With so much content being posted every second, the saturation of social media platforms today is enough to confuse anyone and questions like which platform is best for my business, how do I avoid platforms with a low Return on Investment take centre stage. Today we discuss the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn to help you make better placement decisions.
In general, Facebook is social, and laidback platform where you can share casual pictures and connect with family and friends. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a professional network which was originally a corporate recruitment platform. However, the LinkedIn team introduced a lot more features that have grown the platform into a business hub. These differences in between Facebook and LinkedIn greatly affect the target audience one can reach on each of the platforms, the type of messaging to use on each platform and the type of content to use for better engagement and greater Return on Investment.
Target Audience
Every Social media channel is known to have its own type of audience based on age, interests, location, and many more audience characteristics depending on what you are trying to achieve. With over 2.6 billion users every day, Facebook is known to be a mass-market platform which makes it the leading platform when selling mass-market products. On the other hand, LinkedIn is known to comprise of a very sophisticated professional audience seeking to connect with people and brands of high-value products and services.
This by itself should be enough to help businesses or brands decide on which social media channel to put their time efforts and budgets Business to Consumer (B2C) businesses should put more of their effort on Facebook because that is where you would find more end users for mass-market products. As for Business to Business (B2B) businesses, focusing one’s efforts on LinkedIn will be more rewarding as this is where you will meet business owners and decision-makers from different companies.
Messaging
The next difference between the two channels is messaging or copy. If you’re spending money on a Facebook or LinkedIn ad, you want to make sure it does its job. Good ad copywriting can persuade your audience to click through to your website. Good copywriting functions as a guide—it shows people where they need to go and whether clicking an ad will give them what they are looking for. Great advertising copy can persuade, excite, and entertain. It makes connections, cuts out excess information, and makes the choice to proceed seem obvious. It is an essential part of a successful ad.
When coming up with messaging for your online ads, it is important to always note the following:
- How well versed is your audience on your product?
- Will your audience understand the wording you used in your Ad?
Facebook users are there to connect with their friends, get entertained and catch up on life in general. For a marketer that uses Facebook as a marketing channel, friendly wording recommend and avoid the use of technical vocabulary, just keep it simple. As for LinkedIn, it is important to create professional Ads using clean, professional and direct messaging that speaks to the professional audience. Always remember that you are reaching out to a sophisticated audience.
Type of Content
Everyone wants to follow a page or account that shares great content. Great content is good but at the end of the day, your audience should be able to relate to your content.
Organic Content is known to work for all social media platforms from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more, however a decline in Facebook and LinkedIn organic reach has become a reality that marketers have to accept. More content is being published than there is news feed space for it to be shown. There are more than 30 billion pieces of content published every month on Facebook hence Facebook provides only the most relevant content to each user. Facebook and LinkedIn are also in it to make money; hence they will be willing to push content to a greater audience for a paying customer over a non-paying customer.
This leaves marketers with no option but to promote and boost content to get tangible results. For even better results, a balanced marketing mix with both content and paid media will do the trick.
There is so much that can be said on the differences and similarities between LinkedIn and Facebook. For more information on how you can use Facebook or LinkedIn to market your business, don’t hesitate to reach out to us on here.