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The 4 Biggest Differences Between Facebook & Instagram Ads

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So you want to advertise, but you’re not sure which of these two mega social media platforms is “best” for your business.

Well, to be honest, no matter how much your budget is… who your audience is… or what you’re offering… 

The answer is BOTH… and IT DEPENDS.

This article will explain why as well as give you the 4 biggest differences when creating your ad on both platforms.

Now in case you didn’t know, Facebook & Instagram are owned by the same parent company, which now goes by the name Meta. 

As a marketer, this is great because it makes advertising on both platforms super easy. Meaning, if you want to run both a Facebook ad and Instagram ad, you can get your ad on both platforms with just a few extra clicks (see below)… and possibly some minor tweaks to what your ad says and looks like (more on that in a moment).

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The 4 Biggest Differences Between Facebook Instagram Ads

Let’s get clear on why “BOTH” is the answer…

Whether you’re new to social media advertising or you’ve been advertising for a while, it’s in your budget’s best interest to TEST any new offer or messaging on both platforms.

When you test both, every time you launch a different campaign, you will see that the results you get per platform will vary and are affected by many different factors:

  • Time and day you launch
  • Who your ad gets shown to first (even if you’re targeting the same audience)
  • Season
  • Competition
  • Ad Spend

That list could go on and on. And “the algorithm” is a tricky thing that can’t exactly be mastered because of it’s unknown and uncontrollable factors.

You see, if one platform was better than the other, everyone would be using that one!

And if you’ve heard that “your audience” may be on one over the other… you need to throw that thought out the window.

According to statista.com, “Facebook has roughly 2.93 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2022” and “is the most used online social network worldwide”.

Instagram, on the other hand, has roughly 1 billion monthly active users.

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BUT… no matter who your audience is, your targeting options are selected in Ads Manager the same EXACT way for both platforms… using the same EXACT data.

The 4 Biggest Differences Between Facebook Instagram Ads

It could be true that MORE of your audience is active on one of the platforms, but they’re definitely on both and that should not be your big deciding factor on where to put your ads… especially if you have a smaller ad budget.

What a smart marketer will do is test their ad on both Facebook and Instagram, review the results, and if one platform strongly outperforms the other, then you can move all or more of your ad spend over to that one.

In other words, using that data you collect is why the answer is also IT DEPENDS. So…

STEP 1: Test BOTH platforms

STEP 2: DEPENDING on the results, decide on continuing with one or both

But here’s where things get a little more complicated.

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Facebook ads and Instagram ads have several “placement” options! You saw about half in the gif above, but there’s really about 2 dozen of them. 

EXPERT TIP: If you’re just getting started, just focus on mobile Feeds & Stories. After you start seeing results you like, then you can test other ad placements.

Now there are definitely more than this, but the biggest Key Differences to be aware of when running a Facebook ad Vs Instagram are:

Video Length

Meta is always changing the rules on how long a video ad can be per platform and placement. The company does recommend running shorter videos, under 30 seconds. HOWEVER, take that recommendation with a grain of salt. Longer videos can still do very well IF they have a good HOOK (first few seconds that draws in your viewer), and is also helpful, entertaining, or both. That being said, I recommend going shorter when possible & keeping it under 2 min so you can run your video on both platforms without any issues.

Video & Image Ad Dimensions

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Again, this isn’t just a difference per platform. It depends on your ad placement. You can easily look up all the recommended aspects per placement (also shown while you’re creating your ad). But if you don’t want to bother with different dimensions for different placements, the most universal and best optimized ratio for your content is going to be either a 1:1 or 4:5 ratio with a 

resolution of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels.

1657924455 414 The 4 Biggest Differences Between Facebook Instagram Ads

Text Length

The written portion of your ad has limits on Instagram – with the maximum being 2200 characters and the “recommended” max being only 125 characters. You may hear that having shorter ad copy a.k.a. shorter text in your ads is better. On Instagram, I’d agree shorter is usually the way to go, but again… that’s not always true or necessarily often true. Don’t be afraid to hit that maximum if you’re a killer copywriter. Based on millions of dollars of data that I’ve seen, short and long text can perform equally as good, especially on Facebook. The biggest factor in how your text performs is how compelling and well-structured the writing actually is.

EXPERT TIP: Add an extra space between sentences. Use bullet points to make it look less overwhelming. Make it sound conversational (like you’re talking to a friend).

Text Location

On the Facebook News Feed, the primary text is above the button and video/image. On Instagram’s News Feed it’s below the button and image/video. And on Instagram Stories, it’s below the video but above the button. So if you’re directing someone on where to click, then make sure you navigate them appropriately by writing out “Click the button above” or “Click the ‘Learn More’ button below the video” based on your ad placement.

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1657924455 518 The 4 Biggest Differences Between Facebook Instagram Ads

It is important to note that Stories and Reels are quite different from News Feed ads and can be run without any post text at all. 

If we wanted to dive into all the differences between all ad placements, this article would be at least 5x as long… and would probably just confuse the heck out of you.

So for now, I hope this helped you understand the key differences, the importance of testing your ads on different placements, and not limiting yourself to just Facebook or just Instagram ads!


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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