A few weeks ago, I talked about choosing the social network that was right for you. At the end of the article, I made the point that it’s better to do well in one social network than poorly in many. Let me delve into that a bit more – if you have multiple social networks, sometimes one of them falls by the wayside. Maybe you forget to check Twitter for a few days, or you don’t update your company’s LinkedIn page as often as you should. It happens. But what you should avoid doing, at all costs, is regurgitating the same content across multiple social networks.
The practice, known as cross-posting, can be very popular for companies with multiple social accounts and an inexperienced social media manager. After all, it is so much easier to create one post and publish it on all channels instead of creating unique content for each network. But there’s a problem – ideally, people follow you across multiple social networks. While you do want to expand your audience, increasing engagement and building relationships with the audience you already have is helpful. So yes, it’s good if your Facebook followers are also reading your Tweets. But you know what’s not good? If they see the same content on both sites, worded the same way. Did you write an amazing blog post that you want to share as widely as possible? Great, do it! But don’t write the same update for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest – your followers will think that you’re slacking, and probably get irritated by the repeated content. Instead, take a few minutes to come up with updates tailored to each network.
Take this post, for example. On Facebook, I’ll write something like this:
“We’ve got a new post up on the blog. Go take a look, and find out if cross-posting your content is hurting or helping your social media. https://markleisherproductions.com/2013/12/why-the-cross-post-is-killing-your-social-presence/”
Facebook will create a nice preview of the site, with the image that I’ve chosen as the header. Perfect!
On LinkedIn, I’ll try to make it more applicable to the professional crowd:
“Cross-posting seems like the perfect answer for a company just starting out in social media, but it may actually be hurting your reputation. Read our latest blog post to find out why. https://markleisherproductions.com/2013/12/why-the-cross-post-is-killing-your-social-presence/”
Again, LinkedIn will create a preview of the post. But notice in my teaser, I ask people to think about how they can improve their own performance, and promise to tell them. I’ve brought a problem to their attention and offered them the solution, which conveniently exists on our own website, increasing our traffic.
Now Twitter is a bit different. Your character limit is much shorter, so you have to figure out a strong lede – something that captures attention and makes the follower want to click the link. A little bit of sensationalism is ok, but avoid going all out – posts written in all caps come across as over-the-top and attention-seeking.
“What is the poisoned chalice of social media marketing? You might be surprised…bit.ly/1GInfr5”
Remember to always shorten your links for Twitter – you don’t want them to use up more of your character count than absolutely necessary.
The next time you’re planning to cross-post your content, take a minute and think whether it will really help you accomplish your goals, or if it will irritate the audience you’re trying to connect with. If your audience feels badgered by your repeated posts, even great content will be ignored.