Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Which Platform(s) You Should Be On

When you start implementing a social media strategy for your business, the first few questions to ask yourself are: Should my company be on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram?

These three social media sites offer significant opportunities to connect and connect with a network, increase brand awareness, and drive traffic to your site. But they’re also incredibly different in terms of purpose.

Ultimately, the purpose of Facebook is to connect people to their personal networks, including friends and family. People use Facebook to share photos, videos, and general updates about their lives.

Twitter, on the other hand, is used to share ideas, real-time information, and trending news. Although people can also use Twitter to connect with friends and family, they mostly use it for a bigger purpose – to connect with the world and discover what is happening (in 140 characters or less).

Instagram is used to share photos and videos. People mainly use this app to post their “highlight reel” and to follow friends and influencers. This is how users become part of a social media community.

Of course, the question still arises: Where does your company fit into all of this? To explore the pros and cons of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, we’ve made a comprehensive breakdown of the three platforms.

Read on to find out which platform is a better business investment for your company.

And what about Instagram?

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram users

Let’s start with a look at Twitter versus Facebook versus Instagram users.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram demographics

First, let’s look at the potential demographic your business could reach on each platform.

Here are some quick and informative facts:

Twitter demographic facts:

Facebook Demographic Facts:

Instagram Demographic Facts:

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram engagement

It’s equally important that you put quality before quantity – how long does each website’s audience stay on the platform? Or alternatively, how many minutes each day do you spend?

Twitter engagement facts:

Facebook engagement facts:

Instagram engagement facts:

With all of the above stats in mind, no matter how many followers you have, if you can target your audience with the right content, you probably have the best engagement rates on Facebook. Here are some research from Statista to prove it. This is an overview of the most popular mobile social networking apps in the US as of September 2019, by user engagement (minutes / month). Facebook wins by a considerable amount.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram usage

Here are a few things to consider when choosing the right platform for your business:

• With fewer than 140 characters to convey your brand’s message, you can think of Twitter as your company’s “elevator pitch”. What would you like to convey to your audience quickly and concisely?
• Facebook is your opportunity to connect more deeply with an audience. You can create full company pages, share videos and pictures, and further encourage potential customers to engage with your brand (for example, by offering a 10% discount if they “like” your company page).
• You can use Instagram to create an interactive community. This is the platform that users are more likely to interact with. People go to Instagram and expect to see influencers and follow brands they like.

Twitter advertising vs. Facebook vs. Instagram advertising

In general, you can reach larger audiences with advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, they offer similar advertising tools. In addition, Facebook Ads come with some impressive targeting tools that you can use to narrow down salary, buying behavior, hobbies, Facebook communities, and more.

The user interface of Facebook advertising is relatively simple and intuitive for the user. Facebook advertising can also be relatively cheap – in fact, Facebook points out that “some people spend more on coffee every day than they do on their advertising campaigns.” While this depends on the campaign you’re running, you can often budget as little as $ 2 to $ 3 per day.

Twitter also offers targeting functionsincluding buying behavior, language, interest and followers. However, Twitter advertising is usually more expensive than Facebook.

It can be worth the extra money, however – Twitter ad engagement rates can be up to 1-3%, much higher than Facebook’s average CTR of 0.119%.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram for businesses

In the end, it’s probably best to try Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for a while if you’re not sure which one works better for your brand. Over time, you will gain valuable insight into the performance of your posts on these sites so that you can spend more time on each other. Since they’re free to use, it can’t hurt to try all three first.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for completeness.