Part Two
How do you engage different audiences across different social media accounts?
In part one of this three-part series to growing your social media following, we covered the first Do: engaging your audience by going above and beyond their expectations.
Now we move on to part two, the first Don’t to building your social media following – are you committing the cardinal sin in marketing purgatory?
But before we get to that, we need to cover what each social media account does best. We know that one application often shares features with another. We also know that we can find different audiences on different channels.
Above: Facebook now supports GIFs, so Adobe Photoshop’s posts can come to life
Social media juggernaut Facebook can:
- Broadcast video, photos, graphics, text and other forms to your heart’s content
- Create Facebook events and group pages
Let’s now look at Twitter. It works well with:
- Hashtags to trace thread to keep up-to-date with real-time events
- Communities to follow
- User connectivity through following a user’s @handle
- Images to help users engage with written content and links
So what are the differences?
Facebook’s functionality is vast and the most advanced because it’s one of the oldest social media platforms with plenty of features and facelifts added over the years. Twitter mightn’t be as flashy as Instagram is – which focuses mainly on just an image. Now, the Twittersphere has lots of written content, but our research shows that Twitter users are far more likely to engage with content that is shared with images than without. The bottom line? Good images drive engagement!
Adobe Photoshop captures attention on Twitter with hashtags and imagery
Now, let’s turn our focus on the Ultimate Don’t in growing your social media account followings. Namely:
Don’t: duplicate your posts across accounts
Why not, you ask? Different platforms play copycat to join in on the success of what has worked for another app. As a result, you might notice that Instagram has a ‘share to linked account’ function, meaning you can double up your pretty picture to Facebook or Twitter with a single click.
By that logic, surely it would make sense to slide across the ‘Share to Twitter’ or ‘Share to Facebook’ options when posting to Instagram, right? Well, it’s complicated. On one hand, this simple process allows Facebook users to click through to discover an Instagram account they hadn’t heard of. Additionally, if you tag another company’s username (@examplebusiness) into your post, your image would appear in that business’ stream, so their followers could turn into yours, too!
Instagram links their account to their Twitter – but their image goes missing
On the other hand, this strategy doubles your exposure – but at a cost. Your posts will look unattractive and your brand will look lazy. On your Twitter account, your perfect image is now missing, replaced with a hyperlink (see photo). And it’s not like Twitter is going to tell you this!
As for Facebook, that other company won’t see your photo in their feed – you would have to edit your duplicated post, removing the now broken Instagram handle link and linking afresh to how the company presents itself on Facebook’s platform (e.g. @Example in Business). So what do we suggest? Spend thirty seconds more on adjusting your posts to work with the platform you’re on. You’ll thank yourself for it!
What a shame to lose this post!
With part two done and dusted, discover the final tip for growing your social media following here.
For more information on customising your content for different channels, check out our specialised guide here.
Want more? Talk to us today on 1300 766 665!
