Social Media Marketing: Is it Worth Your Time?
Published September 4th, 2007 in Social MediaSocial Media Websites such as Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Reddit can bring thousands of visitors to your website or blog in a very short amount of time. However, it often seems like only a small percentage of the users of these sites actually see any results and the rest are just wasting their time.
You probably don’t have hours to spend each day to become a “top user”, but can you still benefit from social media websites? If you have a specific strategy, it is possible to get surprising results without spending hours digging other sites.
What Type of Traffic Do Social Media Sites Generally Produce?
- Visitors convert into subscribers at a low percentage.
- There is normally a low number of page views per visitor.
- Visitors are less likely to click on advertisements.
You may think this traffic hardly sounds valuable, but on the positive side:
- Even if the subscriber conversion percentage is low, the huge number of visitors can still help you see a significant jump in subscribers.
- Bookmarks (such as del.icio.us) can lead to repeat visitors as users go back to their bookmarked pages.
- Social media is one of the most effective ways to launch new linkbait.
If your time is limited (which I’m sure it is) your goal should be to create traffic through social media websites without a lot of time-consuming, manual effort. Here are some tips:
- StumbleUpon is one social site that can send floods of traffic with little or no effort on your part. You don’t need “friends” or a large network, you need high quality, attention-grabbing content.
- Get a blog post Stumbled by one person and it can snowball (if other users also like your post).
- One of the most effective ways to get the ball rolling with StumbleUpon is to include a link on each of your blog posts that easily allows readers to stumble it (like the one at the end of this post). Reminding readers will almost always get you more stumbles.
- Use 2nd tier social media sites as a spring board to the major ones.
- There are a number of social media sites besides Digg, StumbleUpon and del.icio.us that send considerable amounts of traffic (see our list of social media websites). Many of these sites are also highly targeted to specific niches. Users of these websites are also likely to be users of other social media sites, so success on a 2nd tier site can create some success with others like del.icio.us or StumbleUpon.
- All 3 times that I have had blog posts reach the front page of del.icio.us in the past 2 months it has started with traffic from Dzone, a social site for developers. Dzone users started bookmarking the posts, which led to the front page of del.icio.us, and even more traffic from del.icio.us.
- For more information on using 2nd tier social media sites see an article the I wrote for Blogging Expertise.
- Optimize your blog for social media.
- Pick a few social sites that you want to target (I use del.icio.us and StumbleUpon) and place some icons or links that will encourage readers to bookmark/vote for your pages. Place the links in prominent places where readers will be likely to see them. Don’t try to promote too many different sites as all of the icons, buttons, and widgets can be a distraction to your visitors.
- Choose the sites you want to target based on how well they fit with your readers and your blog’s subject. A smaller, more targeted social media site may produce much better results than the major ones.
- WordPress users can download the Antisocial plugin that will allow users to submit your posts to a few social media sites.
- FeedBurner users can also encourage use of social media with FeedFlare.
- For specific tips on using del.icio.us, see the 10-step process that I used to get to the front page.
What are your thoughts and opinions on social media? What have you had success with?
16 Responses
Fantastic post! It’s something I need to work on, social media and networking sites. I’ll add that to the list, along with directory submitting and article marketing for backlinks. Blogging is hard work.
I also need to make sure I keep my Antisocial buttons limited – I used to have around twelve of them, but keeping it around four or below would be best.
Thanks, keep up the great work!
Tay
I recommend “Sociable” plugin for WordPress. It’s similar and quite userfriendly..
I use social media but not to drive visitors to my page because — I’ve said this many times — whether or not a visitor becomes a reader (there’s a difference) has a lot to do with the existing materials on one’s blogs.
Well, unless you’re contended just to see the spike in the number of visitors!
Tay,
Thanks, as always, for your feedback. I agree with you, limit the number of Antisocial buttons. I can’t say that I’ve personally tested that scenario, but too many buttons and widgets cause visitors to ignore them. I use a button for StumbleUpon and a link for delicious, and that’s it. I get decent traffic from those two, I think it’s more than I would get if I had 100 random buttons everywhere.
Felix,
The Antisocial plugin is actually based off of Sociable. It’s the same plugin except it uses nofollow tags for the links to the social media sites. It’s better for SEO purposes than Sociable, but it still has the same functionality.
Pelf,
I’m not content just to see a spike in traffic, so I completely agree with you that content is key. Social media can be a great way to get people to notice that content.
The jury is still out on whether spending time on social media sites is worth it or not… i feel like Digg is a disaster unless you have a blog, del.icio.us isn’t used by that many people yet, and the other ones, with the exception of Reddit, are all pretty much obscure sites that only webmasters seem to frequent. Unless you own an SEO or webmaster-oriented site, these sites probably won’t get you the kind of volume, or the quality of traffic, that you’re looking for. I’ve heard there’s some kind of “buzz” boost you can get from google for being mentioned a lot on these sites, so maybe it is worth it.
Aaron,
That’s true. For someone in your market it may be difficult. Some websites have had success though creating a page with a linkbait article designed especially for social media. Something that would probably be funny or maybe entertaining pictures. The page might not really even be a part of your website, as long as it’s on your domain the backlinks can help your rankings for the rest of the site.
I wouldn’t say that delicious doesn’t have many users yet. I had over 3,000 visitors in 1 day last week as a result of getting to the front page. And I think it’s Alexa rank is just over 200. Most of the users are more likely to be a part of my target market than they are of yours, that is very true.
Thanks for your feedback, it has definitely added value to the post!
I second (third?) the idea of limiting your social buttons to under four. I think you should check your stats and see which sites actually send visitors, and then use buttons for them.
I also agree with the fact that content is king. In the early days of my blog I had several big traffic spikes, but with fewer than 10 articles I kept a very small number of those visitors. Nowadays, I keep a lot more visitors even on days when I don’t have a traffic spike.
Great article, and good discussion too.
– Mason Hipp
More traffic is always better. But since we all have limited time, I think the primary question is what to focus on in spending your time – promoting your site or writing more and better content? Both are needed, but for me content has always been a preference…
The most common experience with being digged is to have a huge spike of traffic that washes in and leaves only a small benefit.
the sustainable benefirt you are after of course is links… relevant ones so when someone actively seeking ‘whatever’ on the search engines, they will find you.
I really believe in digg andt the likes, but i do think you need a clear plan, otherwise you’re like the guy whose house has been trashed after a party everyone enjoyed except you.
How to Wake Up Early,
I agree that content should be the main priority. However, on top of that most bloggers make some type of marketing efforts that require some time. A good social media strategy can be very beneficial at getting readers to that great content that you’re creating. Thanks for your feedback!
Online PR Guy,
Valid points. The effects of links can be long-term and very valuable. Interesting analogy, I’m glad I was never that guy.