The differences between Facebook and Instagram

The two main social networks on the internet are definitely Facebook and Instagram, those with a higher number of subscribers and active people. Although for many things they seem evident, going inside the functioning of these two social networks it is interesting to note what the most relevant differences are.
Understanding the differences between Facebook and Instagram can help users (even those who do business and companies) in choosing which one to use, what to publish in one or the other and how to interact with other people. With this article we try, therefore, to examine the two most popular social media sites and explaining how they differ from each other, especially in their main purposes.

What is Facebook "> connected with known people with whom you can also chat via Messenger.
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What is Instagram?

Instagram was born first of all as a smartphone application for sharing photos and images . Currently, Intagram also allows you to share videos and publish stories, which have become the strong part of the social network. The stories, which are also present in Facebook but are clearly less used, allow you to share special moments and are different from normal posts because they disappear after 24 hours. Instagram has become a fundamental tool for brands, companies and VIPs, because its "engagement" or the ability to reach interested users is higher than Facebook.
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Differences between Facebook and Instagram

The photos

Facebook is a generalist site that allows users to create online profiles, share photos and videos, send messages and stay in touch with friends, family or colleagues on a common platform. Instagram works like Facebook but is primarily a photo sharing application.
If you want to publish photos you can decide to publish them on Facebook or Instagram, with the difference, however, that Instagram is used to share a few photos made well with the aim of attracting as many views as possible at that moment, while on Facebook it is more suitable to also publish entire holiday albums to be kept over time and not necessarily shared to attract likes. In addition, Instagram requires high-quality photos, which are special and enhanced with photo editing tools. If you don't have photos to publish and if you don't take a little time to make them beautiful, it is almost useless to use Instagram (if not to see the photos of others). Instagram isn't even suitable for posting memes or images made of text, which on Facebook have always been very successful in sharing. In other words, if you find a funny image on Google, this can be shared with satisfaction on Facebook, but not on Instagram, where you are required to publish your own photos. Instagram therefore requires to be unique and creative, unlike Facebook where instead few contents are unique and original.

The videos

Today's Facebook has become a video platform with the clear intention of competing with Youtube. There is a special section dedicated to videos where you can see the ones with the most likes, the funniest or most interesting ones, seeing them one after the other. You can then use Facebook to share original videos without length limits, as long as they respect copyright. On Intagram, however, videos can only be published in short form, in stories with a limit of 15 seconds or in profile with a limit of 1 minute.
Both platforms, then, allow you to go live video shot with in-app cameras from your smartphone. The difference between Facebook and Instagram live videos is that on Facebook the video can remain saved in the profile, thus becoming permanent and letting it be commented on in the following days, on Instagram, however, the videos that went live disappear after 24 hours. . While live videos on Facebook seem preferable, on the other hand on Instagram, when you go live, you send a notification to all followers (while on Facebook it only sends it to some friends) and the video is also shown in the stories section, giving more chance of being seen.

Sharing information

As for sharing links, blog posts or other informative content from newspapers or other sources, Facebook works well and gives users full freedom. On Instagram, however, it is always necessary to share an image or a photo, under which it is possible to write a free text. Instagram, however, is not made for sharing links, which are completely prevented. It is therefore not possible to share blog posts or external web pages on Instagram and external links cannot be published. The only way to share links is to use your own biography, which is the only Instagram space where external links are clickable. The possibility of creating clickable external links in the stories has also recently been added, but this is a function available only for those with more than 10, 000 followers and verified accounts.
Facebook, which is therefore the best social network for publishing links to sites and blogs, also allows its users to create and plan events and to have a more in-depth biography that includes personal, work information etc. Facebook is also useful for creating advertisements for things for sale and for participating in small groups that do not exist on Instagram.
An important difference between Facebook and Instagram is also in the re-sharing : on Facebook it is normal to re-share posts and images of others, on Instagram instead this cannot be (or better could not) be done. The Instagram account is personal and concerns one's own activities and not those of others. it's about you and your business, not everyone else's content. So don't fill your feed with other people's posts.

Groups and communities on Facebook and Instagram

Although content sharing is the common goal, the two platforms have different approaches to networking. Facebook is made to stay in touch with people who know each other and this also applies to groups. For example, you can join a group with your fellow students, with work colleagues. Instagram, on the other hand, allows you to follow topics and people who publish images on things that interest us such as pets, photography, fashion, films, women, technology, travel, cooking etc.
A fundamental difference between Facebook and Instagram is in the way in which it is possible to focus only on the topics that interest us . There are groups on Facebook, you can follow interesting pages and famous people, but the news that appears in the flow concerns a little bit of everything. For example, just add a like to a movie or brand to see all posts about that movie or brand in the main stream, which could get quite boring. Furthermore, people who write about things that do not interest us can be added as friends, thus causing even more disturbance in the flow of news. On Instagram, however, you can follow a certain topic and see only the images on that, with a total filter level. As a consequence of this, we can add another difference on how Instagram should be used to publish photos where generalist accounts (those who always share different photos such as selfies, food, travel or other) do not like them.

Difference between Facebook friends and Instagram followers

In Facebook you can get in touch with other people by asking for their friendship that must be approved. On Instagram, however, there is no need to ask for the approval of a friendship to see what a person publishes, you just need to follow him and become his follower . On Instagram, however, it is possible to set up a private account and approve one by one the followers who want to see what we publish, a bit like happens with the approval of friendship.
As a follower you can see all the photos and published images (unless the account you followed has published with restrictions) that you can also comment, like or save in your account. Both on Facebook and on Instagram you can prevent posts and photos from being visible to everyone, making accounts private and only visible to friends or approved followers. On Facebook it is possible to create groups of friends, while on Instagram you can send a photo only to a group of friends through the function of the direct message or Direct.
The way tags appear is similar on Instagram and Facebook, so if you tag someone in a post or photo, it also appears in their profile (unless the feature has been blocked in the settings). Only if an Instagram account is made private, if someone tags or mentions this person without being an approved follower, he will not even receive notification.
Instagram pushes users a lot to publish photos, comment and tag so that everyone can see, while on Facebook privacy plays a fundamental key for users. This difference makes Instagram a more advertising-oriented platform, while Facebook wants regular users to participate without necessarily putting the things they do in the square.

Mobility for Facebook and Instagram

Unlike Facebook, Instagram is almost entirely based on apps for smartphones and even if it is possible to open Instagram on the PC, it is not possible to publish photos from the official website (unless you use tricks to upload photos to Instagram from PC) .

To whom the posts on Facebook and Instagram are addressed

When you publish a photo on Instagram, the interested public is mainly made up of young people, while Facebook is more used by more mature users, with a higher age. Young people want posts focused on a topic that can be women, men, travel, sports, cooking, dogs or cats and are bored with reading news that speaks a little about everything. Also on Instagram there is little room for politics and current affairs, because it is not a social network made to comment and discuss these things.

Hashtags

Instagram is all based on hashtags, i.e. keywords with the # symbol. As explained in the past, hashtags can also be used on Facebook, but they still remain rather ridiculous and insignificant today. The hashtags on Instagram, on the other hand, are extremely advantageous because they allow the public to find our images based on the keywords and discover us.

Conclusion: Which is better between Facebook and Instagram?

Obviously, this question cannot have a single answer: those who want to spread their own photos will prefer Instagram, while those who want to share news and thoughts are better off on Facebook. Instagram is all about photos and videos, it is an application for smartphones that is based on the current moment, without creating memories. Instagram is clean and without clutter, there is no risk of scams, you only look at photos of what interests you. Facebook is multifaceted, it allows you to do anything, to publish posts and articles from newspapers, to create and participate in groups, share photos and videos, to see long videos of all kinds, to create events, to chat with friends, to wish birthday and much more. Facebook is for everyone to talk about anything, Instagram, however, only for those who want to create original content and therefore promote a particular and specific passion, a product, a brand, a place or photos of himself.
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