How to Craft the Perfect Post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Individuals and businesses of all sizes find it difficult to manage their social media strategies.

There’s an art to figuring out when to publish your stuff. Monitoring your ROI and social analytics regularly. And, of course, there’s always a need for new, interesting stuff to distribute.

Furthermore, each major social network has continued to differ in how it is set up and what your followers anticipate from it. Character restrictions, appropriate times to post, ideal image sizes, and other considerations vary. Even for the same article or topic, the best technique to generate maximum engagement on Instagram differs from Twitter.

Creating a unique post for each social media outlet can be difficult with limited time and resources, but it’s worth the effort.

So, what is the ideal content for each social media platform?

We’ll walk you through the process of crafting spectacular, engaging, and beautifully composed Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram messages in this article. We’d also like to introduce you to a brand-new Buffer function that will help you create the perfect update for every social platform in one easy step.

Why should you customize your content to each social media platform?

We’ve noticed an increasingly frequent tendency — significant businesses and those successful on social media are shifting their messaging between networks for any given post – based on our research and witnessing the best practices of brands like Nike, NASA, and leading agencies VaynerMedia.

The following are some examples:

• Using hashtags in Twitter and Instagram posts
• On Linkedin and Google+, having a longer description
• On Facebook, tell tales and utilize more shareable copy.

Having a distinct voice and publishing material with a message tailored to the correct audience on the right network can significantly increase your articles’ engagement and reach.

In action: tailored content

Here’s how Nike distributes the same information and message across many platforms:

Nike has made excellent use of the huge Facebook character restriction on Facebook:

Twitter

Nike has kept things simple by taking the last line of the stanza and embedding the accompanying video natively on Twitter to fit within Twitter’s 140 character limit:

The new Tailored Posts in the Buffer browser extension were created with this principle in mind. Customers should be able to optimize their messaging for each social network in one go, right?

How to write the ideal post for each social media platform

How to write the ideal Facebook status update

5 techniques for writing compelling Facebook copy

The copy you provide alongside your material, no matter what type of post you’re sharing on Facebook, can impact how well it performs. Here are some pointers for writing great copy that will increase your reach and engagement:

1. Experiment with different lengths of posts.

The character limit for Facebook status updates is a massive 63,206 characters. When we looked at Facebook post-interaction a few years ago, posts with 80 characters or less had 66% more engagement.

NPR looked at nearly 3,000 Facebook link postings and discovered that shorter posts (under 120 characters) had greater click-through rates than larger posts (those above 280 characters). What’s more, NPR discovered that longer postings generated more “Other Clicks,” such as “See More” clicks.

Experiment with short and long posts to see what works best for your social media objectives. Short copy appears to work well for clicks, whereas lengthier copy works better for engagement.

2. Pose a query

As someone looks through their Facebook feed, asking questions is a wonderful way to catch their interest. A good status can often be improved by asking the right questions.

For instance, rather than:

• Here’s all you need to know about Facebook Ads.

To make the copy more engaging, you could incorporate a question:

• Do Facebook Ads stick you? We were as well! Here is our comprehensive guide:

3. Make a checklist

Lists are also useful for providing context and evoking intrigue. Break down some of the most important aspects of your Facebook post into a few bullet points to add to your status update.

4. Include a quote from your content.

Is there a particularly interesting statistic or quote from the article? If that’s the case, you may utilize it to contextualize your post.

Whether you’re linking to a blog article, posting a video, or making any other type of Facebook post, the material may contain some wonderful quotes that you may use in your post.

Instead of “83 percent of marketers plan on Instagram Ads,” you could write, “Did you know that 83 percent of marketers plan on Instagram Ads?” Here’s how to stay ahead of the game!”

5. Add a couple of emojis?

According to Hubspot, Emojis in your article can increase likes by 57%, comments by 33%, and shares by 33% over those without them. To discover how emojis affect engagement, try adding them to your material.

Facebook image sizes that are ideal

Every day, more than 300 million images are uploaded to Facebook. The first step in sticking out from the crowd and capturing your audience’s attention as they read through their News Feed is to ensure your image sizes are correct.

Here’s a brief rundown of the best picture sizes for Facebook shared images and link images

Image shared

One of the most popular pieces of content to share on Facebook is an image. When you share a picture, it will appear in your Page’s timeline and the News Feeds of your followers.

Shared URL

Another popular method of sharing on Facebook is via links. When you share a link to Facebook, the picture specified in the web page’s metadata is automatically included in your post. The ideal size for a Facebook shared link image is 1,200 x 627 pixels.

How to write the ideal Instagram caption

Instagram captions are limited to 2,200 characters and are terminated with an ellipsis after three lines of text.

Ideally, your initial phrase or two should grab the reader’s attention and provide context for your post or urge them to continue reading through your caption.

1. Play around with microblogging.

A current Instagram trend is to use the caption to convey relevant content to your audience, much like a short-form blog post.

Microblogging on Instagram allows you to go deeper into a subject than a one- or two-line caption. You could, for example, utilize Instagram captions to share:

• Tutorials: Use your Instagram caption to give a tutorial or how-to to your followers. If you’re posting a photo of food, you may include the recipe in the description.
• Advice and suggestions: Bite-sized morsels relating to your Instagram post’s theme. For example, you could write about how to establish a productive work environment alongside an image of a lovely workspace.
• Behind-the-scenes:By using the caption to describe the story behind the photograph, you may take your viewers behind the scenes. If you’re posting a photograph of a team member, you may elaborate on their function at the organization.

Jordan Syatt (@SyattFitness) and Steve Babcock (@stevehappens) are two examples of Instagram microblogging.

2. Include hashtags

Instagram users may use hashtags to find new content and accounts to follow. According to Track Maven’s research, posts with more than 11 hashtags receive increased engagement.

Experiment with different hashtags in your posts to see how they influence your reach and interaction.

Top tip: If you don’t want to use too many hashtags in your caption, you can use hashtags as comments instead.

3. Encourage feedback

One of the most effective strategies to enhance Instagram engagement is to get your followers to reply directly to your post. “I adore sneakers,” DRock captioned a recent Instagram image about sneakers. “What is your favorite pair of sneakers?”

Consider what kinds of questions you could pose and how you could encourage people to react to your Instagram posts. Often, all it takes is a gentle prod to start a dialogue.

Instagram image sizes that are ideal

Landscape (horizontal) and portrait (vertical) photos and traditional square images can now be uploaded to Instagram. The ideal sizes for Instagram’s three image kinds are as follows:

Instagram photo square

A square Instagram image should be 1080 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall.

How to make the ideal Twitter post

4 techniques for writing intriguing Twitter copy

Minor changes to the copy of your tweets can significantly impact your results. Here are four suggestions for writing great tweets:

1. Try to stay under 140 characters.

Despite the constant speculations concerning Twitter’s character restriction, tweets are limited to 140 characters. However, any photographs, videos, polls, or tweets you cite do not count toward your 140-character limit.

According to Buddy Media, tweets with less than 100 characters had a 17 percent greater interaction rate. Twitter announced that Promoted Tweets with 40-60 characters of content have a lower CPA than longer Tweets.

If you want your content to have an impact, keep it as short as possible.

2. Avoid using too many hashtags.

Hashtags erupted into mainstream internet culture on Twitter, but oddly, stuffing a bunch of hashtags into your tweets is unlikely to get you many clicks.

On Twitter’s Business blog, Joe Wadlington explains more:

Before you add any hashtags, consider the goal of your post. If you want to reach new people with this message or increase engagement, using a hashtag or two can help. If you’re searching for hits from your existing audience, hashtags may not be necessary.

3. When sharing links, rewrite the headlines.

Consider alternative titles or methods to leverage significant phrases or facts from the post inside your 140-character limit when posting a link on Twitter.

The headline is displayed within the Twitter card when links are sent to Twitter, and it’s best not to repeat it in your tweet.

4. Indicate whether your content is “new” to the reader.

Twitter is all about in-the-moment and real-time content. When individuals open their timelines, they frequently want to know what’s going on in the world that interests them.

Tweets about “new” products or services had a 10% lower CPA and a 26% lower cost-per-link-click (CPLC) on Twitter Ads, and we assume the same is true for organic, non-promoted tweets.

Tell your audience when something is “new” if you want to increase clicks and engagement.

Ideal picture sizes for Twitter Images now appear on Twitter uncropped,

allowing you to enjoy and present them as they were intended. An image’s minimum display size on Twitter is 440 × 220 pixels.

Here are some suggested image rules for Twitter:

• 440 x 220 pixels is the minimum image size (a 2:1 ratio)
• A single tweet can contain up to four photos.
• 1024 x 512 pixels is the maximum display size.
• Photos can be up to 5MB on mobile and up to 15MB on the web. GIF, JPEG, and PNG files can be uploaded.
• Your photo will be automatically resized to fit your enlarged Tweet and user gallery.
• For Twitter, we usually make our photos 1024 x 512 pixels.

Tailored Posts with the Buffer browser plugin let you craft the perfect message.

We all know how important it is to personalize your message to each social media network you use, but there hasn’t always been an easy way.

Traditionally, you had two choices: go to each network individually for each piece of material, or open the Buffer composer (or any other tool you would use) and distribute to one network at a time. That was something we wanted to enhance.

You may launch Tailored Posts on any web page and have a starting point for customizing your post for each network right away.

We hope the new version makes managing character restrictions, media attachments, tagging others across networks, and other features easier for you. Tailored Posts also has several useful features, such as:

Customize your posts on each social network

Create distinct and genuine messaging for each social media platform. It’s simple to switch your message between profiles for any given post with Tailored Posts.

Share one-of-a-kind photos and videos.

On each social platform, use unique images and videos of appropriate sizes.

Now it’s your turn.

It’s incredible to consider all the options and different ways you can share your content across social media platforms.

How do you publish your material and personalize it to each social media platform?

I’d love to hear about any tips or ideas you’ve used that I didn’t cover in this piece. Please feel free to provide any future ideas! I anticipate hearing from you.