Traffic Referrals from Social Media Sites Surging
A new report published on Shareaholic indicates that traffic referrals from many social media sites, especially Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook, are skyrocketing in number. Combined, these three social media websites are currently driving over 50% more traffic today than they were just a year ago.
However, not every social media site has experienced this same level of growth over the last year. This being said. it is important to dig into the data to see which social media websites have seen the greatest increases in traffic referrals.
The Biggest Getting Bigger
The social media sites that have seen the most growth in referring traffic since a year ago are these:
- Pinterest – 66.52%
- Facebook – 58.81%
- Twitter – 54.12%
- YouTube – 52.86%
It’s obvious from the data that if your business doesn’t already have a presence on any of these social media sites, now would be a good time to start. At the same time, it’s important to remember that Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all of their own separate purposes and audiences, though there’s obviously a lot of crossover between the audiences as well. Choose the social media sites that best apply to your business, and start your campaign from there.
Smaller Growers and Social Media Losers
LinkedIn also posted considerable social media traffic referral growth of 34.51%, though given LinkedIn’s status as a social network focused strictly on working professionals, it may or may not be worthwhile for your business to have a presence there.
Google+ has been one of Google’s weakest properties since its beginning, and things are no different when looking at its referral traffic. Google’s social network is only pushing 6.97% more traffic than they were a year ago.
Two once-prominent social media sites actually saw significant drops in their referral traffic from last year. StumbleUpon is pushing about 27.47% less traffic, while Reddit’s traffic referral dropped by a whopping 35.16%.
While growth and decline trends are important, it’s worth noting that Facebook is still the biggest social media traffic referrer overall by a wide margin. As you plan your social media campaign for 2014, you’ll definitely want to consider Shareaholic’s data.