Social Media

I had an email conversation with Shane, and we ended up briefly talking about social media traffic. When I looked into how much traffic Twitter and Facebook drive to my website, I was pretty surprised at the number.

I post links to my articles on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, often with commentary about the articles (well, as much commentary as you might expect). My blog has over 2,400  Twitter  “followers” and my blog has 220  Facebook  “likes.”    Before looking into it, I expected that there would be a good amount of traffic from Twitter and Facebook.

Upon closer inspection, it looks like I was wrong about that, and perhaps I should even stop spending time posting article links. Here’s the amount of traffic my blog received via Twitter and Facebook in the last 30 days, according to Google Analytics:

• Twitter: 876 visits
• Facebook: 764 visits

In total, just over 1,600 visits in the past 30 days. Considering my blog has received over 54,000 visits in the last 30 days, social media accounts for a  minuscule  amount of traffic (around 3%). I thought that number would be far higher.

Clearly, I am not doing a great job utilizing social media. Perhaps it’s because I only follow 59 people on Twitter and should amp that up. Maybe it’s because I use Twitter to dispense my own links rather than using it to share links. Whatever the case, I am pretty surprised by the lack of social media traffic.

Mark Fulton at DotSauce wrote a post about PostRank a few weeks ago, and I thought his write up was very good. It’s an interesting website for sure, and it was neat to look around and explore. There is a category for domain name blogs, and it currently has 25 feeds included (I am not sure how to add feeds).

The rankings in the Domain Name category change weekly I believe, so there’s no real reason to post the current standings for domain blogs as they are fluid. However, at the beginning of 2010, PostRank doled out awards for 2009, and I thought I would share the results of their rankings:

Most Influential: Rick Schwartz’s Blog

Biggest Mover & Shaker: Domain Name Wire

Top 3 Blogs: The Domains, Domain Name Wire, Elliot’s Blog

I do think the results are a bit flawed because they didn’t include some of the best known and most widely read blogs such as DNJournal. I think the results for 2010 are going to be interesting because it seems there are many bloggers who are active social networkers, especially   Twitter and Facebook.

I don’t know who pays close attention to PostRank’s results, but if you rely on advertising revenue to support your website, it’s another way to show that your website is engaging to its readers and those people who visit. Advertisers like to have placements on websites where the readers are actively engaged.