Is It Okay to Cross-Post Social Media Content Across Platforms?

For busy small businesses trying to maintain an active presence across multiple social channels, the idea of cross-posting the same content can seem like a huge time-saver. But is this actually an effective strategy, or is it just lazy marketing?

The short answer: Cross-promotion of social media content can be a valuable part of your overall approach, but only when done thoughtfully and as a supplement - not a substitute for creating tailored, platform-optimized content.

What is Cross-Posting? Cross-posting (also known as cross-promoting or re-purposing content across platforms) refers to the practice of sharing the same core piece of content on multiple social media networks simultaneously or in quick succession. For example, posting the same product photo or marketing video natively on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Potential Benefits of Cross-Posting

There are some compelling advantages to selectively cross-posting, including:

• Reach a Wider Audience: By extending your content's reach across different networks where segments of your audience inhabit.

• Maximize Content Value: Increase return on your content investment by re-purposing top-performing assets to multiple platforms.

• Streamline Promotion Process: Using a cross-posting tool can save time versus manually recreating and publishing that same post multiple times over.

• Build an Integrated Brand Presence: Cross-promotion can reinforce messaging and foster consistent brand recognition as customers experience your business across channels.

Drawbacks of Exclusively Cross-Posting

However solely copy/pasting the same exact content without any adaption is widely considered a lazy social media marketing strategy with several downsides:

• Poor Native Experience: Content that ignores unique best practices, dimensions, and user experiences of each platform will underperform.

• Minimal Engagement: Users can smell canned, irrelevant content from a mile away and are quick to ignore it in their feeds.

• Lost Opportunities: You miss out on harnessing the distinct features, strengths, and styles that make each social platform special.

• Inauthentic Voice: A one-size-fits-all approach comes off as impersonal and disconnected from your audience on each channel.

The Best Approach: Create Optimized Content, Then Cross-Promote Strategically.

So while cross-posting alone won't cut it, incorporating cross-promotion as one piece of a cohesive, tailored social media content strategy can be very effective.

Invest the majority of your efforts into creating high-quality content uniquely optimized for the audience, specifications, and best practices of each focus platform you're active on. Creative tools like BIGR can streamline this part of the process.

Then, identify your top-performing organic content and re-work it in a way that maintains platform-specific optimization while achieving a similar promotion objective on complementary channels.

For example:

• Turn your latest Instagram product photoshoot into shoppable carousel posts as well as stories that can get cross-promoted to Facebook and vice-versa.

• Break up the longer video content you developed for YouTube into teasers for Twitter and Instagram Reels.

• Adjust your LinkedIn long-form written content into snackable stat-graphic carousels for Facebook and Instagram.

Maximize efficiency by using cross-promoting capabilities to simultaneously push these adapted content variations to other platforms.

Cross-posting can undoubtedly be a convenient timesaver, but should only be one component of a cohesive omnichannel content strategy - not the whole enchilada. Create with each platform's audience and user experience in mind first, then extend your reach through strategic cross-promotion.