Do you post photos, links and status updates from Twitter to Facebook? This appears to be a smart strategy. If you don’t have time to spend on both sites, linking Twitter to Facebook lets you post once and have the content appear in both places.
The trouble is… this strategy doesn’t do you any favors.
Here’s why.
#1 – Twitter has a 140 character limit. Facebook doesn’t – so why not take advantage of this to write longer posts?
#2 – Twitter users love hashtags to categorize their posts. Facebook users get confused when a hashtag appears in a status update.
If those reasons don’t convince you why it doesn’t pay to post from Twitter to Facebook, this last one should:
#3 – Facebook won’t let you share Twitter content. That’s right. When you post directly to Facebook from Twitter, the “share” button has been replaced with your Twitter ID.
In this example, Kona Dog, a Central Florida based food truck that sells Hawaiian-style hot dogs, is advertising a special deal to their followers. Twitter users can retweet this deal easily, but there is no share option for the Facebook status. As a result, Kona Dog’s fans don’t have an easy way to share the info with their friends. If you’re a big Kona Dog fan and want to keep the deal to yourself, that’s swell. But for Kona Dog, this is a lost opportunity to have their deal go viral, costing them sales.
You could post to Facebook first, and use an app that automatically posts to Twitter. But you’d have to keep those posts short, and refrain from using hashtags.
An alternative strategy that may save you some time is to use a third-party app like Hootsuite. With Hootsuite, you can direct the status update, photo or video to post to Facebook and Twitter at the same time, or at different times. You can use the same content for both sites, or customize it as you see fit.
Have you noticed the “share” button missing from any other Facebook posts? If so, what option was in its place? Please comment below.
