Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Today on Social Media Week, Ashkahn and Graham pick Derek’s brain about how to get content for several different social media platforms.
Derek shares his tips for how best to broaden your reach with your social media and not fatigue your audience with the same content on multiple platforms. He also shares what type of content works well on different platforms.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Okay. All right. Welcome everybody. This is Graham. Over here’s-
Graham: And that was a lie. I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. Wow, I didn’t even mean to do that.
Graham: Big flub up. Can’t believe this made it’s way onto the recording.
Derek: He meant to say this was Graham on the bass guitar.
Ashkahn: This is Ashkahn, yeah. I just got really lost in the intro there.
Graham: And we have a special guest with us in the studio today.
Ashkahn: Graham.
Derek: Ashkahn.
Ashkahn: It’s Derek. Derek’s here with us.
Derek: I’m Derek.
Ashkahn: For Day Three of our social media palooza.
Graham: Derek W. Wyatt, if you want to stock him online.
Derek: That’s true.
Ashkahn: And yeah, we’ve basically had a bunch of social media questions.
Graham: Two, so far.
Ashkahn: Come in over time, and so we’ve compiled them all into a week run here with Derek Wyatt who does our social media for Float On and Float Things Solutions.
Graham: Derek W. Wyatt, if you want google him.
Ashkahn: Listen the other two days.
Graham: Which are kind of right before this. If you’re listening right now.
Ashkahn: They’re kind of building on top of each other so we would recommend listening to them in order.
Derek: Fourth wall break down, we have seven questions that we’ve been kind of touching on.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s how weeks work and so I think they should know that.
Graham: “Can I just post the same stuff on Twitter and Instagram that I post on Facebook to save time?” Is the question for today.
Ashkahn: How much can people reuse content to cross different social media platforms?
Derek: So, to answer that question, yes and no, you can do both. Natively let’s look at the platforms like Instagram is strictly photos and videos so you can’t post an article from Facebook so if you’re sharing the latest study, you can’t easily do that over on Instagram. You can maybe screen-
Graham: You can take a picture of your Facebook post and then put that on Instagram.
Derek: So I have done a screenshot on a mobile phone and told people to go over to our Facebook page, it’s really convoluted. It’s not ideal but at the same time, if you have a photo that you’re posting on Facebook, you should probably post it eventually on Instagram and post it eventually on Twitter. I wouldn’t post ’em all three at the same time. I know that’s what a lot of centers end up doing simply because, think of it like, browsing habits.
I’m gonna check my Instagram and my Facebook and my Twitter on my 15 minute break at work or whatever the case may be. If they go to each one of those platforms and they see the same thing, it’s not really giving them any added value but let’s say at 10 in the morning, you post on Facebook and then at like 2 in the afternoon, you make a tweet of the same thing and then at 6:00 at night, you take the same thing and make it an Instagram post. You’re gonna be able maybe hit one person at least one of those time frames. Start with Facebook, a few hours later, make that same content a tweet. A few hours later make it an Instagram post or you can actually pepper it and save it for the next day.
Graham: Kind of like divide and conquer. Sort of strategy, yeah okay, that makes sense
So there’s nothing wrong with that? Like platforms aren’t gonna penalize you for having the same content come out across all of them or anything like that?
Derek: If it’s a word, there’s no cross penalization.It’s a word, it’s a word now.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I suppose they I guess they secretly could be tracking you’re other sites and trying to see if you’re using the same content.
Derek: Now what you probably also don’t want to do is probably take your Instagram post and just push the Facebook. Even though, it’s as simple as hittin’ a little toggle and it goes straight to Facebook. Facebook wants you, and we’ve touched on this in the past, to be native on their platform. They don’t want you to be on Instagram and also makin’ a post. Saves you time as the float center owner but it takes two seconds to copy and paste it later on in the day, set yourself a little phone reminder.
Graham: You’re saying, don’t set up any automation. What about between Facebook and Twitter or Instagram and Twitter, does that matter if it’s automatically inserted, do you think?
Derek: I treat Twitter as a third class social media citizen. I will automate to Twitter. I will push to Twitter. It’s not as popular as it was 2010, it’s gotten some flack for affecting the world. It’s one of those platforms that we’ve built a reputation on, we still have a pretty good audience on it and it’s just another place to be seen.
Graham: And so you won’t push from Instagram to Twitter, sorry to Facebook. Would you push from Facebook to Instagram automatically? Like you do a Facebook post and you post a picture?
Derek: You can’t do that. You can do it through-
Graham: That’s what I know.
Derek: You can do it through maybe through “If it’s”, which is a whole other thing so there is some automation that lies outside of like Hootsuite, so Hootsuite’s a very popular one. You’ve heard of Buffer, where you can just kind of schedule your content and post it all at various times of day. You can actually make links from Facebook to Instagram or whatever through these what they call recipes. And I will actually do a recipe from Instagram to Twitter. Cuz right now, let’s say if you push from Instagram to Twitter through the Instagram app, it just makes a little text post with a link to go view the image over back on Instagram.
Graham: Mmmmhmmm.
Derek: Right, so what I do is a little bit of photo post. I take an If it recipe and go, if this Instagram post happens, make a actual photo post on Twitter, save some time and again, I treat Twitter, not as sacredly as I do the other platforms.
Graham: Assuming that you’re doing this, what should be the first level of content? Like you have a post to do, do you do that on Facebook first and then kind of do posts on the others or does it even matter? Can you just post them wherever as long as your staggering them throughout the day?
Derek: If I know it’s going to be something that needs to be heard or viewed, I’ll do it on Facebook first. Kind of like the breaking news for me happens on Facebook. If it’s like, fringe content where I don’t know it’s going to actually get any kind of engagement, I might post on Twitter and see if it gets a “like” or a “retweet” or Instagram first and see if it gets more than an average amount of likes on Instagram and if it proves itself to be “worthy”, then I’ll push it to the favorite son, Facebook.
Ashkahn: Cool. I mean that makes sense. It is nice to have an almost, like a dry run, kind of testing platform or something. I mean, I feel just like Twitter because of how much things kind of seem to pop in and out of existence on Twitter. It’s just like an easier place to try things out and if they crash and burn, it’s not like a Facebook post, it’ll just kind of sit there and be very visibly burned on your page or something like that.
Derek: So Twitter is where is a lot of people get news, it’s where they discuss happening, trending, current events and if you have the time as a float center owner, it’s a great platform to what I say put out your fishing hook where you can actually go and get into conversations and actually have conversations with people about topics and if you want to associate, your views or even your opinions with your brand, Twitter’s a great place to have these conversations.
You can do similar things on Instagram where you can be an Instagram profile and go to the neighboring business and like and comment on the things that kind of cross pollinate your presence on other people’s platforms but Twitter is the one where you can actually go in to conversations and be a member of what’s happening.
Graham: My last question for this, is there any content that totally should not be shared between things? Like other than the fact that Instagram can kind of only do images, is there certain stuff where when you’re releasing it, you’re like, “you know what, actually this is just content for Facebook, let’s say, and I’m not gonna’ bother posting it anywhere else?”
Derek: I would do Facebook first and post it. I can’t think of any content that I would just keep it on Facebook.
Graham: Okay. Nice. So things are kind of inherently reusable.
Derek: Right.
Graham: Great. I think that answered the question
Derek: I was gonna say just one addition, when it comes to tryin’ to think of all the content. If you’re not a content minded person, you don’t have to think of all these different ways of creating content, you can just keep repurposing things and actually save yourself some time and thinkin’ of content.
Ashkahn: Would you say it’s like your default behavior to post the same thing across multiple platforms? Like that’s most of the time, you’re using a single piece of content?
Derek: Yeah, in various ways. Yeah.
Graham: Cool. Alright. Good one. Thanks for the question and if you have questions of your own, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How Marketing Strategies Evolve – DSP 230
Graham and Ashkahn wax nostalgic in this episode tracing back the history of Float On to its origins. They were younger, bright eyed and the world felt full of possibility. How they advertised floating was a whole different beast back then, too. Part of it was how different the industry was, part of it was how different awareness in Portland was, and parts of it were just about Float On still being a young business.
The guys share their successes, lessons, and bold faced mistakes they made along the way in learning how to deal with the idea of filling tanks, as well as some of the constants that have remained throughout the years.
Future Proofing Float Tanks – DSP 229
Float Tanks are expensive. Purchasing tanks can easily end up being half of your opening costs when starting out, so it makes sense to want to purchase tanks that have a long lifespan.
Thinking about which float tank manufacturers might last the longest, though, is probably not the way to think about this issue. For one, it’s impossible to tell what manufacturer is going to be around the longest. What’s more, if anything does break, the vast majority of the time you don’t need to go to the manufacturer to get it fixed in the first place.
Ashkahn and Graham share their thoughts on proper float tank care and the steps any float center owner should take when considering a tank.
How to Run Experiments with Floaters – DSP 228
It’s important to acknowledge that float center owners without a scientific background probably shouldn’t be running experiments on floaters willy nilly. It should also be noted that Graham and Ashkahn aren’t scientists, despite being huge fans of self-experimentation.
There has been a lot of talk recently, however, of float centers collaborating with student researchers to help run experiments, though. Graham and Ashkahn discuss (with a fair amount of levity) what it might take to properly run experiments in a float tank, which they understand is no easy task.
What are Good Plants to Have in a Float Center? – DSP 227
Plants give life, both aesthetically and literally, to any room they’re placed in. The environment inside a float center, however, can be the absolute worst place for certain plants, even ones that would normally be considered fine for your local area.
Graham and Ashkahn pull in Jordan to talk about different plants that thrive in a humid float center environment and some tips on how to take care of them.
Getting Salty With Speakers: Roy Vore – DSP 226
With the Float Conference coming up, Graham and Ashkahn are talking with lots of really smart people who will be presenting this year. It’s not every day that they get to ask molecular biologists questions about float tank sanitation, so they decided to take the opportunity to ask the experts the questions that the industry needs answers to.
Today Roy Vore is taking time to share some of his knowledge about microbiology and water sanitation, along with his work in the pool and spa industry.
Latest Blog Posts
Choosing a Water Heater for Your Center
You may not be surprised to hear that a Float Center is a business which has a hefty water requirement. You may, however, be surprised to hear that the majority of the water demand you’ll be facing day-to-day is going to be in the form of showers and (if you’re doing any laundry on-site) a washing machine.
The factors of energy usage and cost over time should also be taken into consideration when deciding upon your water heater…
Float Fund – NSF Magnesium Sulfate Test Results
I’m happy to announce to first results from the Float Fund testing. This experiment, run through the NSF, was to see how salt water, with no other form of disinfection, actually effected harmful organisms. We ran tests with two different microorganisms, and in this post we’ll talk about how one (Pseudomonas) got its ass kicked by salt-water and how the other one (Enterococcus) didn’t seem phased in the slightest.
If you want to skip straight to the test results, you can download them in their entirety. Since they have a lot of fancy laboratory lingo, we’ll spend the rest of this post breaking down the different aspects of the testing.
Float Memberships and Packages
Customers are great, but getting those customers to commit to returning on a regular basis is even better. There are a few different schools of thought in regards to encouraging return customers, but they’ll generally fall into two main categories, Memberships and Packages.
We’re going to provide a little insight into how to utilize each of them at your center.
Marketing is all About Relationships
Marketing is one of those words that has a lot of different meanings from one person to the next. Personally, I’ve studied marketing in one way or another for the past 20 years. I suppose you can say I’m a marketing nerd (I’ll wear that badge proudly). I even annually budget myself a different marketing conference to go to… for fun.
