Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?
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If you get your content right, social media sites can send 10’s of thousands of visitors to your site in a short space of time. But how much traffic do these social media sites really send?
I have been speaking to a couple of friends and looking at some of my client’ stats and have come up with a rough guide to how many unique visitors on average you can expect to get from a popular story on some of the top social tagging and news sites. I have worked out my estimates mainly from Google Analytics.
There is a new sheriff in town, there have been reports of Yahoo! Buzz sending over one million visitors to a frontpage story. From what I have heard off one or two bloggers you can generally expect just short of half a million uniques.
Frontpage Traffic: 100,000 – 1,000,000+
Social news site Digg is renowned for crashing servers, this is mainly because of the volume of visitors it sends in such a short space of time when a submission 1st hits the frontpage.
Frontpage Traffic: 2,000 – 60,000+
In my experience a submission to StumbleUpon will generally go popular and send some decent traffic when it gets to around 50 stumbles, the bulk of the traffic will usually spread over 2-3 days, after that it will come in dribs and drabs.
Traffic: 1,000 – 50,000+
If your submission is liked by the Fark community it will without doubt receive some good traffic. If a link makes it onto the frontpage it will receive huge amounts.
Frontpage Traffic: 5,000 – 45,000+
Providing you have some decent news or a story that will interest the community Reddit is a sure thing for a quick burst of visitors. The amount of visitors a popular link receives will depend on how far up the frontpage it goes and how long it stays there for.
Frontpage Traffic: 2,500 – 30,000+
The mother tech news site Slashdot (/.) can still send a huge amount of traffic if you get your submission approved. The bulk of the traffic popular links receive is spread over the 24 hours or so that they are on the frontpage.
Frontpage Traffic: 1,500 – 30,000+
Humor site Ebaums World has been largely overlooked by internet marketers as a good traffic source. The newly created link submit category can drive thousands of visitors.
Frontpage Traffic: 2,500 – 20,000+
Another site that seems to have been overlooked by internet marketers is I Am Bored, popular submissions will generally receive many thousands of unique visitors.
Frontpage Traffic: 2,000 – 20,000+
Social tagging site Delicious tends to send traffic over time. However links that hit the frontpage will generally receive a good couple of thousand visitors in short space of time.
Frontpage Traffic: 500 – 5,000+
With Propeller you will not get very much traffic for just making it onto the frontpage. But if a submission makes it into the top 5 it can receive a good couple of thousand visitors.
Frontpage Traffic: 50 – 3,500+
Social news site Newsvine is not to be overlooked, if a breaking news story is submitted it will normally receive a good amount of traffic.
Frontpage Traffic: 500 – 2,000+
Community based internet news site ShoutWire can send some real traffic and is well worth submitting to. Frontpage submissions can sometimes receive over 1,000 visitors.
Frontpage Traffic: 500 – 1,500+
The popular links site Plime doesn’t send a huge amount of visitors, but it is still worth submitting to. If a submission makes the frontpage it can receive a good few hundred visitors.
Frontpage Traffic: 150 – 700+
Internet marketing social site Sphinn can drive some really targeted traffic if you have the right content. Popular submissions can receive a couple of hundred visitors in less then 24 hours.
Frontpage Traffic: 250 – 500+
The newest social news site to make some headway is Mixx, it is still only very new, but traffic is increasing all of the time. Submissions that make it to the frontpage can receive a couple of hundred visitors in a short space of time.
Frontpage Traffic: 100 – 250+
There are of course many other social tagging and news sites out there that are worth targeting, but these are the ones that I have experience with and I believe I have covered most of the best traffic drivers.
Posted in Social Media News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
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February 19th, 2008 71 Comments
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February 19th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Great article, but it seems to focus on the rare story that is broadly popular enough to shoot to the top of Digg/etc. It would be interesting to look into how much additional traffic is generated in general, for all articles on a website.
Put another way, if an online publisher embraces social bookmarking and places social bookmarking links on all of their articles, but never generates an article broadly popular enough to shoot to the top of Digg, will that publisher notice any significant boost in traffic?
February 20th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Personally I like marktd.com and pludIM.com a lot for targeted Internet Marketer traffic
February 20th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Thanks for the suggestions, I knew of only a handful of these. StumbleUpon is sporadic at best, but works in my experience.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:09 am
How did you come up with these numbers?
February 20th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Hi Julie, I looked at a bunch of my client statistics and asked two or three friends to tell me how much traffic they were receiving from popular stories on each of the sites. From there I worked out the estimates.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:11 am
SEOCO Blog » » Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?…
I wonder if Kwoff.com generates much traffic. Here are some figures from other such sites….
February 20th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I love Stumble Upon and Propeller
February 20th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Wow, great list. You gave me something to do tonight besides stumble !
February 20th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Great article, traffic numbers seem about right too!
February 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I’m coming from Sphinn and I think your right on the targeted traffic. I’ll stick around!
February 20th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
In my experience, it’s not difficult to get an article to take off on Stumbleupon. You can do it again and again if you get your formula right: topical subject, good headline and solid content. That’s all it takes.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I have found Link Referral to be great for me – you actually get good-quality reviews – something I have not experienced on Stumble or Digg. People take the time to visit and look at you work comprehensively whereas I find Stumble and Digg a bit shallow.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
You’ve listed a great many resources there. More than I ever got when I paid for membership to an expensive marketing membership site mentions. Only three were mentioned by those payed sites. This is a great resource and I have given it a thumbs up.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Great resource list I will tell my subscribers. Also 43things has a lot of traffic as well .
Deb
February 20th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
That is a really useful entry. I need to think about this for the site we are launching in the next couple of weeks
Thanks
Jon
February 20th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Terrific list ! I’ve added some of yours to my list, (s) which is growing daily, as I add material sites I want to find later. Sort of social bookmarking at it’s primary level;
build your own webpage
listing your own bookmarks
on your own website;
basic but functional
http://makomitt.homestead.com/Digg-Stories.html
Of especial comment is my 9/11 Plot page, which is currently sporting 1041 linked articles substansiating the need for a new investigation.
These and many more are linked from my startup page where I have weather sites listed for personal use. A site marked with * is one of mine.
On the OSMEGS site for instance, I have a list of “The Other Guys”
in the wave power field.
( The O is Ohio weather)
My links Galore page cites many resources I use, like the Art Links and my Best free header categories.
All linked on my portal page;
SURFLINKS
http://makomitt.homestead.com/surflinks.html
Enjoy.
Now as far as website traffic goes; I have statcounters on most of my pages, and I can tell you that I’ve posted and tracked extensively, well, in my field anyway, and found that in actuality, the numbers are tragically low.
The type of commentary and voting that can come out of a submission can be shocking, insulting and horrifying. Now admittedly, I am a Theosophist Truther Radical, but when it comes to submission to popular sites, there are some that I won’t even post in my lists because of the heinous abuse levels from other readers.
Digg is one of the worst, though the material cited is generally from better sources, there is a plague of what I must refer to as Digg Trolls, who will trash, thrash and bash anything beyond 6th grade thinking levels.
Same goes for Daily Kos, OpEdNews, Craigslist, 9/11 Blogger, 9/11 Researchers, Tribe, A28 and likely some others that I’ve forgotten.
The numbers of online commenters lay mostly within 20 something realms, where a juvenile can pose as an adult and shoot his mouth off like a redblooded redneck; and surprisingly, they go to great effort to do so. My guess is that for every intelligent response there are ten idiotic ones;
my point;
if you’re ‘trying’ to do something or say something online, you can pretty much forget it.
The complacnece and anonyminity of the net isn’t really a committed involvement on the readers behalf, and genuine interaction is rare.
Peace Out,
LOL !!!
February 20th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Social Media Traffic – How Much Can You Get?…
Article lists some of the top social tagging and news sites with frontpage traffic estimates….
February 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
My favorites I must say are StumbleUpon and Propeler..^^..Anyways thanks a bunch David for the wonderful post!
February 20th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Fantastic list, is the traffic figures over the life span of say a post added to Digg, I think once niche social sites start to appear than the traffic will increase.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites? - I have been speaking to a couple of friends and looking at some of my client’ stats and have come up with a rough guide to how many unique visitors on average you can expect to get from a popular story on some of the top social tagging and news sites. [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 5:10 am
[...] Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites? [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
[...] are also social news websites, such as, Digg and StumbleUpon that have the potential to send up to 40k unique visitors to your website in a short space of time as well as a good number of backlinks if you manage to reach the front [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I use http://www.subbmitt.com it’s just getting started and needs some traffic. It looks nicer than Digg or Reddit though and is easier to use. You can post comments or articles without even signing up or logging in. Plus your articles will make it to the front page so you’re not wasting your time by posting them.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:52 am
A very handy article on how to attract traffic from Social Bookmarking sites…Thanks
May 9th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites? share this story Hide Sites [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 8:47 am
A very good article. It can help more bloggers or site owners to get free traffic from social networking & book marking sites.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Fantastic article; very informative. With the credit crunch, small companies like my Creative Arts Workshop company, are loosing hits, so using social media, is a useful tool
L. Nugent (Director)
Nugent Education Limited
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 am
Great information, That is a really useful. We need to think about this for the site.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
This is another great list. It’s interesting to see just how fast some of these sites can pick up popularity. I am on the verge of going live with a niche social bookmarking site myself. It’s great to have articles like this with which I can compare other successful sites to my own strategy.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Great article! I was researching on the benefits of Social Marketing in relation to Branding; however, increased traffic translates into Brand promotion and awareness. It is very useful when you have specific/potential numbers – it helps you to focus your effort in achieving the best “return on effort” not just ROI
September 14th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
There has long been a suspicion that the only traffic which arrived at a site as a result of a social bookmark listing has been from the initial review of the entry. On viewing some recent figures on company formations traffic sources it was found that less than one percent of viewing came from these sources and therefore I would conclude that they are not influential.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:15 am
StumbleUpon without a doubt is my favourite social media traffic driver, it’s my main focus to submit all my articles to it. In my first week of running my blog I got over 2,000 visitors all from StumbleUpon as well.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I remember I was on the frontpage of digg and 16.000 people visited a website of mine…
October 13th, 2008 at 12:46 am
i need information about Social Bookmarking sites. thanks for info.
November 1st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
This is a great list of social bookmarking sites, but it would be good to see an article on how to get onto these sites, in the first place.
I’ve also seen another article on bloggeries.com where people are comparing how many hits they get from various social media websites.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Thanks a ton for this. I have always wondered what social networks can drive the most traffic and this breaks it down perfectly.
I have always had the best luck with StumbleUpon and it always sends a good amount of traffic. Still trying to find a way to get to the frontpage of Digg but I guess that will have to wait.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:35 am
You’ve listed a great many resources there. More than I ever got when I paid for membership to an expensive marketing membership site mentions. Only three were mentioned by those payed sites. This is a great resource and I have given it a thumbs up.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I am very happy to post my comment in this blog. I gathered lot of information from this site. Nice blog.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Further to the comment above under the heading company formations, I agree that the only traffic which tends to arrive at a site as a result of a social bookmark listing is probably from the initial review of the entry. This has indeed been our experience too, but I suppose people should test and draw their own conclusions.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Personally, I have good experiences with Digg. I was on the frontpage of a subcategorie and I got like 15.000 people on one day!
December 29th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Thanks for this article. I didn’t know that much about social media traffic.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Great article! Bookmarked it!
December 29th, 2008 at 5:29 am
you can get a lots of traffic from the social media websites ,so the socila medai is a good source of getting your sites more familiar with the visiters.
http://www.cyberdesignz.com/
December 30th, 2008 at 9:25 am
You will get a lot of visitors yes, but it’s not a permanent thing.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Well at least you get some extra visitors. I wouldnt mind.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Nice article and some great links there. I could do with some extra visitors.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Thanks for the post I will follow these up!
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
StumbleUpon seems really good, Im in the process of trying them all. We will see how I get on
http://www.sevenstarsagency.com
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:23 am
Great resources for promotion of my blogs. Stumbleupon seems to work well, along with automatically pinging my blogs using Blog Buzzer
March 24th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
The best way to get hits to your site is to have good content and be interesting. look at Megan Fox! She is gorgeous! does she need to pay Mike at Linkreerral for hits? I think not! For the rest of us who are ordinary and not blessed by great genes, we have to work at it a bit! All I am doing is reporting the facts here. The truth speaks volumes!
“You can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time!”
Not everyone is impressed with Linkreferral, affiliate marketing and MLM’s. Just do a google search on Linkreferral some time and read the comments page if you don’t believe me! Many prefer like me to just comment on what they find interesting on other people’s web sites and blogs. i do use entrecard and blogupp as get some hits from it but most just say 5 secs. Who needs that? many are deluded into thinking this is FREE advertising but time is money and it takes time to visit these sites and drop and click on them! however; you get a shot at people here you would not ordinarily come into conact with. if you are a gifted writer and sell a good product, you just may grab them into being loyal readers or buyers of your product. That is up to you! Happy blogging and surfing!
Leave a Reply
March 30th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Interesting list; very useful to me. Thanks!
March 31st, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Great article and very useful list. Interesting to see the estimated traffic for each site – well worth trying them out thanks!
April 7th, 2009 at 3:17 am
I think social media is a critical component to any sort of marketing campaign…not for the direct measurement of traffic, but for the contacts you can make while networking! These contacts is what will help you increase sales in your niche. The power of working together to help more people is incredible.
he bottom line is user intent is the key. If the user is killing time on social media sites, or digg or whatever, they’re not clearly not intending to “convert” for anything.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
This list you have combined is indeed useful, the statistics can help me decide which social media website to taget first, although I will probably check them all. Once utilized the right way, these websites can really send huge amount of traffic to your webiste and also increase your brand name. Good Job!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:14 am
wow, very interesting
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 am
The list of social media sites along with the statistics is very useful to me. I am currently trying out a few and will keep posted to see the results.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
awesome list…but personally i like stumbleupon and redditt
August 17th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Thanks for sharing this great social networking sites. I have been using some of this.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Hey thanks a bunch for the sites
October 29th, 2009 at 8:23 am
You can get much of traffic in social media like if you have a good story submitted.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I always think you get bad converting traffic from social media – it’s a funny target audience. It does work for some people though.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Using Social Media websites can be very effective in acquiring traffic to your site if you use it wisely.
November 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Thanks for the article – I’ve always wondered how much value social bookmarking sites have for driving traffic, especially as there are so many. its good to know which ones are recommended
December 18th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Nice article and some great links there. I could do with some extra visitors.
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:54 pm
The list of social media sites along with the statistics is very useful to me. I am currently trying out a few and will keep posted to see the results.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Actually, using social media websites will help you to get a huge amount of traffic that you desire. You just have to use it in proffer way so that you won’t get any trouble or being ban afterwards.
January 13th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I could use some extra traffic either, unfortunatly linkbuilding costs so much time. However publicity on socialmedia websites is pretty easy to get.
January 13th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
The only downside to this marketing method is the traffic is shorterm. A great story or article could possibly recieve up to two weeks of traffic.
January 27th, 2010 at 1:50 am
wow, very interesing,didn’t know yahoo buzz was sending so much traffic
January 28th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Yeah,yahoo buzz is kinda big
February 8th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Excellent post.I want to thank you for this informative read, I really appreciate sharing this great post. the content is going to be a good resources and references for me in the future.