INSTAGRAM: The Difference Between the Gram and Facebook

Now that we’ve covered a lot of Facebook, let’s move on to another social media app—Instagram. Instagram and Facebook are both owned by the same company, called Meta (recent update, the parent company used to be Facebook). Instagram was bought by Meta in 2012, making the apps more compatible, and allows users to share content to both platforms at the same time.

However, being owned by the same company isn’t always a great thing. Many of you may have noticed a major social media outage on October 4, 2021 if you use multiple social media channels. Many channels went down… all apps owned by Meta including Facebook, Instagram and more.  

Basic Difference

While Facebook has it all (text, images, videos), Instagram is all image/video based. Instagram is appealing because it is a more visual social media channel—perfect for people to share their photos, artwork, videos, and more.

Instagram is made for phones—you can access on a computer or tablet, but the experience will not be the same. The reason is to entice people to post while in the moment of whatever they are experiencing. Despite the name, Instagram isn’t always done “instantly” as many share photos or content after the fact, especially to stay safe. Instagramming (yes, it is a real word now) is the action of sharing photos or videos to the Instagram social media channel. This has grown over the year to being able to only share a square photo, one at a time, to now being able to share multiple photos (a carousel), changing the orientation of your photos, sharing videos, and now the capability to create stories and reels.

How Instagram has Grown

In the early years of Instagram, it was popular to add filters to images, but now it is less of a trend. Now people can add filters and effects to their stories and reels to be more engaging to their audience. As of the writing of this blog, videos are gaining popularity and are ruling supreme on the app, meaning they get more views.

What Do You See on Instagram?

What exactly will you see on Instagram? Instagram is a little different than Facebook because you don’t have to be “Friends” with anyone. You can follow whomever you choose, and they can choose to follow you back or not. When you Follow an Instagram profile, any new posts they share will appear on your Feed. The Feed is what you see as soon as you open the app.

Many individuals have private profiles, so to see their images, you would need to request to follow. Many brands, celebrities, and such have public profiles so you can see their posts, even if you don’t follow them. However, if you don’t follow them, their new posts will not show up in your feed.

If you follow a profile, their stories will also show up at the top of your Feed—similar to Facebook!

Keeping it Visual

Instagram keeps things simple and visual by minimizing text. You can post something and add a caption and hashtags, but that is about it! Your profile is very limited on space to show who you are, and your profile is the place where you can share link.

Many people have been creative to format their captions in other apps before the copy/paste into Instagram and have one link that leads you to a hub of all their links. Currently Instagram is working on rolling out new features to Instagram Stories to help people share links, but previously it was only available to profiles with thousands of Followers.

Interacting on Instagram

Instagram makes it super easy to tell someone you like their post. As you scroll on your phone, to “like” a post, all you must do is double tap the image. There is also a heart option under the image. Unlike Facebook, you don’t have the option to react differently, it is only a heart. You can comment on the post and share it (depending on settings).

I’ll go over more ways to interact, share, and explore in next week’s blog. If you are wondering what a hashtag is, I encourage you check out the next blog!