Should You Post to All Social Media at Once? (TL;DR: Not Really)
With the right tools in place, you absolutely can schedule your content to multiple social media accounts at once — as long as you proceed with caution. Here’s everything you need to know to keep your social media presence looking professional along the way.
Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance.
Should you post to all your social media accounts at once?
As you may have gathered by now, posting to all your social media accounts is in general not great for your marketing strategy.
We’ll get into the pros and cons throughout this post (as well as how you can mitigate some of the cons). It really all boils down to one key concept:
To get the maximum return on effort (and investment), you need to be active on the right social networks in the right way to reach your target audience while also appealing to each network’s unique audience, specs, and algorithms.
It’s a bit of a balancing act.
Does this mean you need to start from scratch for every account? No!
While blast posting is not a wise strategy, you can absolutely use the same content assets to post to multiple social media accounts at once – and with the right tools in place, you can do it all from one screen. (Phew!)
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6 reasons why posting to all social media at once is tricky
1. Different platforms have different audiences
You probably know instinctively that the demographics of Facebook users differ significantly from those of the audiences on Snapchat or LinkedIn.
But just how different are they? If you really want to dive into this topic, we’ve got a full post packed with more than 100 demographic data points for the various social platforms. But here’s a quick visual look at the difference in social platform use among various age demographics in the United States:
Source: Edison Research
Demographic factors impact the type of content you create for each platform. It doesn’t make sense to talk to high school seniors the same way you talk to senior citizens.
2. People use different platforms for different reasons
It’s also important to consider that the audiences on different social platforms are there for different things.
Source: Hootsuite Social Trends Report
Facebook is the top platform for messaging friends and family and keeping up to date with current events, while Instagram leads for brand research and sharing photos and videos. Meanwhile, TikTok reigns supreme for those looking for funny or entertaining content.
Of course, this also means people expect different things from the brands they follow on different channels. If you share the same post across all platforms, you’re missing out on opportunities to lean into these preferences.
For example, check out how Dominos approached dip-ranking content on on differently X and TikTok:
Retweet for ranch, like for garlic sauce. pic.twitter.com/LK2r55lfYc
— Domino's Pizza (@dominos) September 28, 2023
@dominos
which dip will win it all
♬ original sound – Domino’s – Domino’s
Finally, consider that almost all social media users have accounts on multiple platforms. For example, more than 84% of TikTok users also have Facebook accounts. If people do follow you on multiple platforms (lucky you), they’ll be annoyed to see the exact same content multiple times.
3. Different audiences are active at different times
It’s a big world out there, and you can’t assume that all of your audience is online at the times that are most convenient for you to post. You need to understand the best time to post to each platform to reach the largest share of your audience.
For example, look at these heatmaps from Hootsuite Analytics showing the times followers are online for Facebook and TikTok for a sample business.
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If this business posted to both platforms at the same time, they’d miss their peak times one one or both accounts.
Staggering your posts gives you the best visibility and the best chances for early engagement. Early engagement is a critical signal to most social media algorithms, so this also gives you the best potential to expand your audience. On that note…
4. Each platform’s algorithm is different
Posting the same content for each channel, without optimizing for that channel’s particular algorithm, reduces the effectiveness of your content on all channels.
Even the different surface algorithms within one platform can differ.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)
And to make it even more complicated, those algorithms are constantly changing.
While none of the social media platforms reveal exactly how their algorithms work, they’ve all become more open about the ranking signals they use to surface content. We dig into the details for you in our guide to the algorithms on every social platform.
5. Networks have unique image specs and character limits
The requirements for social media platforms can vary widely. Every channel has a unique set of posting specs, such as:
* image/video file size
* image/video aspect ratio
* minimum and maximum pixel requirements
* copy length/character count
* link inclusion
* tagging functionality
For example, Instagram favors vertical video. Facebook Reels requires vertical video, but horizontal can work for Facebook feed. And YouTube is all about horizontal video … unless you’re posting to YouTube Shorts.
Posting the right specs to the right platforms allows your fans to see your content the way you intended, which will maximize engagement.
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