Social media marketing is a fantastic way of increasing brand awareness, engaging with clients and customers, improving SEO and reaching a wide, large and varied online audience. However, in order to be successful on social media, you need to post high quality and engaging content regularly. This can be time consuming and complex, especially if you are posting images and videos alongside written content, which is why a lot of people turn to cross posting.
What is Cross Posting?
A lot of marketers try to save time and money by posting the same content to multiple social media networks, and it’s easy to see why. Social media marketing can be a time consuming process, and it’s a lot quicker to simply post the same thing on each of your social media networks. This is called cross posting, and it involves writing one piece of copy and posting it to all of your social media accounts. It’s something that a lot of businesses do and there are a range of benefits of doing so, but there are also various drawbacks to consider.
What are the Benefits of Cross Posting?
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of benefits that come with posting the same content to multiple social media networks, which is why it’s something that a lot of businesses do. For example, cross posting is an effective way of saving time and money. Instead of creating unique content for each platform – which can take a lot of time, which translates into a lot of money – you can create one piece of content, and then share it across multiple channels. Uploading the same post to multiple social media networks is also great for consistency, and it helps to reinforce your message and build brand recognition. By posting the same content on multiple platforms, you can maintain consistency in your messaging and branding.
It’s also a good way to ensure that followers see everything if they follow you on only one network; there is no chance of them missing out on an important piece of content, simply because they aren’t on Twitter or Instagram. Posting the same content on different social media platforms can help you to reach a wider audience and it increases the chances of reaching a larger audience. There are also SEO benefits to cross posting, as it can increase the number of backlinks to your website, which can improve your search engine rankings.
What are the Drawbacks?
Though there are some obvious benefits of cross posting, using the same copy to post to multiple social media networks does have its drawbacks, and it’s something that a lot of marketers advise against. Not every network is created equal, and what works for one network is unlikely to work quite as well for another network. They have different purposes and timeline algorithms, and they tend to favour different types of content. Just because something works well on Facebook, doesn’t mean that it will work quite as well on LinkedIn. For example, Twitter is ideal for short and snappy posts and TikTok is focused on videos. Therefore, it’s unlikely that one piece of content will work equally well on both platforms unless changes are made.
There is also the chance that followers could get bored if they follow you on multiple platforms. After all, no one wants to read the same post three or four times in various places. It’s also likely that your audience on each platform will have different preferences of expectations, and posting the same content could end up disappointing one or the other.
How to Manage Multiple Social Networks
There are a few key things that you should be doing to manage multiple social media networks, including specifically adapting and selecting posts for different networks. Instead of simply posting the same copy to each network, create unique posts with the individual network in mind. Consider adapting a post to use differing amounts of text, depending on where it’s being posted. The length of a video could also need changing, especially if you are posting on TikTok or Instagram where shorter videos are usually preferred. On Facebook and LinkedIn, people take the time to read paragraphs of text, but people on Twitter prefer quick captions and headlines. Though you don’t need to create a completely new post from scratch, there are benefits to amending each post to ensure it fits what the individual network is looking for.
Cross Posting on Social Media – is it Worth it?
There are a lot of platforms that make it easy to post on multiple social media networks – for example, Buffer and Hootsuite, both of which are popular and regularly used by marketers – but it’s worth taking the time and effort to tailor your voice and content. Though this will take slightly longer and does require more preparation, it’s likely to lead to better engagement online. It’s unlikely that you will be penalised for cross posting on social media, but it could hold you back from reaching your full potential.
There is no denying the importance of social media marketing, but it can be a time consuming task to manage. Not only do you have to create the social media copy itself, but you need to find the time to post and upload, and then do so at the optimum time. Unless you have a lot of experience with social media marketing, it can be a daunting part of digital marketing, but Profici is here to help. At Profici, we provide professional social media marketing services, taking the pressure off of you to stay on top of things. Regardless of the type of business and industry, we can handle every aspect of building a strong social media presence. Get in touch to find out more.
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