Cross-posting on social media

I’m sure I’ve written about this before. If I haven’t it must have been a dream. (That happens sometimes, doesn’t it?) But it is true that the one thing that annoys readers on social media is people who post something to one medium (such as Facebook) and have it automatically sent to another (such as Twitter). So many people quote this as being the most annoying thing on social media but people still do it. Why?

Much as I’d love to give you an answer, I have no idea. None whatsoever. Your Pinterest followers are different to your Scoop followers, who are different to your Twitter followers who .. you get the idea.

If you’re looking after social media as part of your job, you’re a marketing expert, right? And as such, would you put the same ad in two completely different magazines with different readerships and demographics? No, of course you wouldn’t so why is it okay to do so on social media? It isn’t.

And it’s not just that. People really don’t want to click your Facebook link from Twitter. Especially as the content is exactly the same on many occasions.  You see, you might see a post on Twitter that says:

Why not come down to see us at the restaurant tonight? We have some fabulous specials that our chef has created just for you. See fb.me.z237YD

Click the link and on Facebook, you see:

Why not come down to see us at the restaurant tonight? We have some fabulous specials that our chef has created just for you. See you for dinner! 

So I have just clicked on your link to see ‘you for dinner’? Does that add value to your followers? Nope! What’s funny, and what prompted this article, is that if you must do this (and I see no reason why you should) do remember that your message – including the link – will be truncated to the permitted 140 characters. If you don’t you’ll see something like this:

So you see, the chef and the restaurant director want your ‘dining experience’ with them to be … nothing. Of course, I didn’t click on the link. Sorry but people just don’t when they see that fb.me thing. But if I had, I would have probably seen that the sentence ended ‘but perfection’ or something similar.

But that’s not how it came across on Twitter, is it? I know, I know, you’re busy but still …