Cross posting is when you share similar content on different social media platforms like Facebook Instagram, YouTube and Linked in. While It sounds easy, if you do it wrong, it can make your company look bad, so it’s important to understand how cross posting works best, when mapping out your ‘quarterly social media content planner’.
What is cross posting?
Cross posting is a technique that most social media managers use to save time and resource when they schedule posts. It also helps streamline your social media content and gives you the opportunity to repurpose your content across your multiple platforms so that you can get additional exposure across multiple social media channels, without any additional time and effort.
Cross posting is good for:
· Gyms with smaller marketing budget
· Startup companies with founders managing social media channels
· New gyms that haven’t developed a lot of content
· Content creators who want to free up hours to devote on creating more engaging content
Is there a good Cross posting app?
Hootsuite composer is what I use for my social media channels and it allows you to customize one post for multiple social media networks on the same interface. This means that there’s no need to start from scratch if you want to compose a social media post.
How do you do this?
1. Login to Hootsuite and go to the Composer tool
2. Select the accounts you want to publish on
3. Add your copy in the initial content box
4. Refine and edit for each channel by clicking on the icons next to the initial content
5. Once you are done, click on schedule for later or post now
One good thing about Hootsuite is that it gives you a hint on the best time to schedule post, the times when it will probably get the most engagement.
How to avoid looking spammy when you cross post
As I mentioned, cross posting may look simple, but there are certain caveats that you need to understand in order to avoid looking spammy to your audience.
Not editing your message for the specific requirements of each network and posting the exact same message on all your channels makes your look amateur and untrustworthy because of the robotic message.
So how do you cross post in multiple networks?
Every social media platform is different. So, when cross posting you need to understand these differences and learn how to speak their language.
For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram each has a unique parameter for posting and you need to take these into account when you are cross posting.
For example, when posting on Twitter, you have to be aware that there is a 280-character limit when posting and you have to tailor fit your content to fit this length.
When posting images, you have to know that each platform has an allowed image size, so make sure that the image you use for each channel fits these requirements.
Here are other parameters that you need to look carefully into when you are creating content that you want to cross post
· Clickable links
· Vocabulary
· Hashtag use
· Audience
· Messaging
· CTA
DO NOT post the exact same message on multiple platforms because your audience will get bored when they see a repeated post and your social media posts will come across to them as flat and dull. The time you save on cross-posting is not worth losing the attention of your audience.
What you can do is customize for each channel by changing up the captions a bit, adding or removing hashtags, and changing up the images for each channel although it’s about the same content.
Be creative and show your social flair!
