Analytics tagging on social media links

[kylie_rw]

Curious: do you all tag your social media links with Google Analytics parameters?

I know Google Analytics automatically tags referrals from social channels, but I am interested in possibly adding additional tracking parameters to links that I share and potentially promote. If I tag my social links with GA tracking codes, and they are shared widely, do I lose any potential SEO value from those links?  I know Google isn't necessarily factoring in social shares from Facebook, etc. yet, but it would seem that, since tagged links are ones that we've influenced, any shares of that link would potentially be considered unnatural?

Just curious what others' best practices are for social sharing.  Thanks, in advance.

[cos2030]

Hi there,

I absolutely tag social posts - even though GA does show social referrals in the 'Acquisition -- Social' reports, as far as I know, without tagging it's not possible to identify what's owned. I take two steps with links

1. Tag with the following approach to parameters:

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=contentname&utm_campaign=socialchannelname-18nov13

Adding the date to the campaign parameter is useful because it can get tricky trying to tie site activity back to a specific post when there's many various campaigns in GA.

2. Shorten with owly - frees up characters in the post / tweet, which is always a good thing.

As for the SEO value - as long as the landing destination has the appropriate 'rel=canonical' tag you should be fine. Implementing a canonical will stop Google passing any value to the campaign tracked URL in the event it gets widely shared, bookmarked, linked to etc.

Hope this helps!

[MoosaHemani]

I strongly agree with KARL’s answer!

If the rel canonical is set then there is no problem because at the end of the day Google knows here the original source is available.

Hope this works for you!

[kylie_rw]

Thanks so much for the feedback.  It's always good to know what others do.  Thanks again, Kylie

[SDLOnlineChannel]

This is a good thread. I agree with tagging social links and have a related question (also posted it).

Would guys recommend tagging paid social links with medium=cpc or medium=social. If we tag with cpc, would that traffic and conversions rollup under social or paid search in the channel reports?

Thanks,
Greg

[cos2030]

Hi Greg,

Personally I would use medium=social for any social activity (paid or unpaid) and let utm_content and utm_campaign idenfity that the activity was from a paid initiative.

This can also help if your Google Analytics and Adwords accounts are linked, and auto tagging is on. When auto tagging is on, Google automatically creates the medium 'cpc' for Adwords campaigns. To keep things clean in Google Analytics, I keep medium=cpc exclusively for paid search.

Hope this helps. For an epic article on campaign tracking, check out: http://www.annielytics.com/guides/definitive-guide-campaign-tagging-google-analytics/

Best wishes

Karl