What are the Differences between Instagram and Facebook Posts?

Without a doubt, two of the most popular social media platforms right now are Instagram and Facebook. It certainly makes sense for any business to have a presence on both of these platforms.

But, did you know that you cannot post in exactly the same way on both?

Well, you could. But your posts would be MUCH more effective if you tweaked each post for the specific platform that you are using!

For starters, which of these 2 platforms do you gravitate toward personally? If you were to hop on social media and scroll through some updates in your feed, where would you be?

On Facebook or Instagram?

Truthfully, it can be pretty simple to step in and begin posting for your business on the platform that you are the most used to using personally. You are already familiar with the process of posting and engaging with your family and friends there, so it can be a simple transition to begin posting for your business effectively.

The trick now is to learn which things are different and which things are similar in the other one of these two social media platforms – Facebook or Instagram.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of comparing Facebook and Instagram posts, let me step in and give you a few words of CAUTION.

FIRST – you should not use the EXACT same post on both Facebook and Instagram.

Each of these platforms has certain rules and vocabulary that will make your post look goofy if you just create a post in Instagram and paste it to Facebook, or vice versa.

For example: Say you created a wonderfully effective post in Instagram. It’s a colorful photo with a well thought-out caption. In it you tag a couple of relevant businesses or people. You add hashtags that are popular and well-used in your niche.

Then, you paste it into Facebook. The photo still looks great, but the tags now look silly. Since tags do not carry over, they are just cumbersome to read through in your caption. Also, Facebook does not utilize hashtags in the same way. SO…. those well-researched Instagram hashtags now just clutter up your Facebook caption.

SECOND – Do not link your Instagram and Facebook accounts and auto-post from one to the other.

This is a feature that Instagram allows. Don’t do it!

This may work just fine for your personal accounts, where you are simply trying to show family members your photos, but this does NOT work for business purposes.

Just like in the example above, posts end up looking strange. It becomes clear immediately that you were not actually ON your social media page trying to interact at all.

This can turn your audience off quickly. People want CONNECTION on social media. That’s why they are following your brand in the first place! When you auto-post from Instagram to Facebook, you are showing your audience that you do not want to make the effort to be on that platform and interact with them. (Tough love? Maybe.)

Also, auto-posting communicates that you didn’t have the time to be on the platform, tweaking the captions as they should be. Your posts come across as hasty and sloppy looking.

I think it’s safe to say that “sloppy-looking” is NOT the look we are all craving on our pages!

So, you may be wondering if it’s possible to be using your same posts across multiple social media platforms at all.

The answer is, YES.

You may share the same “message” of the post. Only tweak the wording, look and feel so that the post fits in.

Let’s do some comparing and contrasting of Instagram and Facebook.

Videos

Facebook lets you post almost any length of video, from very short snippets, to long-form episodes. In fact, they encourage more long-form videos, claiming that those get more interaction and engagement.

Instagram allows you to post videos, but limits the length to 60 seconds. At the end of the video, it simply loops for the viewers.

*TIP: It’s possible to use the same video on each platform. You could post the longer video as-is on your Facebook page. And then edit a 60-second version for your Instagram page.

Links

Links are easy to use and post in Facebook. You can link to articles, things on your website, products, etc.

Instagram does not allow you to post links in your captions. If you do, they will just be text and will not be clickable. However, Instagram does allow you to have a clickable link in your bio.

*TIP: You can use the same link in both your Facebook and Instagram content for the day. Post the link as normal in Facebook. Then write a snippet about the link (kind of a teaser) in your Instagram caption and tell your audience “Link in Bio.” Then edit your bio to include the link you would like your audience to visit. After that day or so, you can edit your bio once again, changing your link back to what it was previously.

Hashtags

Hashtags are the absolute key to getting discovered on Instagram. This is how you insert yourself into people’s newsfeeds and start to gain your following.

Instagram supports using hashtags – in fact you can include up to 30 hashtags in your post. You can intersperse some in your post as it makes sense, and then include several at the end of your post.

To learn some more about what hashtags are, and some best practices, head to this article here.

Facebook, on the other hand, does not support hashtags as well. Though you will see people using them now and then, they just aren’t very effective. Since most people’s pages are personal pages with privacy settings on, you can’t “insert” your post into their Newsfeed simply by using hashtags.

TIP: You can post the same, or similar content on both Instagram and Facebook, just delete the hashtags before you get to Facebook!

Now that we’ve covered some differences, here are a few things that should always be the SAME on both your Instagram and Facebook pages.

Be Personable

People want to get to know YOU. They want to connect with the people behind the brand. Most people are not looking to follow a purely corporate-looking social media feed.

Be funny, be thoughtful, be knowledgable, be transparent.

Show people your personality, no matter whether you are on Facebook or Instagram (or any other social media platform, for that matter!)

Give, Give, Give, Ask

As a rule of thumb, only “ask” something of your audience about 20% of the time. The majority of your posts should “give” to them.

You could “give” to your audience by making them laugh, giving them information, teaching them something, making them think about something, caring for them, or evoking any sort of emotion through your post.

Quality over Quantity

No matter which platform you are posting on, you need to be putting up your BEST. Don’t just put up clutter and noise in order to meet your number-of-posts goals!

Focus on making great posts, even if that means you post less often.

Consistency is Key

Now that you are focusing on QUALITY posts, make sure you are posting consistently. This can be as often as you’d like, as long as you are consistently there.

Now, notice I didn’t say you have to post a hundred times per day. Even if you are only posting once a day or so, make sure you are regularly there.

This is how you will build an audience and show them that you are not leaving when life gets busy.