One article.
Three platforms.
The same 40-line news story rewritten three times — because a post that works on LinkedIn will die on Instagram.
“Remote Work Is Changing City Centers: Offices Empty, Cafés Busy”
A 40-line feature on how remote work reduced office occupancy, hurt some businesses but boosted others — local cafés and co-working spaces.
Built on quotes from economists and workers, data from a city report, and a balanced discussion of pros and cons.
Genre features: longer structured text (headline → lead → background → quotes → data → conclusion); formal, neutral tone; in-depth explanation with multiple sources.
Create tailored posts for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn based on this article. Each post must be customised to its platform. In a presentation, conclude by explaining the differences you applied and the reasons behind them — and showcase the three posts.
We set the story in Budapest and used the article’s own numbers, then rebuilt the message for each audience instead of copy-pasting one caption three times.
The differences are mapped on the four dimensions from Lecture 6, slide 16: main role & audience · tone & style · content focus · format constraints.
Showcase
- Second person, first line. “Your city centre…” makes a national statistic feel like the reader’s own street.
- Story before data. Numbers sit inside a local story, not at the top.
- Both sides kept. The struggling lunch spots are named — Facebook punishes one-sided posts.
- Question CTA. Facebook rewards comments, so the post ends by asking for a personal experience.
- Link preview card carries the traffic; no hashtags — they do almost nothing on Facebook.
- The image is the headline. A vertical split — dark empty office above, warm crowded café below — tells the story before any word is read.
- Caption is secondary and short: two short paragraphs, then the data in one line.
- “Link in bio” — Instagram doesn’t make links in captions clickable, so the CTA has to move.
- Binary question (“Desk or café today?”) — easy to answer, which drives comments.
- Five hashtags — on Instagram, hashtags are still a main distribution channel.
- Opens with an argument, not a scene. “Didn’t empty it — redistributed it” is a thesis a professional can agree with or challenge.
- Data first. This audience wants the number before the story.
- Names the discipline. “Labour economists”, “the planning question” signals industry context.
- Ends on an open professional question — invites experts to add their view, which is what builds reach here.
- Three industry hashtags, formal but concise: long text is allowed, yet short performs best.
Same story, three jobs
| Dimension | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Main role & audience | Broad social network; local residents and communities, mixed personal/brand use | Visual-first; lifestyle, younger audiences, brands and creators | Professional networking; planners, economists, real-estate and policy people |
| Tone & style | Conversational, personal, community-oriented | Aesthetic, informal, expressive | Formal to business-casual, expert, career-oriented |
| Content focus | Local impact and everyday life; both sides of the story; conversation | A single striking visual; short caption; stories and reels | Industry insight, data and a structural conclusion |
| Format constraints | Text length flexible; link preview, image, video, live all common | Image or video mandatory; caption secondary; vertical favoured | Text + image/video; long text supported but concise works best |
The hook is in a different place
LinkedIn opens on a claim (“it redistributed it”). Facebook opens on you (“Your city centre…”). Instagram opens on the picture — the split image is the hook, the first line only repeats it.
The call to action changes shape
LinkedIn asks people to read the analysis. Facebook asks them to tell their own story in the comments. Instagram can only say “link in bio”, so it ends on a two-word question instead.
The numbers sit in different positions
LinkedIn puts −35% and +20% in the second line as evidence for the thesis. Facebook buries them inside a neighbourhood story. Instagram states them after the image has already made the point.
Length and hashtags are tuned per platform
LinkedIn: ~90 words, 3 industry hashtags. Facebook: ~110 words, no hashtags (they barely work there). Instagram: ~70 words, 5 hashtags — hashtags are still how posts get distributed.
Balance is handled differently
The article is balanced, so all three stay balanced — but Facebook gives the losing side a concrete face (“lunch spots and dry cleaners”), while LinkedIn turns it into a planning question.
What we deliberately did not do
We did not write one caption and paste it three times — the most common mistake in this task. And although slide 16 also lists X (Twitter), the task only asks for three platforms, so we left it out.
What to say out loud
The source is a 40-line news feature — long, neutral, multi-source. Our job was to compress it into three posts without losing the data or the balance. We set it in Budapest and kept the two numbers the article gave us: minus 35% occupancy, plus 20% for one café.
Lead with the argument and the number, because this audience wants the insight before the story. Didn’t empty the city centre — redistributed it.
Close on a question a planner can answer.
Lead with the reader, not the statistic. Your city centre doesn’t look the way it did five years ago.
Keep the losing side in, end by asking for a personal story — comments are what Facebook rewards.
The image carries the story: empty office above, busy café below.
Caption stays short, CTA moves to “link in bio”, and five hashtags do the distributing.
Same reporting, three different jobs. One article became an argument, a neighbourhood conversation and a picture — and the differences follow the four dimensions on slide 16: audience, tone, content focus and format.
Varga, D. E. (2026). Online media studies 6: Writing for social media [Lecture slides]. Department of Media Studies.
Varga, D. E. (2026). Online media studies: Description and syllabus (BN-ONMEST-04-GY, 2026/27/1). Department of Media Studies.