The allure of writing one social media update and transmitting it across all of your profiles is very tempting. It’s easy and we’re all very busy people. But is it the right thing to do?

Auto-posting allows you to get your message to followers across all channels quickly, but, sometimes, this convenient functionality can also blind us to the underlying message you’re sending to those people.

“I’m too busy for you. I know you’re on this channel, but I’m not. I just want to get the word out. I won’t bother replying here, even though it’s where you are probably trying to interact with me.”

Nothing says automated and impersonal more than your Twitter posts (redundant hashtags included) on Facebook, or a link to Instagram on Twitter. Instagram and Twitter were once integrated and your Instagram images showed in the feed, but they are now very separate services, and all you get on Twitter is a link to Instagram, which is an unnecessarily frustrating extra step for your Twitter audience (especially if they are prompted by Instagram to log in first!). After all, they came to Twitter for a reason. Twitter’s feed is now even more advanced with the ability to showcase images and video powerfully at a glance; why ignore this massive opportunity to display your wares?

I appreciate that this advice is not what you want to hear, and you’re probably wondering how you are going to fit this into your hectic life schedule. Well, a content schedule, or editorial calendar can really help with this. Spending a little time at the beginning of each week or month, planning out what you are going to post and writing the content for each channel, will take surprisingly less time than you think.

Something a little like this — our editorial calendar

You’ll be surprised how much more engagement you can achieve with just a little bit of nuanced content. Social media is about connecting and conversing. Slow down, connect more.