social media traffic

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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+


Digg Logo

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+


Reddit Logo

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+


I am Bored Logo

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.