Facebook Ad vs Instagram Ads

Let’s talk about social ads. As many of you know, many social media platforms offer advertising as an option for their clients. And it’s no secret how advertising on these platforms can be profitable for your practice. But you probably have questions about where to begin, how to set up your ads, and which platform to use.

In this blog post, we’ll be talking about two of the biggest social media platforms to advertise on, Facebook and Instagram. We’ll break down what each platform can offer for your practice.

This is part one of a three-part series where we will be reviewing which platform is better for your practice and we will be sharing some data you should consider when setting up your social ads budget.  Make sure to stay tuned over the next two weeks for parts two and three.

Why Should Your Practice be Advertising on Social Media?

It’s simple, you can reach a bigger audience! A consistent social media presence paired with social media advertising will ensure that your practice is seen by all the right people.

With advertising, you can hyper-target specific users, meaning you will be able to target only those that match your target market. Say you are a pediatric dentist in Seattle, WA. You can target your location by setting it to match cities, states, and countries for where your patients live. If you prefer, select the local option that selects a radius around your practice’s location. You can then target specific interests such as parenting, kids, dentist, and anything else that may pertain to your practice. Lastly, you can target age groups and genders.

If you haven’t read our blog post on the benefits of Social Media Marketing, we highly encourage you to take a look to better understand how advertising on your social platforms can make a positive impact on your practice.

What can Facebook Ads Offer Your Practice?

Facebook advertising was introduced in late 2007. Today, there are three million businesses that actively advertise on Facebook. Not only does Facebook have the biggest cliental for paid advertising but it should come as no surprise that they are also the most widely used social media platform with over 2.7 billion users. This plays a big part when deciding your audience. With more users on the platform, advertisers can reach a bigger audience.

Facebook gives you a lot of opportunities to increase brand awareness. Whether it be through your newsfeed by sharing an update, on Facebook stories, or through the Facebook Marketplace, there is something for every practice. 

Video advertising is very much underrated. Even with the fact that video ads have a 30% higher audience reach than image ads. Advertisers are still preferring image over video advertising. With Facebook, video advertising has never been easier. You can create video ads that last up to 120 minutes through Facebook.

Finally, advertising on Facebook means more ad placements! Ad placements are places where your ads can be seen. Since there are more opportunities on Facebook, this helps increase the chances of your advertisements being seen by the right people.

What can Instagram Ads Offer Your Practice?

Instagram is the leader in engagement. In fact, because of its ability to be so alluring, it reaches a much younger audience, which makes it one of the best platforms to do online advertising.

One very important factor to consider when creating an Instagram campaign is the fact that Instagram is 100% visual. This means that the most important element in your ad will be your image or video. Ensuring that your visual is of the highest quality will help improve your brand positioning.

Organic reach is thriving on Instagram. This means that the content you are putting on your practice’s Instagram page is performing well on its own without adding in the paid element. However, paid will always out-preform organic.

And because of its visually appealing content, users tend to pick Instagram over other platforms to get a sense of who the company is. This comes into play with brand awareness and how your online presence can directly affect your new clients.

Which Platform Should I Be Advertising On?

The answer is both! While Facebook may be a better option to advertise in certain situations, Instagram covers other parts. Both platforms complement each other and the weakness of one is covered by the other so using both platforms for your social media advertising is the best option.

Our number one recommendation when choosing a platform to advertise on is to look at the audience. If you only have the budget to use towards one campaign, do your research, and figure out what platform hosts the most amount of your target audience. You can easily do this by looking at your posts through the insights dashboard on both platforms. This will give you an idea of who is seeing your posts and interacting with them. If you’re an orthodontist that specializes in helping young adults, you would be better off allocating your budget to Instagram.

Remember, start by setting goals for your advertising. What are you hoping to accomplish through paid advertising? From there build out a strategy that works for you and your practice. And of course, monitor the performance and adjust as needed.

Did you know we offer Social Ads, to all our practices (separate from our Social Media service)? If you are interested in learning more about how we can help your practice with online advertising, reach out to us at 866-263-1639.

 

—Marie Dubray, Social Media Specialist, Sesame Communications