How do you create content that works on every platform?

One thing that helps me is to know my audience and work backwards from there. Content about family or achievements tend to be universal parts of the human experience and lend themselves to wider appeal. The audience you've built or are trying to build will determine your content strategy and whether a specific piece of content would make sense on all of your platforms.

I have found that understanding each platform and what type of content the consumer interacts with more important that changing the actual content for each individual platform. I would not want to behave differently on a different platform as my brand is the same whether its presented on instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. Humanized content works the best across all platforms but it's the way you present it. Having an understanding of hashtags, being inclusive for all consumers and testing and measuring things is key to your marketing strategy success.

One thing to keep in mind is not all your content belongs on all platforms. Another is that the way you word your content should be slightly different on each platform, keeping the core message consistent, as your audience will likely be different on each. This does not mean drastically changing the captions as you must always stay within the voice of the business. The last thing to do is stay up to date with the changing landscape of social media as it tends to change rapidly and you should be aware so you aren’t left wondering why you content is maybe not performing as it just did days before.

To create cross-platform content, start by knowing your audience intimately. Adapt your message, format, and timing for each platform while maintaining consistent branding. Engage with visuals, storytelling, and interactivity. Monitor analytics, adapt, and stay updated. Quality, relevance, and authenticity are paramount

Understanding your brand and its audience is the first step before creating content for different platforms. We all know that Facebook is long form, Instagram is visual, X is short and catchy and Linkedin is formal. The focus should be on the core platform which has your maximum audience. The other platforms should be used to convert new audience into your regular audience. This can be done by tailoring the brand's message to suit the platform's requirement.

Social media has always been unpredictable, planning your content is akin to having a roadmap for your journey. It's not just about posting whenever inspiration strikes; it's about deliberate, thoughtful curation of content that resonates with your audience. Your audience should know what to expect from your content, and this consistency builds trust and loyalty.

My content planning revolves around understanding the audience and aligning with organizational goals. I maintain a flexible content calendar, stay data-driven through regular audits, and focus on delivering high-quality, relevant content. I also emphasize the importance of storytelling in content planning. Crafting narratives that connect with the audience on a personal level is a key strategy. Additionally, I keep a keen eye on industry trends and competitors to ensure that our content remains innovative and competitive. Collaboration with other teams, such as marketing and design, plays a crucial role in content planning, ensuring a cohesive brand message across all channels.

For consistent, and purpose-driven communication across platforms planning the content plays a very crucial role. The same plan can help you to stay organized, cater to the audience's needs, and measure success. Start with setting objectives and determine what you want to achieve with the piece. It could increase awareness, drive sales or engagements. Understand who is your audience. Create personas that detail their interests, challenges, demographics, behaviors, and content preferences. Brainstorm topic ideas. Tools like trends, buzz sumo, answerthepublic, crowdtangle help to understand the trends and insights. Create a calendar for daily, weekly, or monthly activities. To keep content diverse and engaging plan mix of content types.

I've told to my students never ever start planning their content before working on basics. Basics such as creating: Buyer's Persona Buyer's Journey Competitor Research then start working on the content calendar. Using an AI tool for creating content is good for idea generation but do not rely on it because only you can add uniqueness to the trends and make your content stand out from the crowd. You can create a weekly or monthly content calendar with the proper mix of videos, images, stories, Q&A, Polls, Reels, etc. and test what works more for your audience. AB testing with your content plan is a must to keep evolving with new updates and trends.

Every piece of content you make probably has something you can use for any channel. A video you make for TikTok may have great thought starters for a poll on LinkedIn or Instagram stories. It could be other way around too. If you're running a series on how sales best practices, you can use polls to not only connect with your audience, but give yourself more insight into what they want to know. Run a poll asking about their favorite tools, biggest pain points, etc and then use that to pick your video topics. The poll answers become their own posts, and the videos you make can turn into text posts. Bottom line, don't think of your content as one and done. Think of ways to bend it and mold it.

Repurpose needs to be done regularly based on following attributes: 1. Seasonality 2. SERP ranking fluctuations 3. Ageing 4. Updates

Repurposing content means taking an existing piece of content and transforming it into a different format or adapting it for a different platform. Repurposing content can help you reach a wider audience, increase your brand awareness, and boost your SEO. For example, you can take a blog post and turn it into a video for YouTube, a podcast episode for Spotify, an infographic for Pinterest, or a slide deck for SlideShare.

Repurposing and distributing content across several platforms ensures that it reaches to wider audience It also caters to users who may be active on one platform but not another. While repurposing your core message of the post stays the same it's essential to reframe it to fit each platform's unique character. For instance, a long-form post on LinkedIn might not work on Twitter. To enhance performance use unique features of the platforms such as trending hashtags on Twitter while microblogging or reels on Instagram. Each platform caters to different audience segments, that have unique consumption patterns. So, to get the best out of repurposing adept accordingly.

Repurposing content is one of the best strategies to push the reach of your content. It doesn't mean you blindly need to post the same content on all the platforms but it has a proper way to follow. Go and check your old content from the last 30 or 90 days, List down 10 top-performing content pieces, Repurpose it or reshare it on the same platform and other platforms, If possible change the format and use the same content for the respective platform for better engagement, and voila! People are loving it.

For example, to repurpose a blog post on Instagram effectively, take the key points from the post and create engaging carousel slides with attractive visuals, ask questions in the captions to encourage interaction, convert important insights into short video clips or reels, craft shareable quote images and informative infographics, encourage user-generated content using a branded hashtag, and organize content into Story Highlights for easy access, thus leveraging Instagram's visual nature and engaging the audience while extending the blog post's reach and impact on the platform.

Optimize your content and account with the right steps of the optimization. Optimization includes the content reach, engagement, keywords used, caption, profile, shares, etc. Every platform has its own algorithm that makes it unique from another platform. Therefore, understand how every platform's algorithm works. For example: Instagram's algorithm believes in engagement and relevancy. You people are engaging with your content, then your content is more likely to get a high reach. Same goes for Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Tik Tok. Understand the algorithm and optimize the content accordingly.

To create content that works on every platform, you need to: Create high-quality content. This is the most important factor, regardless of the platform. Your content should be informative, engaging, and relevant to your audience.

Optimizing your content as per the platform algorithm is crucial to ensure maximum visibility and engagement. Each social media platform has its own unique algorithm that determines which content gets priority in users' feeds. By understanding and catering to these algorithms, you can significantly enhance the reach and effectiveness of your content.

I often adapt content for specific platforms by tailoring the format and style to align with each one's unique audience and capabilities. For example, on Twitter, I craft concise and engaging text with relevant hashtags, while on LinkedIn, I focus on in-depth articles and professional tone. On platforms like YouTube, I optimize videos with compelling thumbnails, titles, and descriptions, and on Pinterest, I emphasize eye-catching visuals. It's essential to understand the platform's algorithms and best practices to maximize visibility and engagement while maintaining a consistent brand message across all channels.

Here's the result time when you finally understand how well your Social Media Plan is working and what things you need to change or work on. You can use analytics tools of respective platforms from where you can check the reach (account reach of your content), impression (number of times your content is shown), clicks (number of times people clicked on your content), engagement (number of people like, share or comment your content), CTR ( number of people clicked on your content for respective impression rate), and much more. All these analytical data can help you to understand which content work well and what is not working so that you can make changes in your further planning.

I regularly monitor and measure key metrics tailored to each platform. For instance, on social media platforms, I track engagement metrics like likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates. On a blog or website, I assess metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates. Email newsletters are evaluated based on open rates and click-through rates. Additionally, I pay close attention to audience demographics and behavior patterns to refine content strategies. This data-driven approach allows me to identify successful content, optimize underperforming content, and make informed decisions for future content creation, ultimately ensuring that our efforts align with the overall goals of the organization.

To understand the performance of your content, it's essential to be metrics-driven. Keep an eye on, emgagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares & retweets. Also: - Reach and Impressions: How many people have seen the content? - CTR: Particularly important if your posts include links. - Conversion Rates: If your content aims to drive sales, sign-ups, or other specific actions. - Time Spent: On platforms that offer this data, understanding how long users engage with your content can be telling.

Prioritize quality content over quantity. A single impactful post can outperform multiple mediocre ones. Use platform analytics to monitor content performance, and analyze what works best to refine your strategy accordingly. Stay informed about platform algorithm changes, trends, and best practices, as they are constantly changing.

Develop clear brand guidelines. Brand guidelines are a set of rules that define how your brand looks, sounds, and feels across different platforms. Brand guidelines can help you create consistent and recognizable content that reflects your brand identity and values. For example, you can create a brand style guide that specifies your brand name, logo, colors, fonts, tone of voice, imagery, and messaging.

Understand each platform's nuances, maintain consistent branding, and adapt content formats. Prioritize high-quality visuals, storytelling, and engagement timing. Leverage interactive elements, cross-promotion, and audience-centric content. Stay informed about platform guidelines, engage with your audience, and analyze performance for continuous improvement. With these strategies, you can create content that transcends platform boundaries and engages audiences effectively on every digital channel.

Algorithm optimization is crucial, But the most important thing is to provide genuine value to your audience. Building a loyal and engaged community will always be beneficial, regardless of platform specifics.

You shouldn't start with the mindset one piece of content will "work" on every platform. One piece of content could provide the starting point for different platforms. You may end up changing anything from dimension of content, to length, to accompanying copy, or even creating a companion asset with a format that could work better on a certain platform. Things specifically to consider when reformatting content include: performance of content formats, thumbnails, scroll habits, ability to use a link.