Why Social Traffic is the Ultimate False Idol of Internet Marketing

[djbaxter]

Why Social Traffic is the Ultimate False Idol of Internet Marketing
by Mark, Court's Internet Marketing School Blog
December 11th, 2008

Social traffic is a false idol? Pure heresy in the world of blogging. Thousands of bloggers have dedicated tens of thousands of blog posts to “how to get a rush of 20,000 visitors in three hours from Stumbleupon.”

From experience we can tell you it’s a great feeling to see hundreds (or thousands) of people hit your site over the course of a few minutes. In fact we used to gauge the success of a blog post by whether it attracted a lot of social traffic. There was only one problem. The social traffic never led to anything (like…money…for example).

Let’s put it this way. If social traffic were a food it would be cotton candy. Really sweet, but no substance whatsoever. If by hard work or good luck you happen to receive a big surge of traffic from Stumbleupon or Digg one day, you’ll find that it feels (tastes?) great, but it leaves you just as hungry as before it happened.

Why? Social visitors bounce off your site as quickly as they found it. They don’t click ads, they rarely subscribe to your blog, and they rarely link to you.

...more

 

[Linda Buquet]

What a GREAT title!!! Got my attention.

"If social traffic were a food it would be cotton candy."
Love that line and so true!

I think this is a blog I need to go check out.

Thanks!

 

[djbaxter]

It's from Court's Internet Marketing School Blog. I forgot to add that to the top of the excerpt - fixed it now.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I know Court's Blog, but that URL goes to The Keyword Academy.
Is that Court's site too? Nevermind I see now. Sorry, different site he's affiliated with I guess.
I'm used reading his other blog.

 

[djbaxter]

I found the article via an RSS feed from his blog - Court's Internet Marketing School - so I assume it's either posted on his blog or aggregated there. (?)

 

[leodimilo]

Just to be contrary and play devil's advocate here, I have to challenge this notion, IF Court is saying that social media traffic has no place in Internet Marketing.

The first issue with trying to grab readers, subscribers, ect is that the social crowd simply wants to be social. In other words, in most cases, they could care less about the product you are offering in your sidebar. They probably aren't going to click on the adsense ads. They simply aren't targeted enough in most cases (unlike organic traffic). In other words, you are going to get folks that come from all walks of life, with nothing in particular in mind...they are just surfing for crap.

The problem that most MMO or SEM or SEO websites have with the social networks is that social media aren't really that interested in these types of websites, generally speaking. Like it or not, the MMO and SEM and SEO sites are a far cry from what the general public would be interested in. Hence, why Court claims that his tests produce no results.

I bet you Court would have a different viewpoint IF his site was a photography site or a cool flash site and he was stumbled. After all, to the average "joe" trying to just kick it and find cool stuff, a flash site or photography or video site is a lot more fun than an information site on a product or service.

And people are more willing to link back to "cool" and fun stuff than boring yet informative reads...How you monetize it is a question all marketers are trying to figure out.

There are some benefits that an internet marketer can grab from social marketing.....

For instance, branding and exposure.

While organic listings will produce the same and possibly better results, the social marketing strategy will produce traffic RIGHT NOW...today. And since most of the socialites on these platforms happen to be internet savvy and have blogs/websites, the chances of getting backlinks of the natural kind, are increased...which will help increase your exposure in the SERPS more.

Finally, here is something that Court doesn't really talk about. We all think of our positioning in the SERPS as somewhat of a finality...that is once we get to position #1, we have arrived....

But what happens when Google pulls the search carpet out from under your feet (as what happened to Court a few months back when he lost his #1 listing in google for Internet Marketing which had site wide links)....what then?....

Relying on SE traffic solely will eventually burn you. You need a back up plan. And using the social site traffic will, in the very least help you maintain brand while increasing your exposure to weather SE disasters.

By the way, I built my first business on social marketing before that was even a term....It is called forum marketing and is every bit as social, if not more so than the social sites like twitter, facebook, ect.

Anyway, just a different viewpoint. I am not saying that social marketing is the end all to save the day...but it could help with branding your site and getting initial exposure.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Free Affiliate Online Tradeshow - eComXpo Starts Today

<strong>The <a href="http://www.wbresearch.com/ecomxpo/">FREE Virtual Tradeshow</a> and Job Fair For eCommerce And Affiliate Marketers. January 28 - 29, 2009</strong>

I've been so busy I forgot <strong><a href="http://www.wbresearch.com/ecomxpo/">eComXpo</a></strong> starts today. It's FREE and a great way to network plus learn.

I'll be in the chat room part of the day so come say hi. Billy Kay, Loxly and a bunch of other affiliate regulars are usually there, so come join the fun.

Here are just a few of the sessions that I thought affiliate marketers may be interested in:

<strong>.:. Creating The Perfect Team: Best Practices For Affiliate And Search Marketing To Work Together; Not Against One Another

.:. Progressively Moving Towards A Path Of Standardization, Self Governance And Self Regulation As An industry ? Can This Become A Reality?

.:. Ensuring A Successful Affiliate Program That Is Based On Site Analytics

.:. What Makes a Good Datafeed? Tips for Merchants

.:. Landing Page Optimization for Higher Profits

.:. Generating Greater Traffic Through Web Content Optimization</strong>

 

[jcorkern]

"Relying on SE traffic solely will eventually burn you."

Jeeze, I am long overdue then, I have been at this since 2001 and have never been burned with SE traffic in SEO, Do not do anything questionable and you will be good to go.

Also, in the example post the traffic was not the issue, it was a lack of convertable traffic for money. I have found this to be the case many times over.

I am capable of producing post that stick and bring in loads of traffic, have done it many times and can pretty much do it at will. But something "fun and interesting" as in a video or interesting image has little change of converting a click from a SBS. You do have some chance of getting links from other bloggers linking to it, so again, you have a much better chance of SE positions in this particular case.

Now, also with this example post that was posted by Minstrel, the guy is an internet marketer, and I am sure he will get a few followers or has an alterior motive for the post already has a following, and newbies will fall into his site, probably sign up for his mailing list on these types of post, but using viral, he may get 1 signup out of 1000, wheras he may get 2 out of 100 with the SE's.

It is a matter of targeted traffic, so I would argue that he is right on.

 

[leodimilo]

I will agree that social marketing is not near enough targeted to rely on it for high conversions...if anything, you are building potential customers through sheer volume and the conversion rates are absolutely abysmal, at least from my experience.

It just seems like there are two very separate camps in regards to internet marketing...the social media camp and the SEO camp. Why not use both?

Social media has always done a pretty good job for me in terms of branding and getting the word out.

However, nothing compares to high rankings in the search engines as far as getting highly targeted traffic.

 

[jcorkern]

Both have their place, and I use both, the main thing is to use viral as linkbait as you try for the branding effect.

Please do not misunderstand my post, I just can not openly condone one as the cure all, each has its place and applications in the internet marketing world.

But the bottom line for an affiliate marketer is not the number of visitors, but the number of sales.

Some things are just better fitted to certain sites, and some are not. But I have never seen a site that could not benefit from seo, where PPC , SBS's and even paid ads can not fit that claim.

 

[budgawnings]

It just seems like there are two very separate camps in regards to internet marketing...the social media camp and the SEO camp. Why not use both?

I've been noticing that the more savvy bloggers and the successful internet marketers are using both of these, and aren't really drawing a line between the two. Really, social marketing is part of seo...it incorporates link building, and natural links to pop by the hands of your "followers."