This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Can you post the same thing on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube? Welcome to Side Hustle School. It's your host, Chris Guillebeau. We're gonna hear today from a dynamic content creator from Mexico City, Carlos. He is poised to extend his digital presence from one of these networks to the other.
I forget which way he's going, whether it's TikTok to YouTube or Instagram to TikTok or something else, or there could be some other networks by the time this episode comes out. New social network every day, it seems. But he's wondering, you know, how does this work? Can I just make the content once and then cross-post it? Do I need to tailor this content for each platform?
Basically, is there a way to reach more people without doing a ton of additional work? And I think that's kind of what it comes down to. There might be a bit of a balance here in the sense that the content that is created natively for any particular network is probably going to do better, but, you know, you don't have unlimited time, so you can't necessarily go and create content for 18 different networks. So let's talk about how to go through this decision. How do you make the best possible decision to maximize your engagement, grow a diverse follower base without working 25 hours a day, because that tends to be difficult.
I can tell you from experience. Can you post the same thing everywhere? What's the best way to do this? Let's talk about it. Detailed question coming right up.
[Music]
- Greetings, I'm Carlos, a content creator from Mexico City. I've been creating videos primarily for TikTok, but want to expand my presence on YouTube and Instagram. Is it advisable to publish the same videos across these platforms, or should I be tailoring my content specifically for each platform's audience? [Music]
Hey, Carlos, thanks for the question. It's always good to remember when you are trying to figure out should I do it this way or that way, in terms of almost any situation, especially when it comes to online content, it's always good to remember there's more than one way.
And you can do it this way or you can do it that way. And you might be successful either way. You might be more successful one way than the other. There are best practices and such, and so that's why we talk these things out. But I think it's far more important, whatever you decide to move forward and take action, as opposed to just kind of remaining in this space of analysis all the time.
So just having a general bias towards action is probably the most important thing. And so when it comes to like, can you cross post? Should you cross post? I guess maybe that's a better question because you can, and some people do post the same thing on every single network, and that can be okay. You know, like in terms of the social media expert advice, the advice is no, don't do that.
And each network reaches people differently, and there's a certain vocabulary and ways that you communicate better on Instagram versus TikTok or vice versa. And that is true. If you're going to have a major social strategy on multiple networks, then it probably is good to have some tailoring or specialization. At the same time, if you have a central message and you're just trying to distribute that and you ultimately want to bring people to your website, perhaps to capture their email address, or maybe it's a different goal that doesn't always work these days, like a lot of people do prefer to engage natively through social, that it's not necessarily a bad thing to be cross posting. I think the only warning is don't keep everything on autopilot, like you do want to make sure you're kind of checking in, responding to comments, you know, engaging a little bit, liking other people's posts, just so you're not totally checked out, but there's not a single way to do it.
And some people do post the same thing. A lot of my stuff I post in multiple places. So I do some customization as well on some networks, but other things I don't really care that much, or at least that's not what I'm best at. And so I'm happy to post some things and maybe that will bring me some people. I know very well, I'm not going to be an expert there.
I'm not going to have a huge network in most of these places, but I also don't want to completely sit it out either. So you just got to decide how much time do you want to spend basically, because there definitely will be more and more of a time cost, the more personalization and customization you do. That's my take on it. Let me know if you disagree, if you have a different approach that has worked for you, always cheering you on, always wishing you well, Carlos, everybody else. We have come to the end of the month here.
You might be listening later, but it's the end of the month in terms of episodes, episode 2,647. New episode coming out tomorrow, new month. I hope you'll continue to listen. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
