Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Myth or Fact: Social Media Dashboards Bad for SEO?
-
I want to start using HootSuite to pre-schedule Facebook/Twitter updates, but am plagued by nagging concerns because I have heard that HootSuite may impact SEO in a negative way.
Is this truth or bull? If it i true, how so, specifically? And can anything be done to mitigate the negative SEO factors?
Also, does anyone prefer another dashboard over HootSuite?
Thanks in advance for your inputs!
-
@ThompsonPaul: I'd welcome additional input...here is the scenario:
We're a 2-man agency, so there really only needs to be one user for the dashboard. The goal is creating an active Facebook/Twitter presence with minimum time commitment, for 3 or 4 small clients - these are local, independently owned businesses with small budgets.
My goal was is to re-purpose newsletter & blog content as pre-scheduled Facebook & Twitter updates in order to be able to "set it & forget it".
These clients don't necessarily view Social as a priority - but as we are creating blog/newsletter content for them anyway, I thought it would be good practice to re-use the content on other platforms, to keep Facebook / Twitter from being completely overlooked.
In terms of the degree of importance placed on analytics - I think if it could be demonstrated that Social is driving traffic to their websites, we would be able to persuade these clients to allocate more budget to social. Each of these clients does use GA.
-
Most welcome, Lucy. I've also used a number of different dashboards - if you can describe the highest-priority things you want to be able to do with your dashboard, I may be able to make a suggestion or two.
eg how many and what types of accounts? Are Analytics and tracking important? Do multiple team members need to collaborate/manage the same accounts?
Paul
-
@ThompsonPaul - Thanks very much for this well-crafted reply - greatly appreciated.
-
There is only one way the use of Hootsuite could negatively affect SEO - if you choose the ow.li URL shortener as your default instead of the default ow.ly version (in the setup section).
The ow.li version is using 302 redirects instead of 301s which is a no-no for SEO.
Otherwise, since the dashboard is only posting contents to Twitter/Facebook and not your website, there's no possibility for harm.
HOWEVER!!! Using Hootsuite (or any 3rd-party tool) to post to Facebook can definitely cause user-engagement problems. Any update posted to Facebook using a 3rd-party tool (like a dashboard) automatically has a harder time earning views by your followers. Facebook's Edgerank algorithm is what determines how many of your followers might see your post, and posts by 3rd party tools always have a lower Edgerank.
So for all important Facebook posts, it is best to submit them using Facebook's own site or their mobile app rather than Hootsuite. (You can now pre-schedule posts from within Facebook itself, so this helps alleviate one of the reasons why most people used 3rd-party tools) In fact, I still believe it's better to make all Facebook updates directly.
Paul
-
Hi Lucy,
Like-wise as Robert, I myself have used hootsuite before for several social media complaints. Besides a huge outage at an important time, I didn't really mind using the service (took a small while getting used to it, that's all).
I suggest you read http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-shortener-owl-li-indexed-in-google (was released today, excellent timing) as well, which actually talks about using one of the URL shorteners provided by Hootsuite.
Best of luck.
-
Well to be honest lucy i havent at all, not to say hootsuite put me off but its the formula 1 of interfaces so i said to myself "this may not be for me" lets not try and over complicate things and just do it manually.
I might have a look at sproutsocial all right now that you mentioned it but i dont know how it can get any better with my 17" screen (clutter)
It may or may not, i,ll keep u posted
-
Thanks for that input.
Have you used other dashboards with better interfaces? I am also looking into SproutSocial as an alternative & wonder if they have a better user experience.
-
I have used hootsuite and all though it has some great features, its not something i enjoy using because of the cluttered interface.. The only good thing i can think of is that you dont have to login to multiple accounts and simple click between projects, ultra quick.
I'm thinking its bull, i have not heard anything at all concerning seo that may impact on social media projects at all
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Facebook Name Change and Effect on SEO
Hey Mozzers! Trying this one again as my timing was probably pretty bad with Easter. Working with a company who has about 20K followers on Facebook and about 500 backlinks to their current facebook page. They want to change the name of the page to better reflect the business. I need to advise on this but I'm not sure of and how it will effect them. Any one had any experience in this area?
Social Media | | wearehappymedia0 -
On a website, is the most effective user experience for the social media icons to open new tabs?
There is debate around what is most effective for user experience. When a user clicks on the social media icons on our site, should a new tab be opened for the social media page or should the website redirect to the social media page?
Social Media | | Sable_Group0 -
Links to Social Media accounts, rel=nofollow/follow and rel=me
Hi guys, I just saw this rel="me" attribute and I can't find any reputable recent (within last year) information. I never heard of this and wonder if it's any beneficial in any way. At the same time, should I use nofollow or follow on links from website to social accounts? I've heard different opinions but, again, no recent relevant and trustworthy information. Please, kick me into right direction. However, when kicking, please give me some proof, rather than thoughts 🙂 Thanks!
Social Media | | DmitriiK0 -
Deleting Poor Performing Social Media Accounts for Businesses?
I'm the Internet Marketing Manager for an ad agency and in charge of not only our social media and SEO but advising and hooking up clients with successful campaigns. I've taken the liberty of signing us up for almost every major social media account. Some are very successful (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Vimeo is ok (we use it over YouTube), Vine is picking up) and others are very not doing well (Flickr, Foursquare, YouTube really is low, Google+ is very mediocre). I’ve been wondering if it would be more beneficial to just delete certain accounts. I think I need to keep Google+ (Google values it and we are not doing terribly on it) but all the others listed in the bad column I think are really cancerous to our SEO (and make us look bad b/c we are doing poorly on them) but I really don’t know. I used them kind of to see if they would work for us and to demonstrate that we knew what we were doing in these social networks, but I think they may be doing us more harm than good both from a PR standpoint and SEO. Doesn't it hurt your website for Google to see poor performing social media accounts, just as the opposite would be true (good sm accounts and mention/activity would give you klout & SEO...)? What do you think? I'm no novice but no master either. Love this forum. Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | JCunningham0 -
Realtors SEO and Active Rain
Does anyone know if active rain social network for realtors pass any link juice through the attached blogs features? They have both a free and paid service. Does anyone have any insight on this?
Social Media | | bronxpad0 -
Does buying thousands of Facebook Fans/Likes affect SEO?
To begin with, please pardon me if this question is ignorant. I'm completely new to this whole social media thing, and somewhat feel it is overhyped. I find it really difficult to believe that social media will actually help the majority of small business owners out there like me, and that most of them are probably being misled about the powers of social media to increase sales. Because it's mentioned so frequently, I've decided to delve into it a bit more to see how this could possibly help me business. Over the past few weeks, I've become familiar with a company that sells Facebook Likes, Twitter followers, as well as YouTube and SoundCloud plays. Since my official Twitter and FaceBook accounts really didn't have that many followers, I decided to buy a few thousand followers for each account. Initially, I bought them because I wondered what would happen if a customer that visited my online store happened to go to those Twitter and Facebook pages. If I personally see a Facebook page with few followers, I probably wouldn't give them my business. I would want to go with a company that seems to generate a bunch of traffic to their pages. Originally, I only had about 200 Facebook followers (now called Likes, it seems) and maybe 25 Twitter followers. I now have over 12,000 Twitter followers and 2,000 Facebook Likes. I may end up buying more since the service was pretty quick and affordable. I'd like to know if Google factors Likes and followers into it's formula for creating SERPS. Will my website rank higher if I have 10,000 likes, rather than only 200? If so, would it be a notable increase? FWIW, I found that more people organically started following my Facebook and Twitter accounts once I had more followers. I didn't change anything about how I maintained the page; I just had more people following them. One other thing of note: these companies are almost certainly using fake/hacked accounts to like various pages around Facebook/Twitter. You can tell because my Facebook page says some city in Croatia has the most amount of 'likes' of my page. Do you think this might come into play at all? Thanks for any and all help!
Social Media | | CHEATERS0 -
Youtube SEO: Does your channel name / user name matter?
My predecessor left me a gift of what is arguably the worst kind of Youtube channel name: Our company's name condensed to an acronym with some additional gibberish that may or may not have meant something to her. In short: Our channel name will never be searched for, will never provide any ranking boost. Now our Youtube success has been very marginal so far: 31 subscribers, 7,300 video views. Given that situation, should I seriously consider scrapping my channel and starting something new with a keyword targeted channel name? Or does channel name matter so little that I should hold on to my 7300 video views?
Social Media | | AdoptionHelp0 -
Social Media Adult Websites
Hello, Do you recommend using the buttons (facebook, twitter and google +1) on pages with adult content? For adult seo marketing google uses this metric? Thanks, Stroke
Social Media | | stroke2