The Ultimate Guide to Automatically Crossposting Content to Multiple Social Media Platforms
Social media is an integral part of building an online brand and driving traffic to your website. However, consistently creating unique content tailored for each platform can be extremely time-consuming. That‘s why more marketers and business owners are turning to tools that allow them to automatically crosspost content across multiple networks with just a few clicks.
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explore the benefits of crossposting, look at some of the top tools available, and walk through how to set up automated crossposting workflows to save time and effort.
The Benefits of Social Media Crossposting
Crossposting simply refers to publishing the same content across multiple social platforms. This strategy offers several advantages:
Saves Time: Rather than creating custom posts for every network, you can reuse content across channels. This greatly reduces the time spent managing social media.
Expands Reach: By sharing content across multiple platforms, you expose it to a wider range of users which increases engagement.
Provides Consistency: Crossposting allows you to maintain consistent branding and messaging across networks. Followers recognize you better.
Drives More Traffic: The broader exposure from multi-channel promotion means more people click through to your site.
Boosts Conversions: With larger audiences seeing your content, you have more opportunities to convert social media followers into customers.
Top Tools for Automated Social Media Crossposting
Manually posting across networks defeats much of the time-saving benefits of a crossposting strategy. That‘s why it‘s important to use tools that can automatically publish content across multiple platforms.
Here are some of the top solutions:
Buffer
Buffer pioneered social media scheduling and makes crossposting incredibly easy. You can queue content and have it automatically shared at the best times for each platform. Their intuitive interface also allows you to customize posts for different networks.
Hootsuite
The Hootsuite social media dashboard is packed with options for saving time. You can quickly schedule posts across over 35 platforms. Their bulk scheduling tools also make it simple to upload and reuse lots of content.
Sprout Social
With advanced publishing and analytics tools, Sprout Social goes beyond basic scheduling. Their sophisticated platform offers options to customize messaging on a network basis while keeping most of the time savings of crossposting.
Zapier
While Zapier isn‘t a dedicated social media manager, its automation platform can connect networks for seamless crossposting. If you already have a posting workflow, Zapier integrates with just about every social platform to extend it.
Tailwind
Optimized for Pinterest and Instagram, Tailwind provides effective tools for repurposing visual content. Bulk uploading reusable images across accounts combined with smart suggestions for customizing captions makes crossposting intuitive.
Postcron
Postcron stands out with its focus on Facebook automation. With the ability to post to pages and groups as well as automatically engaging with content, it‘s easy to expand your Facebook presence. Integrations with Twitter and LinkedIn also available.
Step-by-Step Guide to Crossposting with Zapier
While all of the tools above can effectively enable social media crossposting, Zapier provides extreme flexibility to build custom connections across virtually any platforms and apps. Let‘s walk through a detailed guide to setting up automated social media crossposting with Zapier.
Step 1: Select Your Core Posting Platform
The first step is to decide where you will create your primary content. This is usually the network you find easiest to post to or are most active on. For example, if you discover lots of content on Instagram, you can use Zapier to automatically crosspost it to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and others.
Key Platform Considerations:
- Where do you have an established audience?
- Which network has the content format best aligned with your goals?
- What tools or apps do you already use to create content?
Choose your primary platform based on the above factors. Later, we‘ll build Zaps to automatically broadcast it wider.
Step 2: Set Up Connections
You’ll want to link accounts for all the platforms you wish to crosspost between. The more networks Zapier can access directly, the more flexibility you‘ll have.
Navigate to “My Apps” in your Zapier account and use “Connect an App” to authorize social media accounts like:
- Facebook Pages
- Facebook Groups
- YouTube
- And many more…
It’s best to connect business/creator accounts with public posting permissions enabled.
Repeat this process for each platform you want Zapier to crosspost between.
Connecting social media accounts in Zapier for crossposting.
Step 3: Set Up Your First “Zap”
A “Zap” is Zapier‘s term for an automation routine. We‘ll set one up to take content from our primary network and share it automatically on other platforms.
Navigate to “Make a Zap” in your Zapier account. Choose your core platform as the “Trigger App” – this is where new content is detected.
For example, select "New Instagram Post By You" as the trigger if that‘s your starting point.
Next, add the action of posting to another social network. Configure it to pull key information like images/captions from the trigger content.
Test it captures everything correctly. Your first auto crossposting Zap is now ready!
Repeat this process to build Zaps sharing the same content across as many channels as you like.
A sample Zap crossposting from Instagram to Facebook and Twitter.
With some basic Zaps in place, you‘ve now automated crossposting to other networks as you naturally create content!
Step 4: Customize Content by Platform
By default, Zapier will post an identical update across channels. However, you can also customize messaging and assets for each platform:
Tailor captions using variables and custom text inserted in the action steps. Ensure captions resonate best with each community or audience.
Modify images by manually replacing them in action steps. For example, create square 1:1 images for Instagram vs. horizontal ones for Twitter.
Adjust links by changing CTA buttons or embedded URLs to point where most relevant on each network.
Personalize hashtags using platform dedicated ones where it makes sense to better embed your post into each social network‘s stream. #Twitter is different than #Instagram.
Spend time tailoring your crossposted content for maximum relevance and engagement on each platform. The extra effort is worth it!
Step 5: Analyze Performance
It’s important to track analytics as you expand crossposting. Monitor which platforms are driving most traffic and conversions back to your website.
Pay attention to engagement rates. Does customizing more for each audience increase likes and comments? Which networks add less value?
Use these insights to focus your automation efforts on the highest performing channels in terms of results for your business. Add or remove platforms from Zaps as their effectiveness evolves.
Crossposting provides a process for efficiently testing many networks to determine where your audience is most active.
Analyzing performance helps focus crossposting on what works.
Optimizing & Leveling-Up Your Crossposting
Once you’ve built initial workflows, there are plenty of ways to further enhance process automation:
Schedule Ahead for Consistency: Use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to queue crossposts rather than just posting immediately.
Add Personalization Layers: Leverage Zapier code tools to dynamically pull images/text from websites to make posts more custom.
Create Follower Alerts: Build Zaps that notify you when crossposted content receives lots of engagement.
Set Up Analytics Dashboards: Connect data sources like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and more to monitor overall strategy impact.
Automate Repurposing Old Content: “Replay” evergreen updates from your history to revive past momentum.
Post Collection Batches: Crosspost curated bundles of content around topics magnetic for your audience.
The more you dive into an automated crossposting approach, the more opportunities there are to develop uniquely helpful solutions.
Top Social Media Combinations to Crosspost
While crossposting can work across just about any platforms, these combinations tend to deliver great results:
Instagram to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – With Instagram driving so much visual discovery, it’s perfect for imagery to repurpose.
YouTube to Facebook, Twitter – YouTube show previews or UGC on other networks hooks more viewers.
Facebook Groups to Pages – Turn niche communities into wider audiences.
Reddit to Twitter – Curated niche Reddit talks can find new life on mass market Twitter.
Quora Spaces to LinkedIn – Expert insights deserve broad amplification.
Once again, test crossposting combinations extensively and pay attention to metrics to learn what works for your brand.
FAQs on Social Media Crossposting
Here are answers to some common questions around automatically publishing your content across social media networks:
Does crossposting decrease reach? Generally no – exposing great content to more channels increases spread. Just be sure you customize it enough or intersperse with exclusive content.
Can crossposting get your account banned? If done excessively without any customization or community context, some platforms may flag accounts. Add value with commentary tailored to each network.
Is totally manual posting better? It takes significantly more effort to uniquely craft posts for every platform which means you‘ll share less overall. The ROI is lower even if each individual post gets slightly better engagement.
What about just repurposing old evergreen content? That works well, especially if you customize it for each platform. But starring with a consistent source of new content allows you to keep building momentum rather than just reusing the past.
Review platform guidelines, test conservatively, and monitor for any issues. Chances are you’ll find crossposting dramatically boosts your brand‘s social media presence.
Putting It All Together
The bottom line is that automated crossposting tools can save huge amounts of time compared to managing multiple social accounts individually. More importantly, they allow you to extend your reach dramatically by tapping into new audiences.
Follow the steps in this guide to start building Zaps that reuse great content across all your networks. Pay close attention to performance data to double down on where engagement thrives. Consider how to customize messaging to optimize relevance by platform.
Soon you’ll have an effective automated social media strategy fueling growth and traffic back to your core hub. Just don’t keep it all to yourself – be sure to also crosspost this guide if you found it helpful!
