If you have read any of our past blog posts, you can probably sense how we feel about the importance of social media for business. Whether it's for PR, news, or anything of that nature, a business must try and sculpt their content to their social media channels in order to utilize their full potential. Going deeper, this means not posting the same exact content for each platform - underlying the main point that they are all different. The same goes for advertising purposes.
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece with a comparison of TikTok vs. Snapchat for business. Today, similar to that one, I will be comparing Facebook and LinkedIn advertising (but you already knew that if you read the title). 😉
Subsequently, I will be focusing solely on the advertising perspective. If you are a little shaky on the differences between advertising, marketing, and PR, check out our past blog post here.
Let’s dive in 🐬
Per usual, your audience is your main driver 🚗
It is important to understand that certain social media platforms are molded to different user-bases. For example, TikTok is a platform for the younger generations and is used as a production of video entertainment. The same concept goes for Facebook and LinkedIn.
It is fairly well known that Facebook is a much larger platform and has more traffic opportunities for every post. On the other side, LinkedIn may have fewer users, yet it can thrive greatly if the correct audience is in play. If you have used LinkedIn and Facebook before, you understand that LinkedIn is a much more professional environment. It is tailored and catered towards business professionals. If your target audience is specifically targeted towards business professionals, LinkedIn may give you a more interactive ratio despite the smaller user-base. However, if you are looking to get the highest number of views and sets of eyes on the advertisement, Facebook may be the way to go.
Now let's take a deeper dive and get granular here. You can also shape your advertisements towards certain characteristics of a viewer. Facebook can allow you to target people based on things such as different interests, liked pages, location, purchase history, etc. LinkedIn does the same thing, but with a professional twist - meaning company size, education, employers, etc.
Who/how big your audience is, or needs to be and how detailed you want them to be is a crucial part in deciding which platform to lean towards for your advertisement.
What about the logistics? 💸
What kind of ad and how much you are willing to spend is the next key differentiator between the two channels
Facebook is a much cheaper option at ￡0.74 cost per click, while LinkedIn falls at a much bigger figure of ￡4.02 CPC, according to WebFX on their blog post on the subject, however, their figures are in US dollars. If you are looking to run a cheap ad to catch as many clicks as you can, Facebook may be the way to go. LinkedIn can provide more complex ads, but they can come at a cost since the user-base is so much lower.
Facebook and LinkedIn have fairly different ad options. While Facebook has more options like video, photo, and messenger ads to name a few, LinkedIn offers ad campaigns like text ads and display ads.
For an interesting experiment on the two platforms’ advertisement capabilities, have a read at Medium’s experiment here.
The purpose of your ad can change everything
We have all heard of B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) and what you are trying to do with your company’s ad can play a major role as to which platform you use. It may be easy to think LinkedIn would be better for B2B and Facebook for B2C, as that is how the dynamic generally runs. However, before we get ahead of ourselves, every aspect of the ad plays a role in which platform to pursue; be it ad types, technology, etc.
Here is Element Three’s in-depth analysis of the two channels in terms of B2B to help train your train of thought in terms of the purpose/goal of your ad.
So, who wins?
It’s not that easy. Pros and cons can be weighed out and a winner could be attempted to find but it is truly up to you as a business and what the goal is. Both channels can thrive in different, or similar, situations. It is up to you, Jedi. 😉
If you ever want to come back and look at the comparison, but don't want to read all of this again, download Marketing Mojo’s fantastic infographic on this very comparison.
‼️ Check out the rest of our blog here and keep an eye out for future posts to help build your company’s PR ‼️
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About the Author
Trevor is a third-year Marketing and Finance student at the University of Colorado, USA, and joined GuidedPR as a Marketing Assistant. He has a passion for football, golf, and music as well as a grown appreciation for traveling. Trevor also loves meeting new people and leaving a positive mark on the world.
Find Trevor on LinkedIn.
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