On average, Facebook Pages that show posts via a third party app such as HootSuite or TweetDeck, as opposed to linking the old fashioned manual way, receive 70% fewer likes and comments.
Linking to your Facebook Page via auto post is a very common and time saving practice and while I have dabbled in it, for the most part I stay clear from it for the simple reason of posting via an auto post just doesn't look as good or as appealing as doing it manually - posting a link directly from your Facebook Page. Here's two screenshots of our Facebook Page. They are both in regards to a post I previously wrote - The CMO Survey From The Fuqua School Of Business - Behind The Numbers.
The first one was posted the old-fashioned manual way, the second via TweetDeck. Which one would you more likely to click on?
You'll notice with the 1st one, the manual method, while admittedly more time consuming (but really how much time are we talking about here?) is clearly more appealing to a visitor because of several reasons. One being the fact that using the manual method, you can include copy, a lead in if you will. You can do that via a 3rd party app but with TweetDeck for example, you are of course limited in the amount of characters.
The other noticeable difference is in the imagery. Via the manual method, you are able to pull in an image from a given post. That is not possible with a 3rd party app such as TweetDeck. The 70% reduction in Facebook Page Likes came from a study conducted by Applum, developer of Page tool EdgeRank Checker.
The study determined that compared to the engagement of posts published manually to Facebook's web or mobile interfaces, the reduction in engagement ratios of the top third-party publishing APIs are:
- HootSuite - 69% reduction
- TweetDeck - 73% reduction
- Sendible - 75% reduction
- Networked Blogs - 76% reduction
- RSS Graffiti - 81% reduction
- Twitter - 83% reduction
- Publisher - 86% reduction
- twitterfeed - 90% reduction
- dlvr.it - 91% reduction
- Social RSS - 94% reductions
Roll all of the above numbers together and you get the 70% average. And I surely think with numbers like these and the possible impact an auto post can have, it would be well worth it to invest in the additional few minutes to post to your Facebook page via the manual method.
Source: insidefacebook.com, The Star Group, Facebook Autoposting - A Social Media No No