Positioning strategy of Facebook and Instagram
Facebook and Instagram are on Mount Rushmore of social media networks. Regardless of their differences in origin, both share the same purpose: serving as a socializing platform. No smartphone lives nowadays without at least one of the apps of these networks. Being a relatively younger market, social platforms have quickly adopted the constantly innovative and progressive mindset. Eventually, their popularity arises from a thorough understanding of the target audience and on-point and clever marketing strategy. For discovering reasons behind the success, let us see how Facebook and Instagram gained their fame and worldwide usage.
Let us start with discussing the target audience of Facebook.
Analyzing the following commercial will give us more understanding of the target audience of Facebook.
The commercial is very energetic and motivational. Video features street basketball enthusiasts connected in a Facebook group of people with speech impairment. The group’s name is “DeafHoops”, and it is a place for deaf people who share common sports interests. Moreover, the plot of the commercial tells how people with speech impairment socialize, communicate, and gather around common leisure activity.
The backstory is how our heroes combine their passion with their shared uniqueness. Accordingly, it is fascinating how a Facebook group creates so much value for these people. It fills their day with what they love and with people living similar lifestyles. Basketball is an indivisible part of their day, during work, socializing or free time, regardless of circumstances. By analyzing this commercial, we conclude that Peacocks is the targeted segment for Facebook.
Target segment: Peacocks
Lifestyle and Values:
People in the Peacocks segment tend to always take care of themselves and build a character for others to see. It is very important how others perceive them, who are people around them, and these affect their lives at large. Their leisure activities often reflect their concern for how others perceive them, and eventually, this fact influences their appearance greatly.
Peacocks are outgoing and social, and these characteristics shape their activities and reflect their persona. As appearance is one of the distinguishing factors for Peacocks, gym and sports present major value. It backs up the fact that Peacocks strive for greatness and waste no effort in maximizing success and minimizing failure. All of this builds up their self-confidence and helps in building a character that stands out in the crowd.
Attitude to Shopping:
Shopping is of great importance in Peacock’s life, as it contributes to appearance greatly. Therefore, they are active and careful in choosing and purchasing clothing. High-quality products are in their priority list, as it helps stay believable in their circle. Staying loyal to a brand is common among the representatives of this segment. Loyalty is both prestige and a statement that it reflects personality and development. Walking with trends is another preference describing Peacocks because it can contribute to appearance as well. Besides clothing, Peacocks love to decorate their lives with flashy accessories, which of course, reflect their character.
Marketing Strategy of Facebook.
Facebook values a thoroughly designed marketing strategy because it deals with the largest online community in the world. More than 2.7 billion active user base worldwide is no joke, and the strategy must address their dynamic needs. Additionally, Facebook must ensure the expansion of the community.
That is why their marketing strategy includes establishing alliances with telecommunication companies to increase the number of active users. Their advertising campaigns usually include a demonstration of the platform’s features and certain social groups. The features may be advertised as a clear attraction to that specific social group, which we saw in the commercial “DeafHoops”.
In the background of all these characteristics, Facebook has built a model of growth, which serves as the key to their success. The core feature in the model is maximizing the free content on the platform, so people are less hesitant to pay for other services. For instance, Facebook allows users to demonstrate any activity when it comes to page content. As a result, Facebook captures the widest range of users and provides targeted advertising opportunities to almost every type of business.
Problem Removal
Facebook’s priority is to address day-to-day user preferences and serve as the perfect mediator between their lives and social presence. It has evolved and now gives a chance to build a global online profile accessible from anywhere in the world. Facebook solves the problem of socializing and getting information on what your Facebook friends are up to. The information visible via Facebook is very organized and replaces the time-consuming and sometimes difficult methods of getting info.
The mission of Facebook is to build a community and bring the world closer together. Facebook users can connect to people from all over the world, share messages, photos and news. Everything becomes closer to the user, and it simplifies communication and socializing processes. Besides all the attractive features, it is about the experience. Facebook’s idea initially was to take life experience to the online world, and they succeeded in doing so.
Social Approval
Facebook being the dominant social platform, its primary obligations are to be responsible to and respective of the society. With their sustainable behavior throughout the years, Facebook has earned the trust and acceptance of users. As they are dealing with personal data, security and safety are of most importance. Facebook ensures that it utilizes no data without user permission. A large team is working on the security of Facebook’s content. Any harassment, hate speech, violence and other forbidden content has no place in Facebook.
Such a global company is also responsible for improving the world around them. It rather became a point of parity among companies with worldwide coverage. Facebook promotes social responsibility programs, connects people and strengthens communities. Eventually, they enjoy the trust of their users and get opportunities for growth in return.
Message Strategy
Discussing the above Instagram post of Facebook’s account will give more insight into the message strategy of the company.
The video posted on the Instagram page of Facebook features founder Yuri telling the story of FitMix Communities. She tells how she came up with the idea of FitMix, and how Facebook served as the primary channel for popularizing it. The post description includes quotes of the author itself, and another part emphasizes the role of Facebook. Yuri’s story is truly inspirational, and it shows how Facebook values serving as a platform for bringing change. The proof of that is the slogan at the end saying “A community voices story”.
The analysis of the post brings to the conclusion that Facebook has adopted the Everyman (Regular Guy/Gal) brand archetype. This brand archetype stands for equality, democracy and group identity. The goal of this archetype is to belong to the community, to fit in and establish connections with others.
Now, let us understand one of the targeting strategies of Instagram․
For identifying the target audience of Instagram, let us analyze this commercial of the company.
The video shows a chain reaction of moments captured in stop motion. They all have things in common. All of the moments are in a beautiful frame on a white wall. Each photo represents a moment of enjoying life, creating a joyful environment, and friends hanging out together.
The music accompanying the video is so distressful, cheering, and describing a moment, similar to the characters in the commercial. They seem careless about what is going on around them. All these characteristics show that Instagram targets the segment of Breakouts.
Target Segment: Breakouts
Lifestyle and Values:
Representatives of this segment are people for whom money and reputation are the signals of success. Moving up in career, and therefore, in life is their primary objective. Material goods and money are signs of living a successful life. On the other hand, it is difficult for them to accumulate wealth, because they spend money without thinking.
Enjoyment is the focus of Breakout’s life. The goods surrounding them and the money they earn are means of fulfilling personal enjoyment. Taking risks and a love of adventure shapes their behavior in public. The majority of their free time consists of hangouts with friends, especially in active places like pubs and discos. All of the mentioned above contribute to building an image, which is of high importance for the Breakouts.
Attitude to Shopping:
Life values of Breakouts shape their preferences in shopping as well. People in this segment are likely to be amongst the early shoppers. The reason for that is the possession of the product before it loses the hype and gets more widespread. Spontaneous purchases are typical to Breakouts, especially when it comes to items, which contribute to building status.
Breakouts tend to follow trends, prefer more mainstream brands of high quality, but usually cannot afford premium brands. They are not loyal to brands and are keen to switch between brands and exploring.
Marketing Strategy of Instagram
The marketing strategy of Instagram is around the idea of giving users the platform to present their lives through photos and socializing. Since the beginning, Instagram tried to stay as relevant and simple as possible.
Surely, because of the variety of media types nowadays, the platform became more complex, but the usage principles did not suffer. People can still post photos or view others’ easily; Instagram did not betray its core operating principles. By targeting people who want to share their life moments with others, Instagram provided them with all the tools necessary.
The variety of content is another strategic move. Instagram was always unhesitant in adopting the usage of progressive and innovative types of media. Stories, reels, long Instagram TV videos, alongside traditional formats, give opportunities to deliver a limitless variety of content.
Instagram page on Instagram. It may sound strange, but Instagram has its page with more than 390 million followers. The page usually features content aimed towards social impact and telling interesting user stories about unique personalities.
Problem Removal
An exciting and attractive application like Instagram also succeeds to simplify activities in life. Being one of the biggest socializing platforms, Instagram is enjoyable to use simply because of the ease of use. Its simplistic design and comfortable UI provide the best experience. Unlike other apps and social networks, Instagram’s feed consists of only media (photos, videos, reels). Instagram preaches simple and beautiful photo sharing that reflects the life of users.
With the help of Instagram, uploading photos became easier and enjoyable. Additional filters and editing options made the app more versatile, giving an opportunity to modify and design photos. It opened more room for creativity and diversified the content posted on the platform. Besides solving problems for ordinary users, Instagram opened many business opportunities. Companies started posting content stressing the visual aspects of their business adjusted to Instagram’s style and users’ preferences.
Social Approval
Such a large social platform like Instagram is responsible for serving society and getting its approval. Instagram champions various social initiatives and serves as a platform for voicing global issues. Besides addressing the issues, Instagram tends to gather resonance around problems and reach wider audiences.
Message Strategy
The analysis of this Facebook post from the Instagram account will help us understand what message strategy Instagram uses.
The post is in the style of a typical photo on Instagram. Simplicity, quality, creativity, and joy are the first impressions after seeing the post. The uniqueness of the post is how the drawn human mouth suits the cat so well. Besides that, cats, dogs and other pets are perfect heroes of Instagram posts․ Post has no caption and it shows how simple and effortless it is to create a joyful post suitable for Instagram.
Analysis of this post shows that Instagram belongs to the Creator brand archetype. This archetype stands for creativity and imagination, develops artistic control and self-expression. The motto of the Creator archetype is “If it can be imagined, it can be created!” The motto claims once more that the brands of this archetype preach visualization of imagination.
In conclusion, Facebook and Instagram are two progressive, flexible and customer-oriented social media platforms. They stay loyal to their core value of being the servants of users for connecting and coming together. Undoubtedly, they have their constantly improving marketing strategy for providing superior value to users and gaining their satisfaction in return. Adaptation to evolving needs of customers is one of the key points in that strategy. That is it, be sure to check out the main page of our website for more posts like this.
