addition to sharing over 95 million posts daily. Additionally, Instagram’s story feature is used by over 3500 million people daily, while Facebook’s story feature receives only around half of that amount of daily activity.

Ad spend

The most common activity among Facebook users, according to recent studies, is clicking on advertising. The average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads in a given month; in the United States, this figure increases to 18 clicks per month.

Users trust Facebook’s relevance to adverts. Because of this, it makes sense to use this trust to start your advertising initiatives.

If you are using Facebook or Instagram for your marketing campaigns, you should consider the cost of advertising and how it affects your revenue. In general, Facebook advertisements are more valuable than Instagram ads (calculated on a cost per click).

For Facebook advertisements, the average cost-per-click (CPC) value is $0.49, whereas for Instagram, it is $1.09. Instagram’s cost per click is more than twice as high as Facebook’s, so when running a campaign on the network, you’ll need to set a clear budget and adhere to it to avoid going over.

Facebook’s ad campaigns also have a significantly higher CTR. Actually, compared to Instagram’s 0.68% CTR, Facebook has the greatest average CTR of 3.06%.

But having a high CTR combined with a low CPC isn’t the end all be all. Additionally, those clicks must be highly valuable.

Facebook is the obvious victor, even if each industry will have distinct CPCs and CTRs on each platform. Its highly adjustable ad campaigns are probably the cause of this. Although Instagram allows for some personalization, Facebook’s filters outperform Instagram’s.

Brand use and ad effectiveness

Despite Instagram offering extensive business opportunities, Facebook remains the predominant choice for brands, boasting 80 million business pages compared to Instagram’s modest 8 million.

A striking 93% of marketers consistently employ Facebook advertising, with 62% considering it their paramount social media channel. While the platform harbors significant potential for paid advertising, Facebook strategically limits the visibility of company posts, prompting brands to allocate more advertising budget; the average organic reach for branded Facebook pages is a mere 2%.

Conclusion

You must first determine your target audience, then consider the type of material you want to publish, and finally choose a media. Instagram cannot replace Facebook, and Facebook cannot replace Instagram. It is not an issue of which social network is superior. How can your business use each one to expand its potential social media presence and connect with customers?

What you are looking for will determine which platform is best for you. You must consider your objectives and the results you hope to attain from the campaign. Both the social networking sites, Facebook and Instagram, have incredibly personal advantages. What works better for you could not work very well for another business because different characteristics and audiences call for different things.

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket is a saying that applies to marketing as well. The takeaway is to utilize Facebook and Instagram concurrently and benefit from each platform’s unique advantages. So feel free to utilize both or to make sure you’re on the correct platform.