Cross-posting refers to posting similar content across various social media platforms. Social media managers cross-post to repurpose content, save time, and streamline our posting strategy.
Simply duplicating a post for all social media platforms, however, is not best practice and can sometimes come across as spammy or robotic. You will want to consider the following when tweaking your content from platform to platform:
Links
Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to have clickable links within your post. While Instagram, on the hand, doesn't allow links in their in-feed posts so you will want to refer people to the "link in the bio". You'll also want to make sure the link in your Instagram bio is updated based on the content you have planned. Linktree allows you to put multiple links under one link so you don't have to update the link in your bio everytime you mention a different service.
Hashtags
Remember that each platform requires a different hashtag strategy. Not all platforms allow the same amount of hashtags, for starters. You can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram, but TikTok and Twitter have lower character limits for captions, therefore about 2-5 hashtags seem to be the sweet spot. You don't want the entire character count to just be hashtags now either! Check out Hashtag expert for trending hashtags relevant to the different platforms and build custom hashtag bundles for Instagram.
Length of your post
We mentioned it briefly above, but some social media networks have shorter character limits than others. Therefore, you'll need to approach the content in your captions a bit differently. Your Twitter post, for example, may refer people to a website if there is a lot of information to relay. On Facebook, you may choose to share all of the information directly into the caption because the character count is much higher. It's important to remember that these social media networks want to keep their audience from jumping off onto another website so the more you use their features and the longer you keep people on your social media page engaging with your content the better!
Audience and messaging
Each platform naturally caters to different demographics, so it's best practice to adjust your messaging accordingly. On Facebook people within the 40+ age range tend to be more active, whereas on Instagram you hit more of a millennial audience and TikTok is primarily Gen Z.
Posting Times
Lastly, consider the best posting times. Hint: it's not the same across all platforms! If you are using a scheduling platform, you will likely have suggested times to post on each platform, which is an awesome feature to take advantage of. Or, you can check out the analytics within the social media apps to see which times your audience is more active on the app.
Image & Video Sizes
This is another important thing to consider, all social media platforms will push out your content as long as it fits and displays well within their platform! Vertical, full screen videos are ideal for Instagram and TikTok while horizontal videos don't take up as much real estate on the app and therefore won't perform as well. If you have any question regarding the optimal sizes for images or videos, check out Canva. They have designs in various different dimensions optimal for each platform.
Although cross-posting can save you time, these small adjustments can really make a big difference. As always, with anything social media marketing related you'll want to keep a close eye on the analytics to evaluate your results and adjust accordingly.