SOCIAL MEDIA Reposting WITHOUT CUSTOMISING COPY can reduce your brand experience for followers

Have you ever been scrolling your Instagram feed and hit a hyperlink that doesn’t work? It’s frustrating. Isn’t it? Or have you seen a post pop up in your Facebook feed with a stretched image and a tagged account that goes nowhere? That happens too. 

Reposting apps are becoming more and more popular as small and medium enterprise seek efficient solutions to keep up with their social media accounts. Unequivocally, reposting apps do deliver on their promise: they save you time. But, they don’t auto-adjust the content per platform and the shared result can be below par.

Here’s how you can take one content post and share it across your multiple social platforms without undermining your brand’s storytelling.

The flaws of reposting

Despite the gains you make in time, reposting the same social media caption to all of your accounts can be fraught with formatting issues. It results in reducing the impact of your content: wording may not translate, images can be cropped, and links can break. Here’s a quick rundown of what elements don’t auto-adjust when you repost:

• Platform-appropriate language.
  Whether you’re writing for Instagram, Pinterest or another social platform – each platform carries its own phrases and vocabulary. A ‘reel’ isn’t a video sequence on Pinterest. You can’t ‘pin’ an image on Facebook. You can’t ‘click’ a link on an Instagram post (unless you ‘hit the link’ in bio or view a ‘Story’). The list goes on and on. Therefore, your words can become lost in translation when you cross-share one post across all your accounts. Instead, adapt your language for each platform – especially calls to action. This keeps your meaning crystal clear.
  
  
• Links can break and tags can be incorrect.
  Most problematic for Facebook to Instagram (and visa versa), it’s ideal you don’t cross-share captions that include a link or tagged account. For example, if you tag an account in your Instagram post (showing as @account) – it’ll link to the right Instagram account. When you repost this Instagram post to your Facebook account it will also show as @account. On Facebook, the inclusion of the At Sign before the account name won’t auto-tag. As such, it becomes a broken tag. This can add disruption to your followers’ online journey, and can appear as factual inaccuracy. All in all, it can mar the other good brand storytelling you are doing.
  
  
• Images can crop unexpectedly.
  When you share the same post across multiple platforms without adapting them, your chosen image can be cropped or stretched out of your control. Not only can it look odd in your followers’ feed, but it might also compromise an essential part of your image (for example, cut off copy laid into your image). Instead, resize your social image to the preferred dimensions of each platform. Check out this handy table from Hootsuite for 2021’s size guides.
  

One idea (not one post) to rule them all

Don’t get me wrong. If you have been cross-sharing your social media posts until now, please don’t be disheartened by your approach. It’s not wrong to do it. But, the benefits of adapting your posts per platform can elevate the brand experience for your followers on social media. It can help you create an authentic, genuine relationship with your community. If you’ve been using a reposting app until now, here’s how you can adapt your process:

1. Generate one content idea for the post. Just as you have been.
2. Take your original content idea and construct a killer post with a scroll-stopping image. Just as you have been.
3. Now, this is the step where you make the switch. Instead of cross-sharing one post, draft the number of post versions you need for each of your social accounts. So, if you have two (Facebook and Instagram) – write for Facebook and then adjust that post for Instagram. If you have three, write for one and then adjust that post for the other two platforms. And so forth.
4. Use your preferred social media platform scheduler (or Facebook Manager if you just run a Facebook and Instagram account) and add the variations of the post to run on each platform. Schedule them for your preferred day and time. 
5. Voila!

 

Need help to move away from reposting?

I can help you to create the content you need. I help businesses bring their brand to life online by writing social media posts, customised to each platform, and scheduling them if required. Simply, get in touch if you’d like to chat more.