Social Media Too Sweet For Websites

There's a reason why every single news article you read today, whether at the New York Times or on an individual blog, has one or more links to submit that article to a social media service - the publisher wants the massive traffic a Digg or a Reddit can deliver.

social media and the marketing people do to get it indicates that a slavish devotion to getting Slashdotted or hitting the Del.icio.us Popular list may leave a site publisher with the same empty feeling one might get from overindulging on October 31st. She cited some research on social media performed by SiteLogic's Without brand reinforcement and conversions, one-off traffic doesn't have the same value as that which is developed through external site links. Kim noted this correlates with her observations. Andy Beal commented on Kim's piece how he has been impacted by Digg: I've been on the homepage of Digg four times now. I agree that they're rude, rarely stay long and don't often engage. But, here's the trend. After each digg effect, my long-term traffic increases. Also, those diggers do tend to come back and often digg you again. The lesson of the quick sugary rush of social media traffic might not be the short term issue of high traffic and low benefit (i.e. conversions and CTR). It could be a long term effect where Digg users whose comments and references to a site they find on Digg end up building higher quality traffic over time. Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Bookmark Murdok: David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.