“LINKEDIN VS FACEBOOK”

Guided by

PROF. AVIJIT MONDAL

ASBM University Bhubaneswar, Odisha

NAME: SONU NIGAM PRADHAN

ROLL NO: MBA/20-22/50
SEMESTER: 4TH
SUBJECT: BUSINESS ANALITICS

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Facebook and LinkedIn are two of the biggest social media platforms and provide
a number of opportunities to reach your audience. This leaves us with this
question: Which one should you focus your efforts on?

We’ll cover the pros and cons of each platform below.

LinkedIn vs. Facebook for Business

Let's recap quickly.

At its core, LinkedIn is a professional network that was initially created as a

corporate recruitment platform. Now, it boasts many features similar to
traditional social media sites, including status updates, blogging capabilities, and
private messages.
It’s also the most effective platform when it comes to delivering content and
securing audience engagement.
Facebook, on the other hand, was specifically designed as a place for people to
share and communicate. The "sharing" element is its most prominent selling point,
but there are still plenty of other features that allow businesses to effectively reach
their audiences.
In fact, one survey by Facebook found that 74% of American consumers use the
platform to discover new products and brands.
LinkedIn and Facebook both have the Groups feature that allows you to connect
with other like-minded people, and they both have powerful ad setups.
So with similar features, what are  the key differences between the two? We’ll
cover those here.
Numbers-wise, Facebook wins hands down.
Facebook has an astounding 2.8 billion monthly active users (MAU) across the
world, which makes LinkedIn's 64.7 million MAU seem small in comparison.

On both platforms, the biggest age group is 25- to 34-year-olds, according to 2021
data from Statista. However, Facebook has a wider range of users with roughly
10% falling below 18 years old or above 64 years old.

This is because LinkedIn caters mostly to professionals looking to network

whereas Facebook hosts the everyday consumer.

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Furthermore, the 2020 State of Marketing Report by HubSpot revealed that
marketers see the highest return on investment from Facebook, with LinkedIn
being the 4th highest out of 8 platforms.
LinkedIn is a stronger B2B platform.

As mentioned before, LinkedIn is a go-to spot for business-driven individuals. As

such, it’s a great platform for business-to-business brands.

Here’s a breakdown of why:

o It’s easy to identify key decision-makers (and reach them in ads).

o Social selling is embedded into the platform.

o It’s easier to network as the platform was built specifically for that purpose.

In fact, eMarketer reported that LinkedIn occupies the largest share of B2B

display ad spending at 32%. But we’ll talk more about ads in this section.

Facebook may work better for brands that want to reach consumers directly. In
addition, you gain access to ten times more prospects and have a great place to
generate brand awareness and engagement. So, while Facebook leads in numbers,
LinkedIn takes the win when it comes to generating tangible leads.

Thought leadership happens more organically on LinkedIn.

Thought leadership is one way brands are gaining credibility as well as visibility.
According to a 2020 Thought Leadership Report by Survey Monkey, 66% of
marketers consider it a top priority within their marketing team.

A thought leader’s role is to educate, encourage conversation and drive action. The
same study shows that thought leadership programs help with lead generation and
brand awareness efforts by increasing website traffic, media mentions, subscribers,
and more.

When it comes to thought leadership articles, LinkedIn has a leg up. The platform
is already designed for business conversations. As such, brands can have more
success with thought leadership content compared to Facebook.

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So, here’s a quick recap:

o Facebook pros: Large user base, proven ROI

o Facebook cons: Isn’t the best for B2B marketing
o LinkedIn pros: Business-driven platform, social selling and networking
tools, great opportunities for thought leadership
o LinkedIn cons: Smaller user base

Now that we've taken a general look at the two platforms, let's take a more detailed
look at some of the key features they have for businesses.

LinkedIn Groups vs. Facebook Groups

The Groups feature on both LinkedIn and Facebook gives businesses the chance
to mingle and connect with prospects and other like-minded businesses.
However, it's critical to keep in mind people's motives when they're on different
sites. When users are engaging with others in LinkedIn Groups, there's a high
chance they're in a work-related mindset in some capacity.

In Facebook Groups, on the other hand, people are more likely to share their
personal opinions on everything – from lifestyle and food to politics and hobbies.

So, when determining which Groups feature is best for you, think about the
audience you're targeting.

For instance, if you're targeting general consumers with an interest in cooking

because you're selling the latest food blender, Facebook Groups is probably the
way to go.

However, if you're selling a high-priced service for top-tier management personnel,

LinkedIn Groups might be a better bet.

Both Facebook and LinkedIn provide a diverse range of ad types, including

carousel, video, and lead ads. Since Facebook has a larger user base, your ads are
capable of reaching more people. With Facebook, you can also target based on
more personalized information, like behaviour or life milestones. However,
LinkedIn offers its own targeting capabilities and is better at lead generation for
businesses.

Finally, let's touch on the ads aspect of both platforms.

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In terms of variety, both platforms have reached pretty equal footing.

While Facebook has boasted a diverse range of ad types for years (we're talking
canvas, carousel, video, dynamic, and lead ads just to name a few), LinkedIn now
also offers several ad formats, including video, carousel, lead, dynamic, and
Sponsored InMail ads.

Each offers a user-friendly ad manager. This means that you can start organizing
your creative assets on a content marketing platform like Casted, then build your ad
in just a few steps on either LinkedIn or Facebook.
Targeting-wise, if you think Facebook has the capability of reaching more people,
you're right. However, this doesn't mean that LinkedIn doesn't have powerful
targeting capabilities.

Both platforms are centered around user input and serve up ads and content
relevant to the information their members give them.

On both Facebook and LinkedIn, you can target users based on job title, household
income, company, location, and age on both platforms. Where Facebook has the
upper hand is that you can dig a little deeper on Facebook, targeting users
depending on their life milestones, behavior, and other personalized information.

In addition, both platforms allow brands to use source audiences to reach

consumers who are similar to their current audience. Facebook calls it "Lookalike
Audience" while LinkedIn has named it "Audience Expansion."

Lastly, it's important to consider the cost.

Typically, you get more for your money on Facebook. According to WebFX, the
average cost-per-click for a LinkedIn ad is a whopping $5.26, compared to just
$0.97 with Facebook.

However, a higher cost doesn’t necessarily translate to a higher return on ad spend

(ROAS).

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Who Wins? You Decide
While LinkedIn and Facebook do share common features, it's clear their purpose
and audiences are quite different.

Which one you decide to use depends entirely on what industry you're in, who
you're trying to reach, and your marketing goals?

It’s also important to note that you don’t necessarily have to choose. Perhaps you
use LinkedIn for a targeted lead generation campaign, while you use Facebook to
increase brand awareness and engage with your customers.

According to me I’ll prefer Facebook.