Why isn't SEOMoz using Wistia's social sharing feautes?
-
I noticed that SEOMoz does not make use of Wistia's social sharing buttons such as a Facebook Like button.
Is there any disadvantage to using the like button via Wistia rather than copy/pasting it in static HTML?
-
Thank you both for clarifying!
-
Wistia's sharing buttons still share the URL where the video is embedded, not the individual video - just like the buttons we have implemented. We just don't want to have redundant sharing buttons all over the page, so we skip Wistia's sharing buttons in favor of the buttons already in our blog template.
-
If you only share the video, not the page, then where does the FB like point back to? My site or Wistia's?
It might be splitting hairs, but I would imagine having them share the page is more beneficial, as you control everything around the video, including calls-to-action, other recommended videos, etc.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this?
-
Ben, you are absolutely on the money on this one (not surprised!). Because our blog template automatically adds sharing buttons to each post, and videos are published within blog posts, using Wistia's sharing buttons on the videos themselves would create redundant sharing options on each page.
From an SEO perspective, there is no advantage to using buttons one way or the other - you simply need to consider factors like do you want users to share the video, or the entire URL? From a UX standpoint you don't want to have sharing buttons all over the place, confusing people, which is why we're not using the Wistia sharing feature
-
Ben from Wistia here. I can't speak directly to why SEOMoz doesn't use all of the social sharing buttons available. That being said, I can give a little insight as to how the Social Sharing features work within Wistia so that you can make an informed decision for yourself.
First, there are basically two classes of Social Sharing buttons that can be enabled. The first class is Wistia based buttons that we build directly and directly affect the video. These include:
- Embed - provides an iframe based embed code to embed on third party websites
- Stats - provides a link to a stats summary page for the video
- Email - a mailto: link that allows someone to send the link to your page
- Logo - an image and link that points back to your site
The other class is third party buttons for various social services. In these cases, we implement the button code as specified by the various social services. These include:
- Digg
- Tumblr
- Stumble Upon
- Google Plus
All of the third party buttons are designed to share URLs, not individual pieces of media, such as videos. As a result, when you click the Facebook Like button on a Wistia video, you are actually Like-ing the page.
For all of these buttons as well as the Email button, we wire the URLs to the first page where the video is embedded. This way, even if your video gets embedded by various people (via the Embed button), all social activity will still point back to you.
As an example, let's say you embed a video on your website with the embed button and the Twitter button. Someone comes along and uses the embed button to get a copy of the video which they embed on their blog. One of their readers comes along and views the video. After enjoying the video, they click the "Tweet" button. The link (and text if configured) that gets Tweeted out will point back to your site, not the blog on which it was viewed. This allows your videos to get more social reach beyond just your website.
Again, I can't speak directly to SEOMoz's social strategy. It may be that they already have social buttons on their blog posts in other locations and feel that buttons on the video would be redundant or distracting. That being said, I hope this helps explain a bit more about how the the social sharing buttons work and gives more insight as to when you would want to use them and when you wouldn't.
Let us know if you have any additional questions.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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 experts, I need help: is this 'strategy' idea legit or nonsense?
Hi guys, I have a friend who works in a large university where each faculty has their own Facebook page. The pages are rarely maintained and experience very poor levels of engagement. The university's main Facebook page has a very large following (195,000+ likes), but again, the engagement is very poor - on average each post gets about 20 likes, 2 comments and 1-2 shares if that. Now, my friend works in one of the faculties and doesn't happen to have a Facebook page (his particular faculty is concentrating their efforts on other areas of inbound marketing). However, the social media manager for the university is insisting my friend’s faculty create a page and contribute to a wider ‘campaign’ being undertaken at the uni - however my friend is not convinced (and neither am I) that the logic behind this campaign makes sense. Here's how the campaign has been described: 1. The main university page (with 195k likes) posts a generic image ('whats happening this week at the uni'), which asks people to ‘look in the comments’ to see what's happening among all the different faculties 2. The faculty pages all at once submit comments on the post about 'what's happening' in their area 3. The faculty pages 'like' the main image post, share it, and like the other comments left by faculties The social media manager says this campaign approach will ensure the main post gets into the feed of the 195k followers (and more) and increase the reach of the other faculties’ pages because of the high level of 'engagement' and 'aggregation' on the post. My friend and I feel this idea is flawed for a number of reasons: 1. Routinely it’s the same people and faculties engaging with the post - so the vast majority of the 195k won't be reached virally anyway 2. The 195k have demonstrated they aren't engaged, due to the poor prior performance of the page – it’s unlikely the posts even make it to their feeds organically 3. The image is generic (it is literally a picture of a building which says 'what’s on this week') and doesn’t entice people to take an action - you can't see the comments as they're collapsed in the feed, so unless users actually are compelled by the image to click into the comments the post is useless 4. The message isn't targeted - a number of random faculties provide comments to the post, so it's very possible what's offered by the faculties isn't relevant to the wider audience. Anyway, I'd really hope someone with a deep understanding of Facebook could help provide some clarity on this campaign proposal. It seems like a flawed methodology which advocates manufacturing engagement and an ineffective use of time and resource. Many thanks
Social Media | | cos20300 -
International Social Media Pages
If your going to target multiple countries but who have same language (such as US & UK) which of the main social media accounts should you set up a country specific version for ? I know some like Google+ allow for sub-pages/listings for different localities/outlets etc so I presume you only need the one G+ company page (but pls confirm if you agree or not ?). I keep hearing peeps say set up country specific Twitter and FaceBook pages, do you agree ? and what about other main social sites like Pinterest & LinkedIn etc ? Thanks Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
How to designate facebook share image?
Is there a bit of code or someway I can tell facebook, this is the image that should be used as default when this blog post or page is shared? Thank you!
Social Media | | tylerfraser1 -
Google & Social
Hi Folks It's been made very clear to us that Google is paying attention to social signals. My questions are: How would I check that Google is aware of my Facebook activity and similarly of my Twitter and Pinterest work? If Google is not aware of these what are some steps I can take to inform them that a particular account is related to a my business site? Finally any must read articles on this topic would be appreciated. Thank you for your time to help me out
Social Media | | PHD1 -
Outsourcing social media optimization
Is it a good idea to outsource social media optimization or is it something that has to be done in-house? I understand the question is kind of vague, but what I had in mind was to have an offshore contractor post daily about individual products and try to increase our following on twitter/facebook (i.e "social footprint").
Social Media | | inhouseseo0 -
Social Media valuable for organic rankings?
Is there a link between ranking higher in organic search rankings and having a good social media presence. I think there is, the more likes and followers you have the better. The real question is how to you utilise it, do you regulary share content, put keywords in the share info for the ones you want to rank, how best can you utilise social media to help in organic search? I suspect social noise is used towards some kind of overall quality score in the search engines.
Social Media | | pauledwards1 -
Advice on Using Feedburner
Hi i have come across this feedburner account and have found it a great way to get our message out there but after spending a few hours trying to work out how to get a feedburner account to do the same as this and failed i would like some advice on simple steps on how to promote our website by using the same methods as this company. http://feeds.feedburner.com/hypnosisnorthampton As you can see they have lots of articles on the same page but i cannot see an option for doing this on feedburner, can anyone please advise me on what i need to do.
Social Media | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Social or SEO?
all, would you consider social bookmarking to be part of an SEO package or a Social Media Package? thanks
Social Media | | imageworks-2612900