When you post the same information to your Twitter account as your Facebook account, you’re making one (or both!) of them obsolete. I’ve affectionately coined this phenomenon, “crossposting cannibalization” because just like in marketing, you’re replacing yourself with something too similar for the average customer to distinguish between, and the customer is forced to choose between one or the other, effectively removing yourself from the market. (Notice there’s no mention of the flesh eating definition? Yeah, that’s gross.)
This phenomenon is especially true when posting the same content between two Twitter accounts, say a personal and business account, because it’s so easy for someone to instantly stop listening to you. Before you start connecting all of your accounts to save precious time, take some of it to understand why this may not be the best idea for you or your brand.
Your audiences are different
You’ve probably noticed that sometimes you post things to Twitter and get tons of immediate feedback, and sometimes you hear crickets. The same is true for Facebook. The reason is because people on these sites are quite finicky. If you’re looking for interaction (which, no matter how much you beg to differ, is the point of even being on these sites), it’s important to pay attention to the types of content, the timing, and the medium which your post was received and interacted with. There are plenty of studies done about ideal posting times and the like, but really, it’s about what you post, not when you post it. By posting the same information to both places, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not tailoring the content to the platform, and forcing people who follow you in both places to only interact with one post (based on their preference) and people who aren’t the audience of your post to gloss over it. Over time, this creates a pattern for those who befriend/follow you and you’ll probably notice dwindling interaction on all fronts.
The platforms are inherently different
The same content just doesn’t belong on both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is about rich, multimedia content and Twitter is short bursts of information, generally with a link to more information. Posting tiny snippets and links to Twitter that get automatically sent to Facebook doesn’t bode well for interaction because people who visit Facebook generally want to stay there. Posting nothing but links to other websites to a Facebook page or profile is going against what the general user wants from the website, which is to be there for a while, catching up on their friends, families, and ex-boyfriend’s lives. Posting content to each place (even now, Google+), requires a different approach based on what the platform was intended to do. Skipping this vital step can come back to bite you in the butt since Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm places a higher value on media-rich content, so your posts won’t be shown as often when they’ve been translated from another platform.
It’s just plain messy (and quite obvious)
Sure, there are tools out there that allow you to only post certain posts from Twitter to Facebook with a simple hashtag, but everyone can see that you’ve done that, and if anyone knows any better, it just looks lazy. I’m not against posting similar content, but if you took the time to add your hashtag, why not take 2 more seconds to post something similar, but appropriate for the medium, to your Facebook page? Along with this aspect of crossposting, generally, posts just don’t translate between platforms easily. You know why? Because they’re not supposed to! There’s a reason your hashtags don’t show up on Facebook and your links from Facebook on Twitter have odd formatting and cut off in weird places. They don’t want to get along, and they shouldn’t have to.
But… but… it saves time!
If you’re really so pressed for time that you can’t determine where a piece of content should go, so you just put it everywhere, then you have bigger problems going on. Just like with every piece of marketing you do, you need to evaluate the best places and the best execution for what you’re communicating. Blanketing your messages everywhere you possibly can is more of a time-waster than simply evaluating what content you do have, and pushing it accordingly.
There’s a huge difference between repurposing content, and reusing it. If you want better results, try disconnecting for a bit and see what happens. Trust me, it’ll be worth the lost seconds of time.
Disagree? Let’s hear it!
