You know what I love about social media? I can post one thing to my Twitter and it will post it on my Facebook and LinkedIn and Pinterest and Google Plus and…. You get the point.  Isn’t that great?

One post and it can cross-post to all these different sites.  What a time saver! And I’m showing my fans/followers/connections/etc. that I’m really present there and want to engage with them!

If you’re nodding your head in agreement right now…you deserve a kidney shot.  Yep…maybe even a eye poke or something more severe.  Take this picture for example (Yes I did this on purpose)

I cross-posted this from Twitter, which you can tell because of the @ in the status.  Why is this bad? Well for starters, I’m showing anyone on Facebook who looks at this post that I originally posted this on Twitter and the @adrhub doesn’t really compute into Facebook language.  I’m also showing the Fans on this page that I don’t care enough to craft a status specifically for them.   Is that what you want to do to your community? Show them that they don’t really matter?

 

Cross-Posting Dangers

1. Turns you into a broadcaster: We talked about the dangers of broadcasting in myth #3 so I’m not going to go over it again…but seriously…do you really just want to shout at people?  I’m also willing to guess that if you’ve been cross-posting for a while you have completely forgot about that community.  You’re not engaging with those people because you have forgotten about them.  Not enough time to check? Read this then.  Shame on you.

 

2. Different audiences: For my communities, I have a different audience on my Facebook fan page then my Twitter community, then my LinkedIn community.  By cross-posting I’m not being in tune with any of those communities because I’m failing to realize that they each community is different.  They have different demographics, they have different age’s, they have different jobs.  They are three distinct communities and so I treat them as such.

 

3. You’re missing the point: Social media has a pretty key word in there.  Social.  How social are you being by posting the same crap to different audiences all the time? One common example that I see is people cross-posting their twitter updates to LinkedIn.  That’s like telling a dirty joke to your friends and then repeating it with your clients.  You run a huge risk of damaging your reputation and the relationships that you have on the various platforms.

 

So here I am.  Begging you.  Please stop the insanity that is cross-posting.  It’s a complete myth that it is glamorous, beautiful and a huge timesaver.