4 Reasons I’m Giving You Permission To Automate Your Instagram Stories to Meta
Recently I took a poll on LinkedIn about Instagram and Facebook (Meta) stories and the results were pretty even about whether to automate them from one platform to the other.
I've been automating some Instagram stories to Facebook lately. In case you are wondering what I mean by “automating” I’m simply talking about creating a piece of content on one platform and sharing it to a different one from the platform I created it on - also known as “crossposting”. I’ve always been staunchly against this practice for multiple reasons. This is the one exception I've EVER made and I’m giving you permission to do it too for these 4 reasons:
4 Reasons I’m Giving You Permission To Automate Your Instagram Stories To Meta
1) The stories are almost the same exact format on the two apps owned by the same company. One of my main objections to automating content was always that it’s lazy and looks lazy - like the content was obviously created for a different place. But in this case it doesn't immediately LOOK lazy. Instagram stories don't look out of place on Meta, and while not all features work in the crosspost many do such as location stickers, links, and mentions.
2) It's easy. But it's not just easy to automate which by nature is already easy - heck you can turn automation on as a setting and never think about it again with many platforms. But in this case it's easy to select which stories you send over to Facebook each time and I still make those quick decisions right there in the Instagram share menu. I don't just turn on a bot and leave it on.
3) The risk/reward is in your favor. You’ll be able to reach more people without spending more time to do it. I'm hardly lazy with my content believe me. I spend a TON of time creating content specifically for each platform according to the expectations & culture of each one. But there are only so many hours in a day, and I just don't see this backfiring - I haven't seen any evidence of it being a problem so far - partly because...
4) You can and should still create your main content on Meta - the posts - FOR Meta. I haven't just abandoned that strategy. I still see the regular feed as the main way people consume content there and that hasn’t changed for me just because I’ve added my Instagram stories there. The stories are supplementing the content - not supplanting it. I still create my Meta content for Meta.
Thoughts? Do you do this? Are you going to do it? You do have permission now you know… Comment below and let me know what you think!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can also connect with Doug on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and/or M10 Social on Twitter or Facebook.
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