Share count descrepancy between widget and Google Analytics

  • freddyjs

    (@freddyjs)


    8 years, 9 months ago

    Hey, there,

    We’re noticing on our site that on single post pages, certain share counts displayed in the social sharing widget next to the buttons is grossly different than what’s reported in Google Analytics for that post. For example, we have one post where the count on the page is over 100 but Google Analytics shows a total of just over 20. That post is also only a few days old.

    Anyone else experiencing this? I contacted Mashshare support directly and the response I received only stated that they don’t know how accurate Facebook is and something about not knowing anything for sure, but that was about it. Not very helpful, really.

    Cheers!

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Rene Hermenau

    (@renehermi)

    8 years, 9 months ago

    Hi @freedyjs,

    i am soory that our answer was not fully sufficient for you, so i try to explain it better now.

    The number of shares which facebook is returning, is also including the shares within the facebook network under several conditions.
    ​Example: You are sharing url website.com/your-article on facebook.
    ​
    ​This would be counted and returned by facebook as one share.
    ​
    ​The google analytics add-on would also count this direct share as one.
    ​
    ​Now there are some situations where facebook is adding another sharecount to this url.
    ​For example this could be a reshare of the first share within the facebook timeline by another user.
    ​
    ​As this is inconsistent behavior, no one else except Mr. Zuckerberg knows for sure how the exact counts are calculated by facebook. The MashShare buttons are returning the shares from the facebook public api. The Google Analytics add-on is counting and gathering clicks on the share buttons. So it’s likely that these numbers will never be the same.

    If there is someone else who knows more about the facebook sharing algorithms i am more than happy if he or she wants to “share” his knowledge with us here:)
    ​
    ​Cheers
    ​René

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

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