Compare and Contrast: Forms of Social Media for Social Marketing

Compare and Contrast: Forms of Social Media for Social Marketing
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Compare and Contrast: Forms of Social Media for Social Marketing
Today, the use of social media has extended to businesses because social media provides marketers with opportunities to engage with diverse customers. As a result, many businesses have incorporated social media as part of their marketing strategy. There are various forms of social media, ranging from social networking sites to image and video sharing sites (Appel et al., 2020). Each of these forms provides different features and functionalities that businesses can utilize to promote their products/ services. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two forms of social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram. Facebook is a social networking site while Instagram is an image and video sharing site, but businesses are increasingly using both for social marketing.
Similarities
Facebook provides businesses with a feature that allows them to directly engage with consumers (Appel et al., 2020). This feature is referred to as Facebook Messenger. Similarly, Instagram has a direct messaging feature, known as Instagram Direct. Both Facebook and Instagram allow users to send a friend and follow request, respectively, for them to have access to content and detailed information about a brand. Brands can then accept these requests and also block a user who is creating negativity around the brand. In addition, both social media platforms allow businesses to share content in the form of images and videos. The images and videos can be shared either as posts or stories. Posts stay on the Instagram/ Facebook page permanently unless the account owner deletes them. Stories only last for twenty-four hours. Therefore, stories are appropriate when a business wants to gain real-time engagement with consumers because they are only available for a limited amount of time. The engagement with that particular story comes to a stop. Further, businesses can determine the number of consumers interested in their products on both brands of social media. One way to do this is to look at the number of followers on Facebook and Instagram (Akhmedov, 2017). Followers are users who like the brand, and because of this, they are more likely to engage with the brand at a higher rate.
Differences
However, a business can incorporate more details about its history, hours of operation, and its products on Facebook than on Instagram. Facebook is more text-oriented, while Instagram is image/video-oriented (Appel et al., 2020). Originally, Facebook's posts featured texts, but it has incorporated videos and images over time as well. Instagram focuses on images and videos alone. Thus, Facebook is more inclusive than Instagram because it facilitates the use of more forms of media in social marketing. Another difference lies in the demographics of these two forms of social media. Instagram has a younger demographic than Facebook. According to the Pew Research Center (2021), most Instagram users are aged between 18 and 29 years, while most Facebook users are aged between 30 and 49 years. Companies have to identify their target demography while choosing which of the two forms of social media is suitabl...