When posting for your business on Instagram, should you be sharing the same exact post over to your Facebook business page? The answer is, probably not.
Cross-posting is a method of sharing the exact same post across different social media platforms and it’s tempting to do. It saves time and makes it easy to share your content in more than one place.
Cross-posting is fine – and fun – for your Personal accounts, but it has shown to be ineffective for Business accounts.
Not all features are alike
Native Facebook posts have a higher reach than posts shared from Instagram. (A “native” post is originally posted to the Facebook page and not cross-posted from Instagram.)
When you @mention someone in your caption on Instagram, that tag doesn’t exist on Facebook.
Image sizes differ per platform so your visual content could be odd. Seeing a post with a weirdly cropped image looks lazy or more like a spam post.
While hashtags work on Instagram, it has been shown they lower engagement on Facebook.
What should you do instead of cross-posting?
Create a new message for each network and post directly to that account.
The content should fit with the platform. Create captions that fit your specific account and use hashtags only on Instagram.
Visual sizing is different so add videos and images with the right dimensions for that account.
Posts need a clear call to action because we want to spark action. Facebook allows for links to pages and messaging; Instagram does not so you need to state something like “click link in profile.”
Post separately on your social channels and you should see higher levels of engagement for your business!
