Posting the Same Thing Everywhere

What automatic sharing produces

Connecting one platform to another so a post appears in both is the obvious time saving, and every platform offers it.

The output is recognisable: a post referencing features the second platform does not have, an image cropped wrongly, a link that renders as a bare address, or text truncated with a link back to the original.

Worst is the version that posts only a link, so the second audience sees an address and a fragment rather than a post.

Each of those signals that the business is not really present here, which is the impression the second platform was meant to counter.

Why the platforms differ

• Image dimensions, which crop differently.
• Text length and where it truncates.
• Whether links work in a post at all.
• Tone, which varies considerably.
• Video orientation and length.
• What the platform promotes in its feed.

The last is the substantive one. Platforms reduce the visibility of content that arrives from elsewhere, because they prefer material posted natively, so a syndicated post reaches fewer people before anybody judges its quality.

Write once, adapt three times

The approach that works, and it is less effort than it sounds.

Compose the substance once: the point, the photograph, the thing you want to say.

Then post it separately to each platform, adjusting the length, the wording, and the image where needed.

For a small business posting twice a week to two platforms, that is perhaps five extra minutes a week.

The adaptation is usually trivial: shorter text in one place, a different crop in another, a link in the profile rather than in the post.

What you avoid is the visible evidence of automation, which is worth more than the five minutes.

Scheduling is different from syndicating

A distinction worth drawing, since the two get conflated and only one is a problem.

A scheduling tool that publishes natively to each platform, with content you have adapted for each, is entirely fine and saves real time.

Automatic syndication, where posting in one place causes a post elsewhere without your involvement, is the version that produces the artefacts above.

Most scheduling tools support both, and the difference is whether you write one version or several.

Use the tool, and use it to publish adapted versions rather than to mirror one.

A worked example

A business connected their accounts so that posting in one place published everywhere, on the reasonable basis that it tripled their output for no extra work.

After several months, one platform showed posts with images cropped through the middle of the subject, and another showed text ending mid-sentence with a link.

Their reach on both secondary platforms was minimal.

They disconnected the automation and started posting separately, adapting each, which added about ten minutes a week.

Reach on the two secondary platforms rose substantially within a month, and one produced its first enquiry shortly afterwards.

The content had been identical throughout. What changed was that it was posted properly.

The same content is fine

Worth being clear about, since this argument is sometimes taken too far.

Nobody needs unique content per platform. The overlap between audiences is small, and the people who follow you in two places are not annoyed by seeing the same thing twice.

What matters is that each version is formatted for where it appears, not that each is a different idea.

Advice to produce bespoke content for every platform is written for organisations with staff, and it is a reliable way to make a small business stop posting altogether.

One idea, presented properly in each place, is the correct amount of effort.

What always needs changing

The short list, for anybody adapting rather than syndicating.

The first line, since platforms truncate at different points and the opening carries the post.

The image, where aspect ratios differ enough to cut the subject.

Any reference to platform features, such as asking people to tag somebody where tagging works differently.

And links, which perform badly in the feed on some platforms and are best moved to a comment or a profile.

Those four take a minute between them and account for nearly all of what makes a syndicated post look wrong.

Check what it looks like

The habit, which most people never form.

Look at your own profile on each platform, on a phone, as a stranger would rather than through the posting tool.

That is where cropped images and truncated text are visible, and they are invisible in the composer.

Do it monthly rather than after every post, which is enough to catch a systematic problem.

Ask somebody else to look too, since familiarity makes your own profile hard to read honestly.

Timing does not need to match either

A smaller point that follows from posting natively rather than mirroring.

Syndication publishes everywhere at the same instant, which means one of the platforms is always receiving the post at a time chosen for another audience.

Posting separately lets each go out when that platform's audience is actually looking, which for a business serving both trade and household customers can be quite different times.

It also spreads your own attention, since replying to comments on three platforms in the same hour is harder than handling them one at a time.

Where you use a scheduler, staggering by a few hours costs nothing and removes the visible simultaneity that marks a post as automated.

The counter-case

Automatic sharing is not always wrong.

For a business with a primary platform and a secondary presence maintained only for findability, syndication keeps the second from looking abandoned at no cost, which is better than nothing.

Some content also travels perfectly well: a single photograph with one line of text renders acceptably almost everywhere.

And a business choosing between syndicating and not posting at all should syndicate, since the imperfect version outperforms silence.

Adapt where a platform matters to you, syndicate where it does not, and know which is which.

What to do

1. Turn off automatic syndication where it matters.
2. Write the substance once.
3. Post natively to each platform.
4. Adjust the first line and the image crop.
5. Move links out of the post where they perform badly.
6. Use a scheduler to publish adapted versions.
7. Check your own profile on a phone monthly.

Step three is the one with a measurable effect, since platforms reduce the reach of content arriving from elsewhere before anybody has judged whether it was any good.

Which images travel and which do not is covered in the photo that works on social and nowhere else.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.