customize posts

[ychen]

do you customize your social posts for each platform?

[roisinkirby]

Hey @ychen could you share some more information r.e. the content you are publishing, your business/product/service, target market and of course which social channels you are leveraging? With this information I'm certain some of our members below will be happy to lend their knowledge and expertise 🙂

@Phil_Vallender, @Jenr, @crystalking, @Kmiller, @cazwilson

[Jenr]

Yes, you should ideally customise your content post for the different social platforms, as the audience across these platforms vary as does the content they normally consume on the platform. You might find this article useful - https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/customizing-content-track...

[crystalking]

Hi @ychen, 

I definitely recommend customizing posts when you can. The audiences on the different social sites are often slightly different as are the types of content that resonate. Fun, casual video and images do best on Instagram, for example, whereas informational and business content does better on LinkedIn. 

That's not to say you can't syndicate content across channels; often content will work in a variety of places. If doing so, I recommend varying the times that you post that content. If you have someone that follows all your channels, they may feel bombarded by too much of your content at the same time, whereas if you stagger the timing of the content, it functions a little more like how billboards do--a touchpoint here and there that builds up in the memory.  You can also reshare content more than once to try to reach those who may not have seen it yet, but make sure to do so in a staggered format as well.

[LCSKMiller]

First and foremost, determine if you need to be on every platform. I always see businesses trying to post to every social media venue, which leads to mismanagement of the accounts and a lot of posts with little to no interaction. You want to be able to reach your audience but if you do not have someone that can manage each program effectively, it's better to start off with only a couple social media platforms and wait to add more until more resources are available.

Then, learn how your audiences use each platform. Are they looking to communicate with a business and shop online? Is your business best represented with images only? This will assist you with content planning.

Finally, determine how often you want to post to each platform and stick with it. Also, don't line up content to post at the same time for every platform. This can help you differentiate your content and each social media platform has peak usage times. Design tool wise, if you are looking for free, check out Canva. They have pre-formatted social media sizes for various platforms plus layouts.

[cazwilson]

Hi @ychen,

I vary them most of the time for a couple of reasons:

- Different platforms have a different audience personality, or are at least are in different environments at the time (eg work vs home), so different content and language can be a good thing. Even if it's just a word or 2 different.

- Hashtags in, eg, Facebook can look like you're being lazy, automated and impersonal.

- You may have avid followers in more than one place, though I think that's the least important reason - often they won't see it by chance in more than one place, or simply forget where it was they saw it before.
I hope that helps.

Carolyn

[sspinolaNG]

A bit late to this thread as I just found it in a search. The O.P. probably figured it out by now but I'd thought I'd add a new perspective for future readers.

When deciding whether to customize posts for each platform, I'd make an assessment of what your ROI is for social with one questions: Does your level of lead/sale generation from social warrant the additional effort?

For me, our industry overall has very low social media engagement (raise your hand if you engage with their insurance company on social). We also sell primarily through independent agents and have little traceability from our marketing efforts (including social) to their sales. Because of this, our social media presence is table stakes to check off the "we're here" box. Creating custom posts for each platform would be more effort than we could justify for our one person social media team.

Hope this helps.

[webdew]

Hi @ychen 

Social post customization is vital, especially if you want to share the content as per your target audience. Every platform has its own advantages and features. Like, if you want to publish a social post regarding job profiles, then Linkedin is a better place, but if you want to post fun or casual posts, then you can choose Facebook and Instagram over others. Also, we have a different number of followers on each social channel. Thus, by considering all these points, I would recommend you customize social posts to reach those unfamiliar with your brand/product/service yet.