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.
For the amount of time it takes to send out a tweet it’s probably worth keeping it up. It also has a chance to ‘go viral’ if people retweet your posts. Not sure about FB, I don’t use it for web promotion at all. I think Twitter is better for that. I am starting to see @username everywhere in the media. For example, with some newscasters now, especially sports, they show their name on tv along with their Twitter @ username. Same with athletes, celebs, and so on.
But isn’t it also nice not to be that dependent on social media when it comes to site traffic?
@ Adi
Yes, for sure. It also represents a traffic source I can look into developing.
It’s all a matter of:
1. What you tweet
2. How often you tweet
3. To whom you tweet
There are domainers with tens of thousands of twitter followers and hardly make a dent in daily traffic.
However, that being said, most people don’t know how to harness social media and direct traffic. Also, the numbers you’re seeing are due to the inability of traffic software to properly track social media.
Good reading: http://yoast.com/twitter-analytics/
@ Acro
Now that Twitter changes all links to T.CO, I think it’s easier for google Analytics to track. That article was posted before twitter did that, no?
Not necessarily. Links still stay obfuscated. But read this as well http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/twitter-drives-4x-as-much-traffic-as-you-think-heres-why/
In other words: to drive more twitter traffic, you need to tweet more, to a more targeted audience. Otherwise you will see your bounce rates skyrocket. And advertisers don’t care about overall traffic, they care about quality traffic 😉
@ Acro
Even if it was 4x, it would still be under 10% of traffic (around 6%)
That’s great. Nobody says twitter and fb is a magic bullet. Twitter and Facebook seem to work well with viral videos, photos etc. They are less effective with articles.
You should also submit your posts to StumbleUpon and Reddit.
@ Gnanes
Last year, the site was stumbled a few times… it brought hundreds of visits but almost all of them were for like 10 seconds or less and few returns. No interest in spending the time doing that.
Great post Elliot. As a guy that built my previous site completely through social media I learned one major thing. To do social media well you have to work very hard. It means building a following personally by sharing more than just your personal work. You have to show followers other things that they might enjoy. Eventually you develop relationships with others that also help promote. An “I’ll help you if you help me” relationship. Thats why I got on you (in jest) about following 59 people. You essentially take the social out of social media if you don’t follow anyone. I don’t have the time to do it right anymore so I don’t do it. Good social media and social media writing could add 50,000 uniques a month but it doesnt add dollars as that traffic doesn’t convert well. That doesn’t mean a few us couldn’t work together to easily get 5k extra views but our industry tends to have lots of one man shows. BUT you do a hell of a job however you do it.
What about the fact that a lot of those Twitter followers probably access your site by other means? (By subscribing to Domaining feeds or visiting on a daily basis, regardless of FB/Twitter posts). You do get a lot of RTs, so I’m sure the little bit of traffic doesn’t hurt.
Also, did my email come though this morning?
@Nadia great point.
Secondly domaining is way behind in social media.
Acro made an excellent point too, that articles do not do as well as Videos, Pics , infographics.
Elliot you are also it seems way to busy to have the time to put into it and make it a big part, and luckily you don’t need too.
Good article
I have been looking into my DropGrabs traffic and the SM element…
my SM % is under 2%….
I average 2100-2700 day and on days with more than one update to
DropGrabs — it’s been reaching 3300-3700 per day…
Average Monthly 65k-112k
I guess I should start updating DomainBELL more often she’s
quite low on traffic currently less than 1k day…
~Patricia Kaehler – Ohio USA – DomainBELL
I think you’re drastically under counting twitter. Remember that most people don’t visited from Twitter.com. They visit from Twitter clients.
Even with t.co, I bet you’re getting a LOT more than this.
Would you mind sharing how much came from search engines? I always find it an interesting comparison. Thanks for writing your blog.
On Blackberry right now but I think it’s over 65%. Domaining.com sends about 7 or 8% I think – probably a little more than that though. Aside from Google, Domaining is the largest source i think.
Also think about those times someone sees one of your articles on Twitter and then writes about it…
Elliot,
Two ways to look at this scenario, 1) Social Media traffci 2) Referring URLs ( how many referring URL contribute to you monthly visitor count)
I have previously sworn off using the FaceBook for personal use, which I’m pretty proud of, and am currently accepting virtual high fives for…
HOWEVER, I do understand the power of the network and since all the kids are on FB these days, I would be leaving potential contacts on the table by not using it.
THEREFORE, I plan to put together a FB for DomainFuze! and was hoping y’all might offer up some of what has/hasn’t worked for your domaining FB pages?
Many Thanks!