Social media content: why you need to make this a priority

Do you remember when connecting all your social media accounts together was a good thing? You posted on Facebook and it pinged around the social media universe posting the same content at the same time all over the place.

In hindsight, I’m not sure it was ever a good thing, but it was what a lot of people did. And there is no wonder why.

See also: Getting the right tone on different social platforms

Social media can be a big drain on your time and resources, but with the sheer number of people on each platform surely it makes sense to post natively to get the maximum benefit?

There is no doubt about is that time is a limitation for many people these days, and although I would recommend creating a new post for each social media platform, in reality, what I would suggest is tweaking your posts so they work with each platform.

For example, you’ve written a blog and taken an image to go with it. It’s a great blog and you’re really excited to share it. You know your customers will love it and they’ll find it really useful. So you upload it onto your website, you preen it and add your pictures and your headings and now you go to share it on Facebook.

You post your link and Facebook displays it in a way that doesn’t look all that appealing. Instead of the lovely big image that was on your website, the way the link displays is a bit dull. You add a few words to tell people to go and view it. But, do you think they will? You’re asking them to stray away from Facebook to something that looks a bit rubbish.

See also: A guide to Facebook

Imagine that instead of just posting the link and using the image it shows, you uploaded a separate image, maybe one you’ve used in the post. Instantly your post is a lot more appealing. And what about if, instead of just a link, you craft a caption that engages the audience?

A caption that asks people if they’ve ever had the problem you’re talking about? If they want to improve in the area you’re discussing? How did you come to the conclusions you share in your blog? What benefit will they get from reading it? By doing this, the post will automatically be more appealing.

Instagram, on the other hand, is much more of a visual platform. You, therefore, can’t just copy across the great image used on Facebook and expect it to do the job.

See also: A beginner’s guide to Instagram

Firstly, Instagram doesn’t allow linking from posts, so you’ll need to get people to visit your blog by clicking the link in your bio. You also need to be aware of how the spacing works on Instagram, it needs more work than on Facebook so you’ll need to tweak this so it looks ok.

And then there are hashtags. Adding up to 30 in your caption or first comment will make your content much more discoverable, and ultimately that’s what you want.

You could also pop this on Instagram Stories or even make a short IGTV video about it, which is Instagram’s video APP. If you’re a business account with over 10,000 followers you can invite people to swipe up from Stories to go straight to the blog post, but maybe a short video from you talking about it will encourage this action.

Then over to Twitter. There’s a character limit of 280 on Twitter, so putting a huge caption won’t work, you need to get really focused on your words. Hashtags are also used on this platform but pick maybe two or three, you don’t want your whole post to be hashtags as generally no one clicks on these.

See also: An introduction to Twitter

So that’s one piece of content, but there is huge value in promoting it in a native way. It makes it feel more relevant, and that it’s worth engaging with.

Another tip would be to stagger these posts. If someone sees the post on Instagram, they won’t usually be staring at Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Of course, algorithms are not just chronological, but it makes a lot more sense to spread the content.

There are lots of other tweaks you can do on the platforms above and other platforms. You could make videos that you post natively to Facebook (film in landscape, consider adding subtitles as a lot of people view Facebook videos on silent) or IGTV (portrait because it’s a mobile first application). It might feel like a lot of extra work, but surely it makes sense to give you precious content the best chance of being seen.

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