- A lot of people have asked me,
is it bad to post the same thing on Facebook and Instagram?
Eeh.
It can be in a lot of situations,
but let me break down what happens when you do that
and then you can make the best decision for yourself.
Alright, let's get into it.
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My name is Jerry Potter.
Yes, it rhymes with the boy wizard.
And in this video I'm answering the question,
is it bad to post the same thing on Facebook and Instagram?
And I get asked this question a lot.
So I wanted to make a video to give you the reason
that it generally is bad
and sometimes in the way that it's not.
And just so we're clear right now
I'm talking about posting to the
Instagram and Facebook feeds
not to Instagram and Facebook stories
and we'll get into stories here in just a second.
Now you'd think me being an
efficiency obsessed social media coach,
that I would be all for this, right?
You push that little button on Instagram
and then your post automatically goes up to Facebook to
what a time saver.
But it's generally not a good idea.
And here are three big reasons why.
First even though they're owned by the same company,
Facebook and Instagram are two very different
social media networks.
So there's no way
the post you crafted perfectly for Instagram
is going to look as good as it could on Facebook.
First of all, on Facebook,
the caption appears above the post
and on Instagram, it appears below the post.
Second on Instagram
they only give you a handful of words
before somebody has to click see more,
and then over on Facebook,
you actually get a couple of lines to get their attention
and make them decide if they want to
look at your picture more, watch your video longer,
or click see more to possibly read your longer caption.
Even though Facebook is starting to adopt
the use of hashtags,
throwing 30 hashtags into a Facebook post
generally just tells your audience
Oh, they just cross posted here from Instagram.
They were being lazy, which doesn't necessarily sit well.
And sometimes it's really bad.
Like you app tag people in your Instagram post
and then you just leave it that way over on Facebook,
it just doesn't look right.
So again, they are two separate social media networks
and each one is consumed in different ways,
even by the same people.
Like the way I consume content on Instagram
is different than the way I consume content on Facebook.
And therefore each one deserves its own attention
when you're creating the perfect post for each.
Second, big reason that
auto-posting from Instagram to Facebook is a bad idea,
Agorapulse Social Media Lab did a massive study
where they tested auto-posting something
from Instagram to Facebook versus posting it
natively on Facebook and every single time
different industries, different accounts
they got way more reach from the posts
that were put up directly on Facebook.
Again, even though Facebook and Instagram
are owned by the same company
that's not what the science showed
or the lab results showed.
If you wanna see that study,
I've link to it down in the description of this video.
Now those first two reasons are assuming
that you are just auto-posting from
Instagram to Facebook.
But then the next question comes up is
okay Well, what if I just post the same content
at the same time on both Instagram and Facebook
but I take off some of the hashtags for Facebook,
maybe I change the hook a little bit
different things like that,
so that they're still optimized
same content, but optimized for each social media network.
And the third big reason
why you shouldn't just automatically post
the same thing in both places
is reason not even to do it that way.
Imagine this scenario, I am your biggest fan.
I love you.
I love your business.
I love your brand.
I follow you on all the channels.
And so I see something you put it up on Facebook
and I'm like, Oh, this is great.
I love it.
I comment on it a couple of times.
I reply to some other people's comment.
This is the greatest post.
I love this picture.
I watched the whole video, whatever it is, right.
Then a few minutes later
maybe later that same day,
I'm scrolling Instagram, I see the same post come up,
but I've already seen it on Facebook, right?
So I just skip it.
Well, here's what just happened in the algorithm.
Now, normally I engage with all your Instagram posts too
cause I love you so much, right?
But what the algorithm saw was, oh, here's this guy
Mr. Jerry Potter on Instagram,
if you wanna follow me.
Here's this guy who is a huge fan of this brand.
He engages with them all the time.
He dms with him,
and he just skipped this post right on by.
So what it said to the algorithm was
his biggest fan
or one of his most active connections on Instagram
didn't care for this post,
it must not be very good.
And that's going to potentially dramatically lower
your reach of that post.
'Cause it's all based on,
whether people engage with it, right?
So, that's another reason not to post the same thing
to Facebook and Instagram, especially at the same time
or on the same day.
So it's a terrible idea, but how do you get around this
without spending way more time on social media?
You know, I'm not gonna leave you hanging, right.
Here are three ways to get around
posting the same thing on Facebook and Instagram,
so you can get more results.
First, craft a slightly different posts
on Facebook and Instagram.
Now, you may for starters,
take some of the hashtags out on Facebook
if you're using all 30 on Instagram,
take out the ad tags that you used on Instagram
'cause they don't apply on Facebook.
But beyond that, you might use a slightly different image.
Maybe you took a bunch of pictures,
you should use a slightly different one
for the same subject matter.
Or maybe change the hook,
that's the first part of your caption.
Just change it up a little bit,
so it doesn't feel like the exact same post
on both platforms.
Second thing to try if time is a big issue
is go ahead and post the same thing on both networks,
but stagger them by a week or two.
And I know that requires organization
but you can do that with a content calendar.
So, if you post something awesome on Facebook today,
then go ahead and preschedule it on Instagram
for two weeks from today.
Because if I, your biggest fan engages with it on Facebook,
and then I see it on Instagram a week or two later,
I might engage again.
Oh yeah, that was that great thing.
That's a great video.
I'm gonna watch it again.
More likely I'll do that,
than if I saw it five minutes ago on Facebook, right?
And the third thing to know is that
if most of your audience that's on Facebook
is not on Instagram or vice versa,
like you know only 3% of your whole audience
is on both platforms,
you don't need to change just for those 3% of people.
But if you know you have a lot of people
that do follow you on both platforms
and you keep double posting the same content
at the same time on both, it will hurt you in the long run.
Now I promise you I'd comment on Instagram stories.
And I say, I think it's okay
to go ahead and use the auto-post feature
from your Instagram stories to your Facebook stories.
And here's why.
First, just because of the way people consume stories
I don't think it's as big a deal.
I know I don't watch all the stories on Facebook
and all the stories on Instagram.
And of course they all auto-delete after 24 hours.
So that reduces the chances
that I'm necessarily gonna see your story
on both platforms.
Now, that may change over the next year or two,
but as of right now, I think it's perfectly fine
and I do that myself in my business.
Alright, speaking of saving time,
I've got six ways to cut your social media workload in half.
Click this link on the screen right here
or if it doesn't show on your device,
you can get the link in the description of this video.
It's totally free.
And thank you for watching and supporting me
at Five Minutes Social Media,
as well as my two tiny superheroes at home.