Have you noticed recently that some big brands, celebrities, and influencers are actively present on almost all social media platforms?
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest... You name it.
How? How can they manage all that? How do they find the time for it?
Do they have some sort of 'magic pill'?
Yes, they do. They have many. One of them is called – Social Media Cross-Posting.
It is what you are going to learn about in this article.
What is Social Media Cross-Posting?
Social Media Cross-posting is publishing the same content across multiple social media platforms. Either manually or automatically using a cross-posting tool.
It’s a way to benefit maximum from the same piece of content across different social media channels.
How Does Cross Posting Work?
Imagine this scenario: You're a clothing brand. Finally, decide to promote your brand on social media.
Your initial strategy is: To share short-form videos about your products three times a week across four different platforms:
- TikTok
- YouTube Shorts
This strategy will continue for four months, which means the publication of the same three short videos 12 times each week.
A boring task, isn’t it?
Here's a better approach using CrossPosting:
By using a social media cross-posting tool, you can link one social media channel (let's use Instagram as an example) with the remaining three.
Now, whenever you share a reel on Instagram, there's no need to manually post it on other platforms. The cross-posting tool will handle this for you, automatically.
Social Media Cross-Posting Benefits: Why You Should Be Cross-Posting on Social Media?
- More Visibility
We are living in an attention economy. To grab more attention, you need to be as available as possible in as many places as possible. Doing this manually takes a lot of time.
Using an automated process like cross-posting guarantees you more visibility within a reasonable time investment.
- Leverage the Same Content
Leverage, by definition, means getting more outputs for the same inputs.
This is exactly what you achieve when you crosspost: you gain more exposure on the internet (output) with the same content (input).
- Data-driven Decisions:
During competition for customers' attention, relying solely on gut feelings for your social media strategy will likely lead to disappointment. It's time for data-driven decisions. What's better than sharing your content across social media platforms to collect more actionable data?
- A Better Understanding of Algorithms:
As you know, each social media platform has its own algorithms.
By cross-posting across these platforms, you're not only exposing your content to different audiences but also to different algorithms. In the long term, you will accumulate a significant amount of data on how your content performs on each platform and how it's processed by each algorithm.
Considerations for Effective Social Media Cross-Posting
Each Platform’s Aspect Ratio
Each social media platform has its own aspect ratio. If you share a post on
Make sure to only crosspost from platforms that have the same aspect ratio.
As an example, there is nothing wrong with crossposting an Instagram reel to TikTok, since they have the same aspect ratio for short-form videos, which is 9:16 (portrait).
Here is a list of aspect ratios for each type of content on various social media platforms
Feed Photos and Videos: 4:5 (portrait), 1.91:1 to 1:1 (landscape to square)
Stories, Reels, IGTV: 9:16 (portrait)
Feed Photos and Videos: 1.91:1 to 1:1 (landscape to square)
Stories: 9:16 (portrait)
Feed Photos: 16:9 (landscape), 1:1 (square)
Videos: 1:1 (square), 16:9 (landscape)
Feed Photos and Videos: 1.91:1 (landscape), 1:1 (square)
Stories: 9:16 (portrait)
- TikTok
Videos: 9:16 (portrait)
- Snapchat
Snaps: 9:16 (portrait)
Pins: 2:3 to 1:3.5 (portrait)
- YouTube
Videos: 16:9 (landscape)
Shorts: 9:16 (portrait)
Watermark Trap
Not too long ago, Instagram says its algorithm won’t promote Reels that have a TikTok watermark.
Of course, this isn't only applicable to Instagram.
Every social media channel will resist allowing users to indirectly promote other social media platforms on their platform.
They will penalize users who engage in this behavior to ensure that the content shared on their platforms is original, not recycled.
The takeaway is to avoid cross-posting any posts that have the watermark or logo of one social media platform to another.
Consider Hashtags
Hashtags that are effective on one platform may not necessarily perform well on another.
It's advisable to find a social media cross-posting tool that allows for dynamic and flexible sharing of hashtags.
Another thing is: Crossposting a reel from TikTok to Instagram with the hashtag #TikTok could lead to a decrease in post reach or even result in your account being shadowbanned!
Social media platforms indirectly discourage sharing hashtags that include the names of their competitors.
Character Count
Some social media platforms restrict the character count for each, while others don't.
For example, Facebook and LinkedIn welcome long-form content while Twitter, Pinterest, and Threads don't.
Here is a list of character limits for each social media platform:
- Instagram: 2200 characters for an Instagram post caption.
- Twitter: 260 caharcters for a Twitter post.
- Facebook: Up to 63,206 characters for a Facebook post.
- Pinterest: 500 characters for Pinterest pin description.
- LinkedIn: 3000 characters for a LinkedIn post.
- Threads: 500 characters for a thread post.
From this, we understand that we should be more careful or even avoid cross-posting between platforms if their character limits are not compatible.
Example:
If you have a LinkedIn post with 1200 characters, trying to crosspost it directly to Twitter won't work well. Twitter caption limit is much shorter (Limited to 280 characters), so your message will be cut off, losing its effectiveness.
Link in Description
Instagram does not permit the inclusion of clickable links in post descriptions. Consequently, Instagram users often resort to the "Link in Bio" approach.
This implies that if you share a post from Facebook to Instagram that contains links, these links will not be clickable in your Instagram post.
Timing
The optimal time for posting on Instagram may not be the best time to post on LinkedIn, as each platform has its own specific peak times for engagement.
Bearing this in mind, it's beneficial to seek out tools that offer the ability to schedule crossposted content for later publication, rather than posting it immediately after crossposting.
Lucky you, Nuelink offers this ability. This means when you share a reel on Instagram, you can use Nuelink to crosspost and schedule it to be shared on TikTok later, for instance, at the exact time it's most likely to perform well, all done automatically.
Can crossposting lead to penalties on social media platforms?
Crossposting won’t lead to penalties on social media platforms.
Penalties or errors could arise from duplicating or repetitively crossposting the same content on the same social media channel without adaptation.
Some social media platforms may display an error if you attempt to reshare the same post more than once. LinkedIn is one of them.
Conclusion: As long as you are not duplicating the same posts on the same social media channels, there is nothing to fear.
Social Media Cross-Posting: Matching Content Types with Social Media Platforms
You now understand why aspect ratios matter in crossposting. You don’t want your posts to look bad visually when crossposted, right?
To simplify things for you, We've made a list that includes the best platforms, content, and aspect ratios that are perfect for crossposting. With this, you can crosspost confidently. Your posts will maintain their normal appearance when shared across the various social media channels using your crossposting tool.
Short-form Videos (9:16, Portrait)
- Instagram (Reels)
- TikTok (TikToks)
- YouTube (Shorts)
- Snapchat
Text Polls
- Instagram (Stories polls)
- Facebook (Polls in posts)
- Twitter (Polls in tweets)
Long Videos (16:9, Landscape)
- YouTube
- Instagram (IGTV for longer videos, though primarily vertical)
Carousels
- Instagram (Carousel posts)
- Facebook (Carousel ads and posts)
- LinkedIn (Carousel posts)
- TikTok (Image Carousels)
How to Setup Social Media Crossposting
Assuming you're already taking advantage of Nuelink – as you should :)
Let's bypass the initial setup of how to connect your channels to Nuelink, which can be found here or by viewing our YouTube tutorials, and start a straightforward guide on setting up Instagram Crossposting.
- First, Click on Automations on the navbar on the left side of the screen.
- Then, Click on Add Automation button on the top right of the screen.
- Let's say you want to crosspost from Instagram. Scroll down until you find Instagram Crossposting, and then click on Add Automation.
- Select your Instagram channel to post content from.
- Select the Channels you want to post your Instagram content to.
- Click on Add Instagram Crossposting Automation and you are done.
We hope it's crystal clear now. Crossposting could be that secret ingredient you've been searching for.
It promises maximum reach and engagement on social media. without too much time and money investment.
But there's a catch. You need to adapt and execute carefully. If done wrong, it could backfire instead of boosting your online presence.
