Buying followers for social media: the Pros and Cons, and what you need to know

Companies selling instant Follower or Liker boosts have been around almost since the dawn of social media itself. In the early days, we assumed that these companies would die out as users got more sophisticated and more able to spot those accounts whose “popularity” was entirely faked.  That hasn’t proven to be the case at all; in fact, the industry in fake followers seems to be thriving.

So, can buying followers ever help a business be successful on social media? Are all bought followers the same? What are the implications on the different sites of boosting your account in this way? We know you’re wondering:  here are the answers!

What am I buying?

First of all, it’s important to recognise exactly what you’re buying when you purchase followers. In the vast majority of cases, you’re gaming the number that appears in your account bio – your number of Twitter or Instagram Followers, or Facebook Likers.  The number itself will be bigger, but that is the limit of the benefit you’re getting. The accounts won’t belong to real consumers in any normal sense.

The basic level – bargain basement followers

The organisations selling these followers, often based around “click farms” in parts of the world where labour is extremely cheap, have hundreds of people setting up fake accounts constantly.

The “quality” of those accounts (ie, the effort they’ve gone to to make the account look like a real user) varies from the “egg avatar with randomly generated name” type through to those which would stand up to some very brief scrutiny – that is, they have an avatar pic, something written in more-or-less coherent English in their biographies, and a handful of generic and usually nonsensical posts.

Once you have paid for the number of followers you want, the supplying company will just follow your account with the purchased quota of fake accounts. You should NOT have to supply your password in order for this to happen!

Here are the pros and cons of this cheap’n’cheerful approach:

Pros:

• These accounts will generally continue to follow you, as they’re not being used by real people;
• They make your account, particularly at a quick glance, look more popular than it actually is.

Cons:

• To anyone who bothers to look, it’s usually totally obvious when an account has purchased these followers.
• Apart from the sudden jump in numbers, the accounts themselves just scream “fake” in terms of their meaningless biographies and nonsense posts.

Below is a perfect example of a fake follower account on Instagram. Implausible name – check. Meaningless biography – check. Incoherent and random posts (and only a few of them) – check. Following a high number of people in order to get a few to follow them back – check, and very low ratio of followers to people being followed- check again.

Followers for hire

Another approach that some of the more expensive follower-sellers take, is to incentivise real users to follow your account. This can be just with a payment, or some other kind of incentive such as search credits on a directory site.

Pros:

• As they are actual social media users, there’s a (small) chance that they might read some of your content, and your product or service might happen to be suitable for them;
• They look like real, organically acquired followers to anyone examining the account

Cons:

• As the incentive is for the initial follow, this type of account is likely to unfollow over time as they purge their timelines of content that’s of no interest to them.

The real issue with bought followers

So we’ve looked at the pros and cons of artificially inflating your account’s popularity with different types of users, but of course there are much bigger implications. The only significant, long term benefit of doing this, is that your account looks more popular than it is, which may in turn influence the kind of people who regard that as an important signal. And don’t take a closer look to see who all those thousands of followers are. Therefore, you may gain some followers who wouldn’t otherwise have bothered with you.

The big downside though, is much more potentially significant, and the exact implications vary according to which of the sites you’re buying followers for.

In all cases, the number of additional followers you gain (who are maybe really interested in your product or service) will likely be a small number compared to the number of fake accounts you’ve bought. So you now have a follower base that’s the opposite of what you should be aiming for with social media – engaged advocates who are likely to show a return when you put effort into creating good content.

Now pay us to access those dead end accounts!

And where it really gets bad is if you’re going to do any paid for marketing, which these days is pretty much crucial to your long term strategy.  Twitter and Instagram (to a lesser degree) and Facebook (to a significant degree) all employ algorithms which restrict your access to your own follower base. Putting it simply, there’s no guarantee that a particular piece of content will be seen by all your followers…unless you pay for that to be the case. But unfortunately, none of the sites have a tick box for “just charge me for showing this to my *real* followers“. So you’re stuck with forever paying to show posts to that big set of fake accounts , in order to get to the handful of genuinely interested followers who are mixed in with them.

On Facebook, the situation is significantly worse. Being able to recruit your keenest and happiest customers to your Facebook page, and then market to them *and their friends*, is the real marketing gold. The social network of your existing customers is a wonderfully self-filtering group of people who are much more likely to also enjoy your product, than the average person picked off the street.

As soon as you buy followers, not only are you going to end up paying to show your posts to them, but you either have to stop using the “friends of Likers” options or end up paying to put your content in front of all the accounts who are linked to your fake followers, too. Ouch. Expensive, and self defeating.

And putting a dent in your Algorithm results…

In addition, most of the social media sites give your account some kind of a ranking figure (which you won’t ever be able to access) which influences how much priority your content is given in the timelines of your followers. Exactly how the algorithm works is very much a trade secret, but we’re pretty sure that engagement levels will be a big factor. And engagement levels are calculated by comparing your total follower numbers to the number of likes, comments etc you receive on a typical post.

So, if you’ve gained 1,000 followers organically but then become impatient and bought 10,000 more, the next time you post something, even if Jesus and the angel host are personally on your side, your engagement levels are going to look terrible because 10,000 of your followers are never, ever going to engage. So you are effectively handicapping every future piece of content you post.

(Bear in mind, that if you sign up to a social media agency who buys followers for your account, the same will apply – and you won’t necessarily be able to reverse it without binning your account and starting again from scratch….so watch out for providers delivering implausible growth rates!).

Is it ever worth it?

As with most things, there are some circumstances where buying followers could be a valid strategy – and we’re just talking from a marketing effectiveness point of view here, and leaving aside the ethical issues of cheating / misleading the public…

For example, if you need an account to look impressive in the short term, for whatever reason, and have no intention of doing paid for marketing through that account or building on it long term for genuine engagement.

If it’s on a site where you’re not really expecting commercial returns, but are using it just to influence brand perception (Instagram fits that description for some businesses).

If raising your follower numbers is the “be all and end all” for your management then yes, buying followers will accomplish that goal.

But overall, tread very very carefully. Once you have thousands of non-genuine followers mixed in with your hard-won real followers, it’s difficult to go back.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Firstly, the basics. In simple terms, “Influencer marketing” means “finding someone who your target customers pay close attention to, and inducing them to talk about your product or service to that group”.

The way that a business does that might be entirely organic – for example, by providing the influencer with amazing service – but is more usually either by providing them with a covetable freebie  in return for a review, or simply paying them to discuss something specific.

In both of the latter cases, the influencer should disclose that they’re benefitting from the arrangement, although not all of them do.

Can smaller businesses get involved in Influencer Marketing?

At one point, this meant contacting “offline” celebrities and negotiating with them for exposure, and tended to be more the preserve of larger businesses. But since the rise of social media, and particularly Instagram, influencer marketing has become much more accessible to smaller brands.

That’s for a few reasons, but mainly because the pool of “celebrities” has become much larger and more diverse. Instagram has allowed many “ordinary people” who have knowledge and enthusiasm for particular business sectors, to develop large and active followings.  We call these people “micro-influencers”.

So while you might not be able to afford a Kardashian’s fee for promoting your new range of swimwear, there may be a handful of Instagrammers who are realistically accessible to you – and may prove to be more, er, actually influential.

Why are Micro-Influencers different?

Firstly, and most obviously, they tend to have a much smaller number of followers.

You might even be talking about closer to 1,000 followers on Instagram than 100,000.

They’re often more focused in terms of what they post about (for example, skincare for teenagers with acne, or fashion for over 40s) which naturally reduces the pool of potential followers for them – this might be chicken or egg with the follower numbers!

So why might engaging a Micro-Influencer be a better option for a business?

Well, to start with, they’ve already narrowed down their audience – meaning that if they’re a fit for your brand, it’ll be a much stronger fit. So continuing the example of the Over 40s Fashion influencer,  if you’re marketing classic, modest swimwear then their smaller and more focused audience is a bonus for you: it just means you’re not paying for exposure to teenagers who’ll never buy your product.

The smaller size of a micro-influencer’s community also means they tend to be a lot more accessible to, and engaged with, their followers. Plenty of accounts start out by responding to comments and requests for advice from their followers, but as they grow, that often dries up.  So in fact, a huge name in beauty blogging is less likely to achieve a single effective recommendation of your mascara, than someone who has a smaller community.

In fact, the drop-off in engagement levels as an account’s following increases is really pronounced. Have a look at this graphic from Takumi.com:

Of course, regardless of the number of followers, they still need to be highly knowledgeable and respected by those followers.

And finally, Micro Influencers are more accessible to you as a smaller business.  Someone who doesn’t consider themselves a social media superstar is much more likely to be receptive to gifts or review requests, because they probably receive far fewer of them!

What types of business benefit most?

For this to work for your business, you need there to be an active and engaged community around your niche on Instagram. If there isn’t a suitable community, there won’t be micro influencers.

We don’t want to generalise too broadly, but the kinds of niches where Instagram communities exist tend to be those which are discretionary purchases (so a new lipstick rather than a new fridge), often with an element of luxury; lack of transparency in brands’ “traditional” marketing is also a flag for this, as it leaves consumers craving personal recommendations with a higher level of trust. The Beauty sector is an obvious example of this.

Another study by Experticity found that the categories most recommended by micro-influencers are:

• Sporting and outdoor gear
• Fashion and footwear
• Fitness, nutrition and wellness
• Beauty

How do you evaluate a micro-influencer?

So, you’ve identified some accounts who are creating content that’s highly attractive to your niche audience, have a reasonable number of followers, and appear to get some engagement from their followers (ie, most of their posts get Likes and comments).  Before you decide to invest in working with them, there are a couple of other things to watch out for.

Firstly, do a quick sense check of those followers. Click through to some of the followers’ biographies and posting grids; do they look like real people? Buying followers is rife on Instagram and it’s easy for the unwary to be fooled by a fraudent account.

On a related note, look at some of the comments being left on their content. Seeing a large number which are incongruous, inappropriate, or repetitive, may also suggest that the account owner has paid for that activity. (Side note: even the best Instagrammers are afflicted by other users making use of bots to get their attention, so the odd follower who posts “Wow, amazing!” on every post shouldn’t be taken as a black mark – provided the genuine engagement is there too).

Then, look at how the Instagrammer engages. Is the conversation more than superficial? Do they answer questions properly and maybe provide recommendations or advice? Those are your Influencer gold!

And finally, watch out for the “sellout” Influencers. These users may have started out creating content around products that they personally love, but as their following grew, they got sent more and more freebies, until their feed just becomes a litany of random products with no quality opinion, just a parroting of what the manufacturer says. These accounts may have some use but they’re not going to be read as avidly, or be percieved as so trustworthy, as a genuinely passionate user. And while we’re on that subject, you also need to be prepared for the fact that the influencer *may* criticise some aspects of your product or service.  Remember, trust and honesty are their major assets, and are why you wanted to work with them in the first place. So if they don’t like your product that much, they should explain why (and hopefully, who it might be suitable for). But ultimately, you have to accept their opinion.

So, hopefully that has given you a start in understanding Micro Influencers – now, you just need to find that community!

From a brand of this size, this is very significant, for a few reasons. Firstly, because they are acknowledging that misleading practices are widespread – and in our own experience, the beauty industry is at least as bad as any in this respect, maybe worse. Secondly, they are admitting that brands have a role in perpetuating that fraud, by creating the demand that “influencers” respond to.

From a marketing professional perspective, this is fantastic news. If more PRs and brand clients had been making educated decisions about who they pay for influence within the social media ecosystem, we would very likely not be having this discussion at all.

But here we are, and mainly because of the longstanding practice of setting influencer payscales mostly or entirely according to their number of followers, rather than, say, rewarding them with a proportion of any sales resulting from their work. As a consequence, it’s wise to regard any social media account with unaccountably large numbers of followers, or whose every banal uttering on Instagram is met with disproportionate enthusiasm, with great suspicion.

That has had a massive and toxic impact on the whole sector. Clients look at these (literally) unachievable numbers, apparently generated by doing nothing particularly clever or out of the ordinary, and they demand that marketers achieve the same thing for them. Potentially, marketers are put in a position of choosing whether to pay their own mortgages or stick doggedly to doing things the right way – which will pay dividends eventually, but often well after a client has lost patience.  Other social media users ( your would-be Influencers) have to choose between a lucrative push-button option to bulk buy followers, and the slow and arduous route of building a genuine following through creating great content.

Everything gets distorted by those “dishonest business practices” that Keith refers to.  I know we as a business will have lost potential clients in the past, because we don’t have an enormous Facebook following. The reason for that is that we have chosen not to invest in the resources required to build one honestly – ie, ongoing high quality content creation in the social media space. That takes time from good people, and those good people need to be paid, and those costs would have to accrue to the fees we charge our clients. We hope that our potential clients will look beyond those particular numbers, take time to chat with us and evaluate our expertise and approach in a more meaningful way – but there’s no doubt that somewhere along the line, some won’t have done. Is there a temptation to cheat the numbers? Of course there is!

The illusion of widespread but inexplicable popularity on social media itself spawns other scams. People who want it to work for them can’t see any explanation for others’ success, which makes them easy prey for practitioners who claim to have a “secret formula” that they can either teach or deploy at will – for a price.  The truth is, there is no secret formula, and success depends on the same basic factors that have been around since God was a boy – understanding your audience, having a great product, consistently generating good quality content that your audience enjoy, and ensuring that you take best advantage of the opportunities for visibility that each platform offers.  Quite often, this news is surprisingly unwelcome…

So where does this leave social media marketing? The thing is, that none of this changes the fundamental uniqueness of what social media marketing can do. There has never been a single, unified communication platform of the size of Facebook or Instagram, since time began. There are real opportunities for effective marketing and laser focused targeting that can’t be found anywhere else, and at a cost which is very hard to equal through other channels.

BUT

As marketers and as clients, we have to be satisfied with “just” those unparalleled opportunities. Stop trying to believe in the unicorns, and take the word “viral” out of your vocabulary (in most cases, at least).

UK Social Media Statistics for 2017

The tree is down and the tinsel is wilting, so it must be time for our annual review of social media use in the UK at the start of 2017.  We do this for two reasons: one, because statistics that focus purely on UK based users can be hard to come by, and two, because it also helps us clarify our own “hunches” about how things are going for each of the major sites, and use that information when we’re working with our business and third sector clients in the UK.

There’s also some good news: UK specific statistics have become a little easier to find this year. Props must go to agency We Are Flint for carrying out their own primary research during 2016, complete with actual transparency about how the research was carried out (link below to the entire report) and Statista.com is also offering a decent amount of open source information. We’re grateful to both organisations for those contributions, as well as the other source sites linked within this post.

UK social media in 2017: general thoughts

We talked in our last annual update about the fact that the mainstream social media market is now mature. Nothing has changed there; there haven’t been any significant upsets this year, and it’s been a while since a genuinely “new” entrant offered anything different. The “Big 3″ in the UK (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) have more or less stayed static in user terms for several years. Apart from a potentially interesting Twitter vs Instagram clash, the only action is around the smaller players and ancilliary apps like Snapchat which we see more as utilities than social networks.

We’re going to kick off this year with two charts that we think contain the most crucial information for social media strategy planning if you’re a UK business: Total UK Users by Site (based on the current “best estimate” as described below, where the site has not provided figures), and the percentage of those users who log in daily.

Remember, a registered user who never goes onto the site isn’t going to be a viable target for your marketing!

UK Facebook Users 2017

So let’s kick off our indepth review with the Big Daddy, Facebook. Once again the overall number hasn’t budged all that much; we’re looking at around 32 million user accounts in the UK. That’s been pretty steady for around three years now. We Are Flint’s report puts the proportion of over 18s in the UK who use Facebook at 78% – so still, after all these years, probably the single most consolidated channel available to marketers for accessing most of the population in one place (after snail mail, which surely only those printing their own money can afford these days!).

We also have, courtesy of Statista.com. a nice breakdown of the demographics within that figure, which does offer some interesting observations. No, Facebook probably isn’t “cool” any more. My ageing Samsung Galaxy, if it was ever cool, certainly isn’t now either, but that doesn’t stop me using it constantly.

Looking at these stats, the same is true of Facebook: the largest demographic is the 20-29 year olds, clearly showing that it’s not just everyone’s Mum using Facebook these days.

With organic post reach now sitting at around a measly 10%, the major area of interest for businesses using Facebook now is the development of new types of advertising, and the fluctuation in cost. This year we’ve seen enhancements or new introductions in ever more sophisticated ad targeting – Lookalike Audiences, Dynamic Ads and a whole suite of options around remarketing to website visitors. For large ecommerce sites this is a godsend. For smaller businesses, anecdotally it seems as though the cost of reaching the standard 1,000 eyeballs, or achieving a good volume of link clicks, is on the increase. This may be partly due to the more targeted types of advertising being more costly, which is not unreasonable if the results match up to their promise.

There are numerous studies showing that social media advertising is by far the cheapest medium.  Ad Espresso tell us that overall CPM on Facebook actually declined during 2016, but there are so many factors influencing what any individual business will spend that it’s almost inevitable that your mileage will vary. As an aside, if you’re interested in what factors affect your ad spend, and how they affect it, Ad Espresso have a superb report here covering every aspect, from ad placement to the demographic being targeted, and the day and even hour that the advert runs in.

UK LinkedIn users 2017

Like all the mature sites, LinkedIn’s growth is also slowing, but there is still some growth. Last year we had a figure of around 19 million UK users; this year the figure is 21 million. You can see LinkedIn’s own global figures here.

When planning your strategy, though, it’s important to remember that the average user uses LinkedIn very different to the way Facebook’s average user uses Facebook. And that’s why you won’t see too much emphasis on metrics such as “monthly active users” or time spent on the site in an average month. Unless they are actively job hunting, or actively using LinkedIn as part of their job role (think Enterprise software sales execs), we believe that most people who are registered with LinkedIn, don’t necessarily touch that account for weeks at a time.

Again we’re going on anecdotal evidence with a pinch of common sense – by its very nature, LinkedIn’s content offering doesn’t begin to compare with how compelling Facebook’s is, where users are on the site multiple times each day exchanging banter with their social networks or just surfing for something to cheer themselves up.

UK Instagram Users 2017

Instagram themselves haven’t released any new data since that which we used in last year’s report, giving us 14 million Monthly Active Users in the UK, from a global MAU figure of 300 million. The global figure was updated in December 2016 to an impressive 600 million, but it would basically be a total guess as to whether the UK’s growth has kept pace with the global growth.

It’s hard to tell at this point whether Instagram is continuing to cannibalise Twitter’s market, particularly among the younger demographic – that seemed to be the case in previous years, but the research that we’re referencing here doesn’t really support it.  Which is good from a marketing point of view, because the lack of native “retweet” function and inability to include links in a post, means that driving anything other than general brand awareness is harder work on Instagram!

The We Are Flint survey suggested that 29% of UK adults use Instagram, which would give us a figure around the 19 million mark.  The same report also gives a proportion of 64% of users as being under 30 – but gives the same figure for Twitter, which has generally been considered to be an older demographic thus far. Even more interestingly, Instagram has something of a peak in the higher income brackets (though not as much as Twitter does); 46% of users reported a household income of over £48k per annum.

From a general strategy point of view, Instagram has joined Facebook and Twitter this year in filtering which of your followed accounts’ posts you actually see. That seems a clear pointer that in the not too distant future, you can expect to be paying Instagram for any kind of guaranteed reach at all, in the same way we now have to pay for reach on Facebook.

UK Pinterest Users 2017

We’ve not had anything directly from Pinterest this year on the subject of UK user numbers, so the stats below come from third party research.

All the indications though are that Pinterest’s early period of stellar growth has definitely stalled.  Although Pinterest did tell us that their global MAU figure was up to 150 million in October of 2016, just 5% of the UK population log in to Pinterest on a daily basis.

Interestingly, at some point the Pinterest user demographic has got a LOT younger. In the US, and in the early days of UK use, older (as well as more affluent) users were in the majority. In 2017 however, research from both Statista and We Are Flint suggests that 50%+ of Pinterest users are in the 18-29 age bracket.

The female gender bias has persisted however, with 38% of women who are online reporting that they use Pinterest, whereas only 20% of men say the same thing.

In terms of how people are actually using the site (which should give you some clues as to whether your business will be commercially successful there), here’s a useful summary from Pinterest’s CEO, Ben Silbermann :

Pinterest is more of a personal tool than a social one. People don’t come to see what their friends are doing. (There are lots of other great places out there for that!) Instead, they come to Pinterest to find ideas to try, figure out which ones they love, and learn a little bit about themselves in the process.

UK Twitter Users 2017

Twitter did provide a very minimal status update around the middle of last year, which gave a global MAU figure of 313 million, and 79% of those accounts being outside the US. That would be sufficient to keep them ahead of Instagram in the global rankings, just.

Other independent research gives us figures of 45% of UK Online Adults using Twitter, with 37% of those account holders logging in daily.  Using the ONS figure of 45.9 million for the UK’s online population, that would give us a user base of around 20 million.  That seems plausible, if maybe a little generous, compared to the last “official” UK figure of 13 million which was provided in 2013.

The same research reports a surprisingly young demographic, too: 64% of users are 18-29, 57% 30-49, and 33% 50-61.  The more affluent citizens are also over-represented on Twitter, with 62% in the 48K+ household income bracket – bearing in mind that the median UK household income this year was just over £26k.

If you’re interested in how people are actually using Twitter, there’s a really good, and up to date, report here from the BBC.  From that we learn that a relatively small number of highly active users dominate in terms of posting content – 1% of accounts are responsible for 20% of all tweets, and 85% of all tweets are accounted for by just 15% of total accounts.

The number of actual tweets sent each day has remained almost constant since 2013, despite increases in monthly active users. So, if you’re planning a campaign on Twitter, be aware that there are a *lot* of users out there who read but never post!

So there we have it: the social media landscape for the UK in 2017. As ever, we hope it’ll help you plan your strategy – and if you need some help figuring out what you should be using and how, get in touch!

Credits

https://weareflint.co.uk/uk-social-media-demographics-2016

www.statista.com

www.social-media-co.uk

But although they are both visual platforms, there are important differences that need to be understood if you want to make the most of each of them. The way they work, who uses them and what for, will all affect the kind of content that is most effective.

So in this post, we’re going to highlight the differences you should consider when building your Pinterest and / or Instagram strategy. No matter what your business is, by the end of this article you should be able to figure out which content to put on each platform.

Pinterest vs Instagram: Who’s using them?

Although we don’t have tons of detail about the user base of either Pinterest or Instagram – particularly for the UK – there are some broad differences that are fairly well documented.

On the whole, Pinterest users tend to be relatively affluent, of working age, and there is a strong bias towards female rather than male users.

Instagram use is more evenly split between men and women, and the users are often younger – teenagers up to mid 30s are the most strongly represented.

Pinterest vs Instagram: What are they using them for?

Understanding the way that consumers (note – not businesses, we are getting “inside the head” of your customers here!) use each platform, and the mindset with which they approach each, is particularly key to using them smartly. Some areas to think about:

– Curation vs publishing. While some users will upload their own content to Pinterest, it’s more common for them to collect and share other people’s. The themed “board” structure of Pinterest really encourages this, whereas Instagram has no equivalent; it’s not possible to save images against different topic areas in the same way.

Instagram is the direct opposite in this respect. It’s impossible to create permanent collections of images. It’s difficult even to share other people’s content at all: there’s no native “regram” function currently, which would be the equivalent of a Twitter retweet or a Facebook Share, although workarounds are possible. So, the vast majority of content in any user’s published stream will be generated by them directly.

-active vs passive consumption. The different ways that users relate to content on the two sites are also mirrored by the way they consume other people’s content. Curation implies actively searching out relevant content, whereas the constantly updating Instagram feed encourages the user to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Pinterest also has a more comprehensive search function, which again encourages more active and engaged use of content.

– shopping vs browsing. There’s good evidence that many users on Pinterest are in “buying” mode – they are actively looking for something specific (a scarf, a holiday resort, a gift) and will often click through to the item’s website and complete a purchase.

Again, the Pinterest Search function supports this, as does the ability to link images directly back to a sales page on a website; on Instagram, the only place you can put clickable links is in your biography, and then only the one.

Pinterest vs Instagram: the Time Factor

The other major difference between the two platforms is the way that they handle chronology.

On Pinterest, the “age” of an image is of almost no significance; it will still be available to view whether it was uploaded a year or a minute ago, and provided it’s being actively shared, is still likely to be being shown to additional users.

On Instagram, the likelihood of an image remaining “active” – being viewed, shared or commented on – beyond a roughly 5 hour period is pretty small. That in turn impacts on the kind of images you find on each platform; if a shot of your hotel’s Bridal Suite is going to be passed around the site potentially for years, you better make sure it’s the best it can be. Hence Pinterest images are often that bit more polished and professional. If the same shot is only going to be in circulation for a few hours, then a quick snapshot of the housekeeping team putting the final touches in place before the bride and groom arrive is entirely appropriate, and provides a more fun and informal insight into your hotel.

Pinterest vs Instagram: which content do I use where?

So, hopefully you’re already seeing how you should split your content across the two sites. There’ll be some images, for sure, which are absolutely suitable for both, and we’d never say that you can’t cross post. But if you’re using the same content in both places the whole time, you’re probably not going to engage your audiences as effectively as you could.

To sum up, the key things to consider when deciding where to put an image:

– Does it have a “lifespan”? A beautiful, professional shot of your people, products, or services in action, deserves a permanent home on Pinterest. There’s no harm in Instagramming it too, but that’s a better place for those “snapshot” insights into your brand or world.

– Can people buy it? If you’re looking to drive sales directly, you’re much more likely to do that with a well-crafted Pin (take a look here for our guide to optimising Pinterest) than an Instagram shot. Your instagram feed should be working hard for you to develop your brand image and associations rather than direct sales; you can publish a volume of content on Instagram that’d be bewildering on a Pinterest account, so that’s a the place to run wild with your aspirational / cool / inspiring but not-directly-related-to-products pictures.

– Who do you want to see it? You’ll more likely hit a young, male, urban audience on Instagram.

– Are you looking for a conversation? Instagram, in the main, is a little “chattier” than Pinterest; perhaps partly because of the lack of sharing options, users may be more inclined to comment directly on an image. That can be useful if you’re looking for feedback.

– Are you developing a theme or telling a story? This is much more effective on Instagram. A linked series of  real time images can be very powerful in creating a sense of place or ambience, or building excitement, and that effect is a great deal stronger in an up to the minute feed than pinned to a board.

We hope that’s helped you understand the “under the surface” differences between Instagram and Pinterest, and how to apply those to your business content!