If you plan to market your business via social media, it is important to know where to spend the majority of your time and effort.

Today, the 2 big players vying for business marketing are Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook is by far the bigger, with an estimated 1.1 billion visitor every month compared to Instagram with 500 million a month.

So what are the similarities and differences, and how might one be preferable for your business than the other?

1. Size: Because Facebook is much older than Instagram it has a much larger database of users.
2. Demographics: Facebook has an older demographic than Instagram.
   If you are targeting a younger demographic Instagram is the better platform to use, but because Facebook has older users you can target people who statistically have a higher income and higher spending power.
3. Engagement: Engagement refers to sharing, liking and commenting on posts.
   Facebook has more users but Instagram ranks better for engagement and sharing. The choice of Facebook versus Instagram may be different for different kinds of businesses. A business that uses a lot of visual attention-grabbers to advertise may find Instagram a bit better than Facebook, especially if the target audience is young.
4. Targeting: Both Facebook and Instagram allow you to target your audience by location, gender, interests and age group, so much of a muchness there.
5. Linking: A major downside for businesses wishing to use Instagram is that Instagram prevents clickable links in photo captions or comments. That feature is only available in paid ads. This can be very frustrating when you want to encourage people to visit your business website.
6. Videos: Instagram was developed fort sharing photos and short videos. In the past, videos were restricted to 15 seconds but that has been increased to 60 seconds. If you want to share longer videos, Facebook would be preferable.
   Features: Facebook has numerous options such as groups, events, shops, and business pages, that Instagram lacks.
7. Clutter: Instagram is uncluttered, clean and very easy to navigate compared to Facebook, so although your business may be accessible to a smaller audience than on Facebook, it may be more visible to that audience and lead to engagement.
8. Campaign Management: Both Facebook and Instagram are easy to use when it running advertising and marketing campaigns. You can easily select your audience, track your campaigns, and see your reach and conversion rates.

Possibly the best advice, if you are unsure, is to dip your toes into both platforms and use the same posts, then monitor them to see which performs better for you.

As with all forms of advertising, knowing your market and where they are is vital.