Hey, let’s face it…sometimes you have to go where the Millennials are! If you work in social marketing, you know Facebook.
Odds are, you have a Facebook business page. You probably update it regularly, too. And if you’re like most social advertisers, you’re spending more on Facebook ads this year than you did the last.
But is the world’s most popular social network really the best value out there? Could you do better on another social network – like Instagram?
We think you can.
We compared the rising photo-sharing network against Facebook, taking a close look at the metrics that really matter – growth, adoption rates, engagement, reach, and more.
We’ll break down the Instagram vs Facebook debate even further for you.
Here are the 5 points you should think about the next time you allocate your social media budget, because it might just change the color of your bottom line.
1. More Room for Growth
Although 2004 might not seem like that long ago, Facebook is the oldest major player in social marketing today. And that means a few things.
Unfortunately, not all of them are good.
Just like a rising economic power can only post dramatic growth for so long, Facebook’s running out of new users to sign up. And more to the point for you, the social marketer: organic reach just isn’t yielding what it did even a few years ago. In fact, Facebook organic reach has gone down by 60% since 2012.
That’s a lot of fans who won’t see you content unless you pay to promote it.
Luckily, Instagram is still enjoying a lot of forward momentum. Getting organic reach – impressive organic reach – isn’t a problem yet. In fact, it comes easily.
Since 2012, Instagram organic reach has gone up by a full 200%
That’s a number you just can’t ignore.
2. Higher Engagement
Let’s be honest. Reach is good; engagement is better. You don’t want your users to just see what you’re posting; you want them to interact with it too. You want them to re-post and like your content.
So, it makes sense to look at engagement rates when you’re thinking about which network to use. Instagram doesn’t disappoint here either.
According to the data in this infographic, you get 58 times more engagement on Instagram than Facebook, for every follower you have.
58 times more.
And you know, like we all do, that engagement matters.
Instagram users engage with brands twice as much as Facebook ones.
3. Less Competition
It pays to be an early adopter.
You get:
- Faster revenue growth
- Stronger market position
- A role in defining the technology
And luckily, those advantages are still available to advertisers bold enough to run their ads on Instagram.
Because right now – in late 2016 – just 36% of marketers are active on it. That’s well under half.
Facebook, on the other hand, is almost at full capacity. 93% of marketers have a presence there.
Frankly, you should too. Just remember it’s not an innovative new platform. It’s an established older one – something we’ve all seen and heard before. There’s no room for a lightning ascent there.
Small and nimble start-ups can really benefit from this. When you don’t have to reorganize an entire marketing department around a new platform – the burden of the bigger orgs – it’s easy to be an early adopter.
4. Greater Reach
Because Facebook is the world’s largest social network, it has a lot of brands on it. And because it has a lot of brands on it, there are ways to filter their posts.
If there weren’t, users would quickly be overwhelmed.
Instagram doesn’t have this problem. Not yet, at least.
Whereas brands on Facebook reach a paltry 6% of their followers – not even one in ten of them – brands on Instagram reach them all with every piece of content they publish.
100% of your Instagram posts reach 100% of your Instagram followers – 100% of the time.
And that’s not bad.
5. More Valuable Users
Now we come to what all this really means.
Money.
You want to make as much of it as you can, naturally. You’re running a business after all.
And that’s why you should pay attention here. The average order value of an engaged Instagram follower is a full $10 higher than a Facebook one.
- Instagram – $65
- Facebook – $55
But don’t forget, we’re talking about engaged followers. Idle ones don’t deliver this kind of value. Thankfully, however, Instagram followers engage at a much higher rate than Facebook fans, which makes your job easier.
Engaged followers are worth $10 more on Instagram than Facebook.
Now, it might seem like we’re advocating Instagram – and we are – but we’re not putting down Facebook to do it. It’s still the most important social network to be active on for good reason. And if you don’t have a business page there yet, make one yesterday.
But you shouldn’t ignore Instagram either. And while overtaking Facebook may take a very long time – if it ever happens at all – diversifying your social networks makes just as much sense as diversifying your stocks.
