Cross-posting Was Fun While It Lasted

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This very tweet marked the day where I stopped the cross-posting fiesta after years; the time when most, if not all, my tweets on Twitter is cross-posted to Facebook that I don't seem to update a status on Facebook at all save for some Share-able stuffs. Not just Twitter-to-Facebook, but I also cross-post my tweets to LiveJournal (the difference is that in LiveJournal the tweets are listed on one post containing tweets from a single day), and that means that any article I share with my Twitter would be fetched to Facebook, but the double share also has its own downsides explained further in this post.

WHY YOU NO LONGER CROSS-POST?

It's been a very long time that I used Twitter, but had a sabbatical once due to the fact that I wanted to cross-post my tweets to Facebook. The first time I am into Twitter, I mistook the service as a blogging site; it is in fact a 140-character thoughts tweeting service. At that time, my first tweet dates back to the time where I was a fan of Eyeshield 21, judging from my first tweet that is a Deimon Devil Bats' chant ("KILL'EM, YA-HA~!!!" thingy). Also in the past, I was very active on Facebook until the cross-posting feature turned the tables in my social media presence, where instead I posted statuses on Twitter rather than Facebook, while in reality Facebook does offer more characters per status post and features. The time I reached 1000 tweets, I changed my username to @RebirthAY to signify that my Twitter is "Reborn". 6000+ tweets later, the "Rebirth" message is kinda off, and having a color that resembles Kamen Rider Gaim's Armored Rider Gaim Jinba Lemon form is nothing but a pain in the butt; Yellow texts (for mentions and hashtags) over white background? I can see John Cleland trying to take me to the dark room for this, even though he's no graphic designer.

I have been planning to disintegrate cross-posting for a long time, but in return I wanted to do a total revamp to my Twitter profile for that matter, and I wanted to download the Twitter Archive before I change my Twitter name, which unfortunately doesn't work as I don't get any e-mail telling me to download my own Twitter Archive despite I entered the right e-mails (you read it right. I have more than 3 e-mails in case anything goes awry). With a little bit of disappointment, I did the profile revamp right away, to the point that I changed my Twitter colors, avatar, username and profile in just a jiffy. Granted, I have everything I need to write in mind, or else it would take a much longer time than it should. Alas, @RebirthAY becomes @RnTheAndrian (the alternative and a precisely clever way of spelling my name) and all the Jinba Lemon colors become [R]GARAGE colors, just to make grey, black, white and red my personal colors aside from [R]GARAGE's colors. I would take any "form" anytime I like (like I did with Jinba Lemon colors, dubbed as "Jinba LemonGRAB" - Jinba Lemon + Lemongrab), but for now, I'm formless, and am trying to think which one fits me best.

Reasons why I stopped the cross-posting habit is, first and foremost, this limited my Facebook usage. In the past, I used to write random statuses and stuff, but with cross-posting, the only thing I do on Facebook is to share some interesting articles worth sharing. There's no character limit on Facebook for writing statuses which obviously gives it an edge to Twitter with its 140-character limit. Another reason is that Facebook doesn't fetch every tweet. I noticed this a long time ago where I shared an article on Twitter and expected Facebook to fetch that tweet, only to find out that it doesn't. Just when you have zero expectations and you shared an article via Twitter and Facebook, assuming that Facebook doesn't fetch some tweets, it becomes redundant on random, which is the third reason why. The word "redundant" here refers to how two same articles are posted to your timeline; one is from a direct Facebook share and one is a Twitter tweet that's cross-posted to Facebook. I would delete the redundancy, but that would require a very long time.

THERE ARE REASONS. RIGHTFUL REASONS WHY

It's true that Cross-posting can save time because you just have to post something on Twitter so that Facebook can fetch it, but can Google+ do the cross-posting game too right off the bat? Not really. One day, though, just before I stopped this very habit, I remember that a Facebook friend of mine shared an article about downsides of cross-posting a long time ago. One of the reasons based on the article is how it ignores differences in target audiences, meaning that there's a chance that it's off-target to FB users, especially if the post(s) is/are conversations in public space. Another is the posting of shortened links which does more harm plus the extra worry than it does good dressed in certainty; links posted on Twitter are automatically shortened, but users can opt for third-party link shorteners. Whatever the way is, they don't do good off Twitter, and this also goes to the mentions and hashtags as well.

When you're into marketing, social media marketing for exact, you'll realize how painful a cross-posting habit is. Not only it could lower reputations for your company that does this kind of marketing, but also it's painful to see. I'm no social media marketing expert, but there's an article about how bad cross-posting is for social media marketing, which is worth becoming an ice breaker. No, there's not just one, but two for exact, but there are even more articles from other sites that tells you this, albeit in different perspectives. Let those ice breakers be your reference whenever you're interested in social media marketing and want to be a part of one company's social media marketing in the future, starting from personal space first.

THE FUTURE?

My future is unchanged from the beginning: to distribute usage between social medias accordingly, not just the Trinity (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ - Yes, I made that up), but also others such as Instagram, LiveJournal, Tumblr, etc. The only difference is that one has been given a new style, and now that each social media share has clearer target accordingly. Sure hashtags are good on Twitter and Google+ but suck when cross-posted to Facebook, and Twitter mentions are painful for Facebook at certain times. Not to mention Twitter links can mislead due to their shortened link nature. In the end, it's about using "The Right Tool in The Right Place" all the way.

You can follow me, @RnTheAndrian, on Twitter for 140-character long thoughts. You can also follow @tsukasa_kadoya on Instagram for some random photos of mine, my Tumblr Overworld Destroyer for some fandom reblogs / posts, my LiveJournal Fandomwarrior where I post fandom-related blog posts and join the Fandom March Madness party, my deviantART Tsukasa R Seiei which hasn't been updated but will in the couple of days, and my Google+ here.

~[R]