But Is The Traffic Any Good? Options

[projectphp]

Unless a site sells CPM based advertising, traffic for traffic's sake is not really the goal.

Quality traffic, how ever it is defined in a specific situation, is by far the most important factor. this, in a nutshell, is what has made Search traffic so valuable. People want Blue widgets, I sell Blue widgets, they come to my site from search, pre-qualified lead

So what about Social Media? Is the traffic worth it? Does it actually have any direct benefit?

Seems to me that most articles on the subject talk about indirect benefits. You know, links. I have rarely, if ever, seen a mention of the incredible revenue generation potential of Social media sites, and you would think it would make at least some noise if true.

So, I want to ask, has anyone found social media traffic useful directly? We are all sold on the idea of links, so what is the direct usefullness of the traffic?

[bragadocchio]

We are all sold on the idea of links, so what is the direct usefullness of the traffic?

I think that we have to look at the social aspect of this kind of software, and the potential for relationship building that it brings with it. What are the direct benefits from:

Joining a Chamber of Commerce?

Going to a business mixer?

Attending an industry conference?

Being an unpaid speaker at a University Class?

Creating profiles in MySpace, MyBlogLog, Facebook, LinkedIn?

Participating in a forum?

Blogging?

Commenting on peoples' blogs

All of those are social activities, and perhaps their greatest currency is creating relationships and opportunities. While we look at something like traffic from Digg, it's the two or three positive comments we might receive in our blog, or the email from someone who might have found your site only through a front page post on Digg that we should measure, and perhaps treasure.

When we talk social networking, it's no longer a web site that is the center or "node" of activity, but rather the person behind a site or article, or the person behind the profile. The "links" aren't the ones pointing to pages, but rather the ties to others that might be made.

Sure, Google might give our pages based upon "popularity," and we might call the impact of that "reputation." With social networking and social media, it's our own popularity and our own reputation that takes the forefront.

Instead of a link, think of a handshake. I think that's the potential benefit of social media.

[Ruud]

...has anyone found social media traffic useful directly?

Yup. I find that new eyes click ads more so than regular visitors do.

Social media also gives me additional exposure. Some bookmark the site, some subscribe by email or RSS. Some forward the page by email or IM.

Even with bad conversion rates I think anyone can benefit from a traffic burst

[projectphp]

Yup. I find that new eyes click ads more so than regular visitors do.

Which is a massive plus for sites with advertising. Not so much for everyone else. Still a handy fact to mark down

Even with bad conversion rates I think anyone can benefit from a traffic burst

Not if:
a. your server goes down, and legitimate customers smiss out (has happenned to a few people).
b. The conversion rate is 0%.

So as long as the conversion rate is better than 0%, and the site doesn't crash, agreed, any traffic is good traffic

Instead of a link, think of a handshake. I think that's the potential benefit of social media.

To make the best decision, we need to be frank, honest and blunt about the pros and cons.

I agree wholeheartedly that Social Media is a massive move online, and has huge potential benefits. But I want, I need, to understand the full picture. Quite honestly, I don't believe anyone is providing that at th moment, in atttempts to jump on the Social Media bandwagon, without mentioning any pitfalls 9and there are always pitfalls).

What are the direct benefits in:

They are all excellent examples Bill of cases where direct benefit isn't the only or main benefit. However, the overall benefit is well defined and understood and used to justify the decision inspite of, not because of, any direct benefit.

With Social Media, there really isn't any sort of balance or help in decision making of the "inspite of" type. Sp, waht is the full picture here? specifically:
1. What are the benefits - all of them, no matter how small.
2. What do they cost (time, money, effort, privacy etc).
3. What are the negatives? Is the traffic any good, does it convert well? What is likely to cause server crashes etc etc.
4. What situations and industries are worth it more than others (tech vs stay at home moms etc etc)?

If the traffic from Social Media and tagging sites isn't any good, and my guess is that it isn't because it is unmotivated traffic, that fact needs to be understood. I may be happy to trade that for say a few links, but that decision can't be made if I don't realise the traffic is not any good.

The benefits of cumminty are partly down to personal preference. I personally like engaging in certain communities, but I wonder why so many people divulge so much about themselves. If I were to recommend Social Media as a strategy to someone, I would need to be frank in the time commitments it takes, and the expected returns for that time

Now that we have a social media and tagging forum, I really want to get to the bottom of what exactly the pros and cons are. So far, to me, it seems like there may be a slight boost in advertising revenue, the community aspect and the potential for new marketing opportunities in specific communities.

Now we just need a "devil's Advocate" to provide some more of the cons

This post has been edited by Ruud: Feb 28 2007, 01:19 PM

[kh7]

I would say the traffic itself is its own reward. It gets exposure. Some people bookmark the site. Since it's usually web savvy people that use social media sites (myspace excluded perhaps), they will be more likely to show other people to your site.

[eKstreme]

Social traffic tends to pay later down the line. On my blogs, the most popular posts garner links in a great initial burst, and then are referenced in posts months down the line. It's awareness like no other.

Example: I wrote up a (really) long post about how we have evidence of humans evolving. It's still getting referenced around the web whenever the subject of evolution and humans are raised. That's a good position to be in - the "authoritative" post on a subject. All thanks to reddit and digg.

Pierre

[iamlost]

A Social Media Site [SMS] - or section within a site (think Amazon reviews) - is a framework to hold some type(s) of user contributed content. To succeed it must generate a committed (fanatic?) user base.

By definition social groups tend to homogenisation. To grow in overall size a SMS must deliberately splinter into subgroups or it will lose cohesion and bleed users.

To really benefit from SMS traffic it is important to differentiate the various frameworks and subgroups by demographics, focal (interest) points, 'member' numbers, 'viewer' numbers, update frequency, growth patterns, etc.

* The closer your site niche/topic to the targeted SMS subgroup the higher the return numbers (bookmarking) and the quality of resulting backlinks.
* Also the more likely a positive response - site reputation is important to many advertisers.
* The greater the number of members, their involvement, and subgroup growth the longer your investment-involvement will pay out.
* not all sites match well or benefit from any SMS interest, links, and traffic. Know not only what you doing but why. Without a well defined and understood 'why', don't. Without a defined, understood 'how', don't.

I am not a believer in traffic for volumes sake. It is a viable business model - so hold the flames - just not mine. Almost all the graphs I have seen posted showing SMS traffic spikes and claimimg lasting traffic effects actually show reversion to the pre-spike growth line. The exceptions are when both the visiting subgroup and the site share fundamental interests, not just the attention grabber of the day.

Surprise! Quality remains quality, even in Social Media. What is different is the ability to target groups not just individuals. For those of us who take the time to aim.

For the record: I spent the last half of last year treating SMS as amorphous entities and while the traffic spikes were often huge (thank you load balancing and on the ball hosts) the benefits were a ROI disaster. The last couple of months I have been defining subgroups and site matching with (initial) favourable results. The traffic spikes are significantly lower, the traffic growth line holds higher after, bookmarked traffic holds higher after, and new backlinks deliver higher quality (converting) traffic. I like six months of analytics to confirm results but so far very good.

[brevetoxin]

I've been playing around with social media for around a month now. My efforts were centered around 2 events. One was Valentine's day and the other was the Oscars. The site is a blog solely monetized through pay per performance affiliate marketing. My normal conversion rate for the site is just over 1%.

1) Valentine's Day. I created a few "top ten gift" type posts for various groups of people and submitted them to Netscape. Two of the posts achieved top ranking on the Shopping channel for a period of several hours and my traffic roughly tripled over typical levels. My conversion rate from this traffic was about 5-10%.

2) Oscars. I created posts about the Academy Awards that related to the subject of the blog and submitted these to Netscape. Several of these articles achieved top position on the Celebrities channel of Netscape. My traffic was about 10 times my normal average. Conversion on this traffic was virtually non-existent. However, I did pick up several links from other related sites. Time will tell if those links bring useful traffic.

I think the difference is pretty clearly in the intent of the people "surfing" the articles on Netscape. Those in the Valentine's Day scenario were probably looking to buy the products being peddled on the page at that exact time, so the conversion rate was higher. Those clicking on the Oscars articles probably just wanted some more dirty stories on celebrities.

It's likely the channel I submitted to made a difference as well. In theory, the people browsing the shopping channel are in more of a shopping state of mind, while those browsing the celebrities channel aren't.

I'm having fun testing things (however informally), and I look forward to more long term results.

[skore]

I could sit here and go on and on about the long term benefits from a successful social media campaign but many of you have already done that pretty nicely. So let me give you an example of short-term benefits when done right.

We launched a viral peice this week for a client. A single list page that incorporated video and pictures (yes lists still work really well). We submitted it to Digg, seeded it in StumbleUpon and del.icio.us and sat back. I should also note that this site is not tech or young male based - their target market is actually women between 30 & 55 y/o.

Within 8 hours the story hit the Digg homepage with the majority of comments being positive (about 95%). From there, it spread to ebaum's world pretty quickly and then out to the authority blogs and smaller blogs and forums. Digg traffic over the first day was at about 25,000 and about 17,000 the next day.

So where what were the immediate benefits? A bucket-load of links from authority sites and niche blogs (200+ in 2 days) and all of the increased traffic that came from them. The next day sales were up 75% - directly related to links from the authority blogs. Even though the article was not a main focus of our client's business - it was presented in such an appealing way and came from a trusted source (the blog that told them about it) that people stuck around and BOUGHT.

It's extremely important to not just think of Digg traffic as useless. Yes, the majority of them are not buyers. Yes, the majority of them have ad blockers on. BUT - Digg is one of the most powerful influencers out there right now. To get a quarter of the authority links that we obtain from one successful viral campaign would cost us thousands (if they would even sell them) and countless hours.

[rustybrick]

I feel Digg traffic is all about the links you get from it.

Yes, it sends a ton of traffic. But I would guess, on the norm, Digg users are not in any "buy mode" and often the content is not appealing towards those who are buyers.

In any event, Digg gets your content in front of a ton of people. These people are geeks, computer geeks (I am one of them). More people that see your content, the more likely they will write about it. The more people that write about it, the more links you have.

Digg, IMO, is about link building - quick link building.

More of my thoughts, with a case study, at The Power Of Digg In Link Building.

[lyndoman]

I started my SEO blog over Christmas. Through use of Linkbait and social media I know have over 2,000 backlinks, according to Yahoo.

Yes, there is a place for social media in the online marketers tool box, but it's a tool you have to learn to use.

I have another site I coblog on and since Christmas we have built over 4,000 links according to Yahoo by using the same method.

I know of no other method that is free, whitehat, and builds link so quickly.

The traffic is not the desire. If my objective is to get 500 links from a piece of content I only need 500 visitors, as long as they each link to me. The other 20,000 uniques are inconsequential.

I have completely changed my SEO strategy because of social media and it's working.

I could spend a few hours submitting my links to directories or submitting my article to article sites, but what I really should be doing is writing great content and submitting that to social media sites.

I think a lot of SEO people are having a problem with this as it needs a new skill and that is being able to write. When I say write I mean write for an audience. A good writer can make any subject exciting, desirable and most importantly linkable.

As I read my daily list of SEO blogs I realise that a lot of great SEO people are not up to scratch when it comes to the written word. They are successful because of their knowledge, not because they can write, so when it comes to writing something for a wider audience it falls flat.

Luckily my background is words, and I know how to spin a yarn.

I see more SMO services being brought online for those who can buy the linkbait rather than having to write it. I have been approached by a couple of people to help with their linkbaiting/smo strategy, I think it's really going to take off.

BTW don't judge my writing skills on this post, I never have time to edit forum or comment posts, lol.

[cre8pc]

Is the objective to get a quantity of backlinks or quality inbound links from SM marketing?

[skore]

Kim - as with traditional link building the same rules apply (from my standpoint), the goal is quality but you will get quantity as well.

Let's use Digg as an example. It's a trickle-down effect:

* Influential bloggers/site owners read Digg (think engadget/lifehacker/gothamist/ebaum's world/etc - not just tech bloggers, not even close)
* They need content and they want to share things with their readers that are hot, cool & unique
* They blog about the items that interest them and link to what they just saw on Digg (authority link)
* Then their readers who have smaller blogs link to the same thing b/c they saw it on an authority blog and they want to be the first to share it with their audience
* But a lot of times bigger sites/blogs will find it later too and link out (many times putting it in their daily link finds/etc)
* People start stumbling it / del.icio.us'ing /etc it (later links when people discover, etc)

So you do wind up with massive quantities but it's those authority links in there that are the real goal to me.

[cre8pc]

They blog about the items that interest them and link to what they just saw on Digg (authority link)

Do search engines consider this an authority link?

Do we know if SE algorithms have been programmed to evaluate SM site links as sites of authority value?

[skore]

Kim - they look no different than any other normal post/page so unless they are devaluing everything - my answer would be no.

[lyndoman]

The objective is to always go for quality authority links.


"Every link is sacred
Every link is great
If a link gets wasted
Google gets so irate."
Thanks to Monty Python for the that one.

You can't just say, "I'm only going to get links from authority sites."

If the content is interesting enough to be linked to it's going to be linked to by authority and the rabble. I'm sure there is a ratio out there of authority/rabble but I wouldn't like to guess.

My own content gets linked to from authority sites such as searchenginewatch.com etc. But the point is to create great content then throw it to the social media lions in the Arena.

It's easy stuff if you have great, relevant content.

[ukdaz]

It's easy stuff if you have great, relevant content.

Exactly but if EVERYONE had great relevant content what then? ANd lets be realistic a lot of content out there is poor to average and theres tonnes of it floating around.... thing is if you asked most of those "authors" they would of course say it was great.... are we gonna start sinking under TOO much content?

Daz

[cre8pc]

You can't just say, "I'm only going to get links from authority sites."

Why not?

Granted, we have no control over who links to our sites. But, I would take 10 incoming links from an industry expert or reputable business or high ranked site over 10,000 "I thought this was funny" links from people. They are not linking because of they find value in my product/service/blog/etc.

I'm not convinced (grumpy old Kim) that search engines aren't evaluating the history and value of links and the sites they come from.

This reminds me a lot of when Zeus was launched and there was a huge debate over it because the premise was quantity, not quality for the reciprocal linking process it automated. The backlash caused the developer/owner to make refinements, and now, it's rare that you hear of anyone who uses Zeus anymore.

As Daz says, not every link is relevant.

For example, when my blog was Dugg big-time last month, they didn't come to read my blog or see what else I had to say about anything. They came to find the link to the site I blogged about. THAT website, an web design information provider site, likely got a ton of links. How many of them were content valuable, or is the point that a relationship between links no longer matters and it's only quantity now, relevant or not?

[storyspinner]

There are some other aspects that are beneficial as well. Not just traffic and not just links.

Social Media fuels Word of Mouth Marketing and branding online. Good or Bad. Of course we as marketers all want the good kind of WOMM.

There are several different types of personality groups in this world and online, and WOMM along with social media appeals to a great many of them in different ways.

Take for example the "humanistic" personality. That type of person puts great value in what others (friends/family) say about products and services. Reviews are very important to this type of personality, so they are likely to read comments and judge things by how popular they are.

The competitive personality - well they want to beat out all those other people in the group. Then you have the spontaneous - so if they see it talked about a lot in the social media realm - they are more likely to buy.

However, you can't be fooled into thinking that Social Media is going to give you an immediate return or can be the holy grail to get your conversions going. Much like TV or Newspaper Ads or Radio - it's all about branding and getting your name out there. It use to be that someone had to see your name or ad 7-10 times before they would decide to buy. I would think that is much how Social Media plays into things, but, in this case there are ways to measure it more closely.

[GeoffreyF67]

Of course I'll take quality links but I go for quantity usually if I can get it.

I figure the more eyeballs that see my link, the more that might click through to my site

Incidentally with regards to this:

Unless a site sells CPM based advertising, traffic for traffic's sake is not really the goal.

Do you know how much traffic you've got to have to make CPM advertising worth more than a lunch a day? LOL.

G-Man