Social media has become a large part of many consumer’s everyday lives. We check our social media accounts regularly to see what is going on in our social networks—and in the world. At all hours, there are millions of people spending time on social media. It seems as though social media is not going anywhere anytime soon. As a business, you need to have a good presence on social media to help get exposure and traffic. A good way of doing this is by using Facebook ads or Instagram ads.
There was a time when just being on social media was enough for a business. Posting routinely and being informative was enough to get likes and even leads. These days, every social media platform is “pay to play”. Businesses big or small can benefit from using paid social ads to boost social media campaigns. But does one of these platforms provide more benefits than the other?
Capabilities Of Facebook Ads And Instagram Ads
Facebook and Instagram ads give businesses many creative options to engage with potential customers. They each share many similarities in what they are capable of doing. Some of these capabilities include:
- Businesses can share their ads on the platforms through many different formats. You can choose to have a single image or videos or carousel ads. Carousel ads are scrollable images or videos. These formats are available on both platforms.
- Facebook also provides ads that Instagram does not offer such as lead generation, offer ads, and event response ads.
- Through the Facebook manager tool, you can create highly targeted and custom audiences. This allows you to build out specific targeting such as age, location, and gender, as well as demographics, interests, and behaviors of your audience.
- Facebook gives more ability to be creative with engagement with the ad. Instagram is minimal in the sense of only allowing to like, comment, or click on a button. Whereas Facebook gives the audience the ability to react with more than just a like, share, and comment using gifs and stickers.
Image Requirements
In addition to the above differences, these ads differ in format and requirements between the two platforms.
Do You Need to Choose?
Facebook ads and Instagram ads both offer powerful tools to help enhance your social campaigns. But do businesses really need to choose between the two platforms? Of course, Facebook and Instagram are completely separate platforms with the option to create paid social ads. However, Instagram has been an entity of Facebook for a few years now. Most—if not all—businesses have a Facebook page connected to a corresponding Instagram account.
Why Not Both?
Facebook provides a business management tool allowing you to oversee your business page as well as an ads manager account. Through the ads manager, you can create an ad and decide its placement. This feature gives you the option to put your ads not only on Facebook mobile and desktop feeds, stories, and marketplace but Instagram’s as well. This means you are basically getting two for the price of one!
This way, you can create and edit your ad placements for Instagram and Facebook through the Facebook business manager tool. This tool gives you the convenience of not having to use both or choose between one or the other. With all of this said, it seems as if Facebook would be the best bang for your buck.
Utilize Your Social Media Advertising With Us
The perfect place to start meeting potential customers is through Facebook and Instagram ads. At Gatorworks, our team can help you develop a strategy and create campaigns that will drive the results to your businesses needs. If you would like to learn more about how we can help your business grow with paid social media advertising, give us a call today at 225-924-6109.