What Happens to Squidoo on Social Media?

1. 93

   lisavollrathposted 9 years ago

   Squidoo had an active presence on social media. What will happen to all those accounts now?
   
   I'm particularly interested in the FB pages associated with the magazines. Why Vegetarian, which has over 27,000 followers, used to be a good source of traffic to vegan and vegetarian lenses. So Crafty has almost 10,000 followers.
   
   So far as I know, neither page has been updated since the merger was announced. Many of those followers may not be aware that the content they were following has moved here to HubPages.

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      Dale Hydeposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Seems like a merger needs to transpire for the social media accounts as well.

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      PromptWriterposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Who was the admin on those accounts?

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         lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I think the individual magazine editors were the admins. Stephanie was posting to Why Veg. I'm not sure who it was for So Crafty, or any of the others.

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   3. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I'm referring to former official Squidoo accounts like these:
      
      Why Vegetarian
      https://www.facebook.com/Why.Vegetarian (27,808 likes)
      https://twitter.com/GoodVegMag (982 followers)
      
      Lens of the Day
      https://www.facebook.com/SquidooLensoftheDay (14,989 likes)
      https://twitter.com/SquidooLOTD (1,100 followers)
      
      So Crafty
      https://www.facebook.com/socraftymag (9,820 likes)
      https://twitter.com/SoCraftyMag (361 followers)
      
      Halloween
      https://www.facebook.com/HappyHalloweenMag (9,520 likes)
      https://twitter.com/HalloweenMag (272 followers)
      
      There are more of them, I'm sure. I can't remember the names of the magazines in which I wasn't participating, but I'm sure other former Squids can name them.

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         Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Deleted
         1. 93

            lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            We don't know that they have been abandoned. That's why I asked the question.
            
            While it's true there is no lens of the day, there is a Hub of the Day. That's not necessarily what is being posted on the official HubPages FB page.
            
            And, while it's true there are no magazines here at HubPages, there are thousands of followers of all those magazine pages on Facebook and Twitter (and also on Pinterest). Surely, if the accounts are to be abandoned, there could at least be a post letting the readers who want that targeted content where to find it on HubPages.

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      2. 71

         mbgphotoposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I agree these were some great pages.  It would be good to see them brought up to date with Hubpages offerings.

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            brakel2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I saw some of these pages on Facebook, so they are still there.

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            1. 80

               NanLTposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Yes, the question is - what is the best thing to be done with them?
               
               1. Ignore
               
               2. Encourage the owners to change the names over to something HP related but keep the same topics and focus
               
               3. Ask the owners to close them down
               
               4. Something else

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               1. 77

                  Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  I vote for #2.

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   4. 70

      Matthew Meyerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      We have not yet decided which Squidoo social media accounts we will maintain.
      
      If there are specific ones of important to you, you may want to suggest maintaining it/them in the feature suggestion forum here.
      http://hubpages.com/forum/category/6634
      
      We may consider them if there is enough author interest.

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      1. 93

         lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks, Matthew. I had a feeling these might already be on your radar!

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2. 0

   bobtyndallposted 9 years ago

   Social media isn't responsible for what people link to or from on them. Once all the Squidoo redirects expire all the will be left is dead links. That's the responsibility of whom ever created the links, not social media.

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   1. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, but also not what I asked. When I referred to updating, I mean there hasn't been a post on either of those two pages since August 15th. I'm not suggesting the links be updated.

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3. 69

   Paul Wardposted 9 years ago

   If Lisa will forgive me restating the question:
   
   There are popular pages on Facebook serving subsections of Squidoo.
   
   Squidoo has gone.
   
   The Facebook pages are still up but are not, of course, being updated.
   
   Given the number of followers some such pages have, it would be a shame to see the pages wither and die from neglect.
   
   Has Hubpages (the company) considered these pages and how they might be maintained and developed?

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   1. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, exactly. There are 27,000 people following the Why Veg Facebook page. Those are eyeballs that used to have vegetarian and vegan content from Squidoo served up to them daily. It was a good source of traffic for those of us who had content in that area. I'm sure So Crafty, Lens of the Day, and the other FB pages were good traffic generators, as well.
      
      I would like to know, from someone at HQ, if there is a plan to transfer old Squidoo social media accounts to HP, or to at least update the followers of the various magazine pages with the information that we've moved to Squidoo. Those are followers who should be converted to HubPages readers!

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   2. 77

      Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. Even just a note that says something like, "Squidoo is no more, however you can find many of our writers on HubPages," would probably be better than losing those viewers entirely.

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         mbgphotoposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I agree...something to let anyone who enters the page know where the posts have gone.  I found the So Crafty page to be particularly helpful.

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4. 83

   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   I wonder if that is a part of the squidoo model that could be imported? Topic-specific Facebook pages look like a good idea. But I guess it might come down to contacting the named admin and asking if you can take over?

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5. 80

   NanLTposted 9 years ago

   I'd be interested in knowing the answer as well to the original question.
   
   I must admit though that I made the choice to not take part in most of those pages, despite my presence on FB because I objected to the way that some SQ administrators favoured some FB groups over others, and the way that some of them made announcements regarding Squidoo or announced competitions through those pages rather than making them open to ALL lensmasters, including those who were not on Facebook.

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6. 78

   Corrinna-Johnsonposted 9 years ago

   Excellent question Lisa! I too, would love to hear from Hubpages staff if there is a plan to repurpose the social media accounts in the future.

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7. 80

   NanLTposted 9 years ago

   If there isn't a plan, do the individuals who are running said pages have any plans on adapting them to fit into the HP plans or will they be gracefully closed, or something else?
   
   Perhaps if someone who actually ran or admins on of of those pages could comment on their plans, or what they have already done, as well as someone from HP staff.

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   1. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I tried asking this on the Why Vegetarian FB page shortly after the merger was announced, but it looks like everyone quit posting on all the accounts on August 15th. I never got an answer from Stephanie about whether the page would continue, either as part of HubPages, or as her own venture.

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8. 77

   Lionrhodposted 9 years ago

   Here's another Squidoo site it'd be nice to save http://theonlineadvertiser.blogspot.com/

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      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      This looks like it's just a clone of the Squidoo HQ blog posts.

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      Paul Wardposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Nice to save? Why? It's a copy of posts that still exist on the hq subdomain and a load of links to lenses - very dubious.

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   3. 71

      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's just a splog (spam blog) - they cream off content from dead sites and put it on new sites, add Google adsense and then they're good to go. They are a B***** N*******!
      
      The only way to deter them is to put all your blog posts on a short feed so they can't pull your content automatically through an RSS feed

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      1. 77

         Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Oh well, I thought it was a good idea. So much for that.
         
         No clue what a short feed is. For that matter, not sure what an RSS feed is either.
         
         Starting to feel old.

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9. 70

   Fiorenzaposted 9 years ago

   My understanding is a bit rudimentary but basically RSS is a way of creating a news feed that could then be gathered by a user's news feed collector or aggregator. This allows people to subscribe to the feeds of multiple websites/blogs if they wish and read the updates without having to go to the sites or receive lots of email.
   
   These RSS feeds can be full - the whole post - or short, which I think is a snippet of the first 400 characters, which I guess the reader might use to decide if it is worth the bother of going to read.
   
   RSS is an old technology and some sites are dropping it, maybe partly because it is used by scraping software to steal content. If the feed is set to short, at least they don't get the whole article.
   
   If I have got any of this wrong, please would MaM or others wade in to correct me ☺

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      Paul Wardposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's essentially correct

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         Fiorenzaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Paul!

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10. 73

    relacheposted 9 years ago

    As all the moved lenses are already suffering from Google penalties due to so many redirects, will taking over all those groups that point so heavily at URLs now being redirected truly be of benefit?
    
    Or would it actually benefit all those pages to not preserve the groups and stop sending so much traffic through redirects?

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    1. 0

       Lorelei Cohenposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Relache that is also my question. I have been changing my redirected links and would love to see these old groups simply shut down. With the many different redirects that Squidoo applied to urls over the years the originals were getting pretty bogged down.
       
       There are also inherited Squidoo Pinterest boards as well. I would love to know if these old Blog, Facebook, and Pinterest group links are a detriment to us?
       
       Also everyone keeps mentioning "when the redirect ends" exactly when does this happen?

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       1. 77

          Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          It feels to me like the question shouldn't be "are they a detriment?" but instead, "how can we use them effectively to promote HP?"
          
          I know for sure that Pinterest can be edited. The sooner we do that, the smaller the number of folks who will re-pin to the old urls.
          
          As far as when the redirect ends, I was given to understand that it could be up for years.

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       2. 73

          relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          HubPages announced that the whole reason they were acquiring the Squidoo domain was so the redirects would be permanent.
          
          Where are people reading the redirects will go away?  Or did someone just make that part up?

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    2. 77

       Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       I'm no FB expert.
       
       It's my understanding that if someone does NOT take over those pages, they'll still remain on the web for eternity. In that case, there's no getting around the redirects from those pages even if we don't take it over.
       
       I don't know if it's possible to edit those pages or not. If it is possible, then it would seem that those links could be edited (and there's probably software that could do it relatively easily) to fix those links so that they go straight to the new HP urls and bypass the redirect.
       
       If editing those links isn't possible, it would still be a benefit to simply posting something to the effect of "Squidoo is no more and our authors have moved to hub pages. If you love their recipes, visit their pages and follow them to be informed of..." and then ALSO suggest that they visit the HP FB page and like it.
       
       That's the absolute least we could do if we can get control of those FB pages.
       
       The smart thing to do, assuming someone can get control of the pages is to continue curating recipe and how-to articles so that those thousands of subscribers can continue to be informed of HP's new content and ALL hubbers, not just the former Squids, can benefit.
       
       It seems like an incredible waste to let thousands of interested viewers just fade away.
       
       This thread isn't about saving old links it's about keeping viewers.
       
       I just took a look for the first time at HP's facebook page. It's kept updated so that's nice. And it...like HP is all over the map on subjects. Which makes perfect sense, as it reflects the diversity of our writers.
       
       Squidoo may have done a lot wrong, but this they did right. They had a targeted viewership for a specific type of article and made sure that our pages were in front of that audience every day.
       
       I'm astonished that our HP food and crafts authors aren't clamoring to have access to that audience.
       
       Having recently learned that HP doesn't have a large number of employees, I can understand that they're time strapped. It occurs to me that some of our members might be willing to form teams to work on keeping the FB pages up to date.

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          makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          Am I right in thinking that those Facebook Pages were started and maintained by Squidoo Employees who are "no more".
          
          I've no idea whether they had any lenses and/or whether they transferred them to HubPages and/or whether they are around on HubPages and hence the HP Team could ask them as to options for the future.
          
          On that basis I would have thought all the Facebook Pages ought to have been part of the takeover deal rather than pages which were owned by individuals?

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          1. 77

             Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

             I was new to Squidoo and may not know exactly how it worked, but yes, to my knowledge FB and Pinterest were maintained by Squidoo employees.
             
             I do know that according to Writer Fox's hub on Squidoo's closure, at least one of the high-up employees made the move to HP, but I have no idea if she's still here.
             
             Eta: Bonnie Diczhazy http://www.bonniediczhazy.com/ was one of them. She also has a profile on linked in and on twitter, though I don't see her on HP any more.

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          Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          I have a page at Facebook for my website. I checked it and you can edit posts,

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             Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

             Good deal! If HP can get ahold of the pages, they can be fixed then!

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11. 67

    Dressage Husbandposted 9 years ago

    There are penalties for redirects so eliminating them does help the performance of the destination site. Many of the items mentioned do not redirect as authors had removed Lenses before the merger. These give a not found result (Bad!)
    
    Google will at some point if they have not already assess a penalty to HP since most of the working redirects come here. I have tried replacing links on my own pins with direct links to HP, this gives a rise in traffic almost immediately, draw from that what you will!
    
    Squidoo FB, Pinterest etc. sites did create a lot of traffic and this should be redirected and then over time have the links replaced to the relevant HP links. If this is not done it is only a matter of time before Google connect the dots automatically or manually and impose the penalty for poor link maintenance, and the permanent redirects, which they do not like.
    
    I think as soon as HP have the resources to do so they should make a plan and take over these sites and link them directly to relevant HP information, where the related lens has gone the link should be deleted. If this is not done we are setting up HP for another Google slap. That is just how the system tends to work, so yes some action is required from HP on this. (My personal view).

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       Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Are you absolutely positive there are penalties for redirects?
       
       Redirects are a problem because they "leak" link juice - so if you redirect a page, it loses some of its authority - and I've heard some people refer to that as a penalty.   But I've never heard anyone say Google penalises a site for having lots of redirects, so I'd be interested to get some references for that. 
       
       Google's Help says that 404's don't hurt your site, I'm never sure whether to believe that but it is what they say.

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          Dressage Husbandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          Not sure if it is really a penalty, but Webmaster tools certainly points out redirects as an issue that by removing will help your sites performance. I had to redirect a site for a client and it kept throwing that one out!

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             Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

             Webmaster tools points that out because if you fix that link so it points directly to your site instead of redirected, that should mean it will drive more traffic to your site. 
             
             I just did some Googling and so far, haven't been able to find anyone saying they attract a penalty.

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          Paul Wardposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          Multiple (chained) 301 redirects used to damage PageRank. As it's only SEO charlatans who bother about PR these days, I'd regard any mention of it as a cause of problems as a red herring at best.

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12. 77

    Lionrhodposted 9 years ago

    Oh wait, here's Bonnie: http://beliza.hubpages.com/ Though it says she hasn't been active in 3 weeks.

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13. 93

    lisavollrathposted 9 years ago

    I haven't checked in on this post much, because, since I'm moving my content off HP, it no longer matters to me what happens to these pages.
    
    Skimming through, I see a lot of references to changing old links on Pinterest and Facebook pages. That's sort of futile.
    
    On Pinterest, changing the links on your own pins is fine, but it doesn't change the links in all the instances where that item has been repinned. The repins, and anyone elses' pins, will still point to Squidoo. Assuming the 301 redirects point to pages that still exist, those pins are still valid. Chasing down invalid pins on Pinterest is a lot like playing Whack a Mole, and not really worth the effort. Just pin the new links when appropriate.
    
    On Facebook, consider how people actually interact with the pages they follow. The majority of clicks do not come from people actually visiting a page, and scrolling backwards to old content. Clicks tend to come from new content that scrolls by in the news feed, or on interest lists. There would be nothing lost by removing, or simply ignoring, the old content posted there.
    
    If nothing else, I hope this thread has opened some of you to the idea that there's value to using social media to promote targeted content on HubPages. The social media accounts that HP has are sort of bland and generic, and as a result, they don't have the large numbers of followers that the targeted pages at Squidoo drew in. I hope, at least, HP takes a good look at how well those accounts did, and learns from them.
    
    Good luck!

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14. 73

    Barbara Kayposted 9 years ago

    Why can't writers in these niches just start new pages and invite the members from the Squidoo page? I think the one Hubpage account on Facebook was just started by a user here.

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    1. 93

       lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       The HP account on FB is managed by Christy Kirwan, who is a member of the HP staff.
       
       Organizing the writers in any niche, managing a FB page, and promoting it on HP should be something done by staff, or by someone designated by staff, and not by some random volunteer who has no support from the site.
       
       Social media strategies should be planned out, and managed by someone who knows what they're doing, not cobbled together as an after thought.

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          Dressage Husbandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          I agree that there should be some form of official HP social networking being done by the HQ team. However I am surprised that you are still this active, Lisa. I thought you were in the process of removing your stuff from HP?

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          1. 93

             lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

             I'm still getting notifications about this thread, so I peeked in. As I said above, since I'm moving my content away from HP (down from 50 hubs last week to 18 today, and still migrating), so whatever is decided won't have an effect on me. However, since I have experience managing the content and social media strategy of a large corporate web site, I figured my two cents might help.
             
             I'll just go back to copying articles now...

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    Jilio Ryanposted 9 years ago

    If we publish our content in this http://www.squidoo.com/ then we must expect some traffic gain from some users.

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    1. 71

       makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Ahem! Squidoo has closed down - NOBODY can post there.
       
       The people who had sites on Squidoo were transferred to HubPages back in September.  This thread is discussing some Facebook pages relating to this now non-existent site - and what is happening to them and their followers.
       
       I note you don't have any hubs at all and you only joined 6 days ago. 
       
       Here's a couple of tips for anybody who is new. In general, reading the forum or the FAQ pages are good places to find out the answers to questions if you have a query.  If providing an answer it's always a really good idea to know what you are talking about before commenting.

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          Jilio Ryanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          Yes its true that the website is being now redirected to hubpages.

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