The Value of Social Media Traffic
December 9, 2007 – 11:20 amSpecifically I am talking about the burst of traffic when your website gets to the front page of Digg, Reddit or Slashdot. Initially you receive a powerful burst of traffic, which in some cases brings your server to its knees, followed by residual traffic lasting for a few days.
Some have said this type of traffic really has no value, while others have built great arguments why social media traffic is worthwhile.
Following are some suggestions to take advantage of social media traffic.
- Preparations - Hosting Company
- Make sure your hosting company can handle the traffic burst. We have found Layeredtech and Media Temple do the job nicely (I’ve had several of my websites get front paged with no server issues).
- Ask your hosting company what their policy is when you receive large bursts of traffic in short periods of time. You want to make sure they will not disable your account when you are experiencing the glory of the front page.
- Preparations - Website Platform
- Contrary to popular belief, platforms such as WordPress can handle the traffic nicely. Here is a nice write up on how you can prepare your website for the traffic.
- Whatever platform you are using, make sure you implement some form of caching. Its the database queries that usually end up killing your server.
- Actions - Monetizing
- Favor impressions based advertisers, but make sure they will not disable your account from the traffic spike.
- Adjust the advertising to the content.
- I have heard someone suggest that you remove the ads on your website until after you hit the front page in order to reduce the chance of your story being buried; however, I suggest you use a service such as FrontPageBids.com to 1) ensure you receive revenue from the traffic burst and 2) dynamically serve up relevant ads just as you hit the front page.
- After effects - Residuals
- Expect to see a spike in residual traffic from RSS subscribers and new links. You may want to have a feed specifically for the category that made it to the front page, following up with a new article in that area quickly.
- Provide links to other relevant content on the page that made it to the front page and update that page and its as you create new content.
- Monitor the comments aggressively and participate.
- As the traffic wanes create an updated version of the post.
- Use that post in a future compilation article.
REFERENCES
Social Media Manual
Notifir Blog
TechiPedia.com
SocialNewsWatch.com
Social Networking Strategy Template
Search Engine Land
What value have you received from social media traffic?
6 Responses to “The Value of Social Media Traffic”
This is interesting. The first time we saw the StumbleUpon spike, we assumed that our bounce rate would go way up and the time on site would go way down. But it did not. Each time someone puts us on StumbleUpon and we get a big spike, it continues to be “good traffic” for us.
In our case, I think that’s because early adopters of social media are more likely to be StumbleUpon users, so they find our site interesting. For other sites, with different demos, there would likely be a different result.
You are right, however, all traffic is not created equal.
~Jim
By Jim Tobin at Ignite Social Media on Dec 9, 2007
Although the traffic does not convert remarkably well for us, when we have large spikes in traffic from social media sites, we do get residual effects like a greater number of inbound links.
By Dharmesh Shah on Dec 9, 2007
Good thoughts about social traffic spikes. I have encountered a few, specifically from Digg and StumbleUpon since starting my site.
One thing I noticed is the large spike is usually over within a couple of days, however there seems to be a slight increase over the long run of RSS subscribers and general page visits.
The biggest point to consider is to be prepared from the beginning of your site. Prepare for large spikes in traffic so your site doesn’t crash or freeze up.
If you create your site or blog like it will be getting 10K hits per day, then you will be prepared for large amounts of traffic with no surprises.
By Elliott Cross on Dec 9, 2007
We are currently with Dreamhost, which doesn’t fair well with a Digg front page, but it will hold up to a front page on del.icio.us. Cheap hosting my be the way to go until your site begins to take off or you reach the front pages of the social sites frequently.
By Jason Bartholme on Dec 9, 2007