Is it ok to crosspost? Don’t take the easy way out
Cross-posting social media content used to be all the rage for businesses with limited time and resources, but those days are over.
At first glance, cross-posting makes sense. You take one piece of content you’ve created for social media and post it across all your platforms simultaneously. It seems like a no-brainer, but it’s not so simple.
In short, with so many social media platforms today, all platforms are doing different things, so you should avoid cross-posting in 2024. Instead, consider how to repurpose your existing content to make it work on multiple platforms.
TL;DR: Everything to know now
Why do people cross-post social media content?
Social media cross-posting used to be all about saving time and money. However, the times have changed. A Thread post is very different to a Facebook post.
Throw in Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn and YouTube, and you have a recipe for a cross-posting disaster.
Why is cross-posting social media content bad?
Apart from boring your audiences with identical posts across all your channels, there are a few technical and strategic reasons you shouldn’t cross-post content.
Platform specifics
Short, snappy Threads will translate poorly over on LinkedIn. Blog-style content looks out of place on Instagram. Learn the language of your channel and tailor your posts accordingly.
Each channel formats text differently and has specific image sizes and character limits.
For example, Threads only allow 500 characters, whereas Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters. Instagram favours a 4:5 portrait aspect ratio, whereas landscape photos look great on Facebook and LinkedIn.
You can also include URLs in Facebook captions but not in Instagram captions.
Sometimes (rarely) cross-posting social media content can work if you’re careful and have double-checked for any of the above discrepancies. For example, a portrait photo with a simple caption might work across both Instagram and Facebook.
If you are going to be cross-posting social media content, keep the following in mind:
- Are your hashtags relevant?
- Are the images the right size?
- Are all your links working if the platform allows links?
- Is the target audience the same on each platform?
- Do you have a strong CTA, and does it make sense on each platform?
What should you do instead of cross-posting social media content?
Cross-promotion is a far more strategic method of sharing content across your social channels than cross-posting.
It involves creating unique messages for each social channel rather than posting one message to all.
Think about the strengths of each platform and lean into these. For example, TikTok is suited to short and snappy videos, whereas LinkedIn is best for informative captions about your business.
Does that content need to be posted twice?
Have you considered your content okay to be posted on just one platform?
If you have an audience that follows you on multiple platforms, the last thing you want to do is annoy them by cross-posting social media.
Final thoughts
Before posting any form of content to any social media platform, ask yourself a simple question: why this platform? If you can’t answer that simple question, perhaps you need to rethink your content strategy.
An audit lets you know if your content engages your audience, aligns with your business goals, and delivers a consistent style and voice to your followers.
