• by Ben Straley , September 2, 2009

Every marketer knows that launching a great Web site, brand campaign, or promotion is just the first step; then you've got to get people to visit, click and engage. The old way was to buy a ton of targeted search ads and plaster sites where you thought your core visitors were hanging out with banner ads. But the traditional "paid media" model is being seriously challenged by a new concept: sharing.

Study after study shows that people trust content, information, and promotions shared with them via friends far more than they do advertising; an April report from ZenithOptimedia found that recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touchpoints when it comes to influencing purchases. Of course, email, texting, Facebook, and Twitter are making this type of word-of-mouth sharing easier than ever before. Etsy recently reported that Twitter is the third-highest source of traffic to their site, and according to a Hitwise study, PerezHilton receives more of his traffic from Facebook than any other source.

Brands like Alaska Airlines and Microsoft are tracking the sharing of links and content about their brands - the so-called "earned media" that is so valuable today -- so they can accurately measure the impact sharing has on driving traffic, clicks and conversion to their corporate and campaign sites. Armed with this information, they're changing the way they plan and manage their online marketing campaigns in pretty fundamental ways. After working with lots of companies to do this type of measurement and analysis, we've uncovered some surprising results: namely that sharing drives significantly more traffic than search in some cases. On average, we've found that between 15-20% of unique visitors to the sites we're tracking come by way of shared links, and there is a consistent left in conversion rates among visitors from this source.

One client recently tracked the number of visitors who came to a promotional site via a shared link sent to them via email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. The company found that over 50% of all people who converted came to the site via a shared link. What's more, the visitors that came to the site via shared links were1.5x more likely to convert than visitors that came from other sources including search.

So what does this mean for marketers? First, it means you have to start thinking about how to create content that invites engagement and encourages sharing; shift your thinking from "broadcast" to "dialogue", and from traditional ad spending or "paid media" to the free "earned media" of shared links. Campaigns that contain compelling offers, entertaining video, games, contests, the ability to create and share user-generated content, and other social interaction features will generate the most sharing. Secondly, think about what you want visitors to do when they get to your site if they arrive via a shared link; the viral nature of the campaign should be continued on the landing page of the site, and all the way through to conversion, inviting people to join a conversation, play a social contest, vote on other people's posts etc. Make sure to have a "share this" button on your website as well, so you can encourage the sharing to continue even after visitors arrive.

Lastly, it means you need to re-think the way you use paid media to drive traffic to your campaigns. You'll need to use a word-of-mouth monitoring tool to measure the traffic coming to your sites via shared links, and also to analyze which exact sites, blogs, and social networks are generating the most sharing. You can then use this knowledge to make strategic media buys on those sites, and sites like them, and to fine-tune your paid search keyword buys; paid media still has a role in driving traffic, but you can definitely spend more wisely. In other words, instead of guessing what part of your campaign is driving the most buzz and among which groups online, measure the actual pass-along of content to measure it with precision.

You may be surprised who's talking about your brand, where, and with whom they're sharing your content. Content that gets passed-along is a brand-building and conversion-boosting goldmine - and shared links are the currency marketers can use to measure the true impact of word-of-mouth for the first time. As a consequence, marketers need to actively track and measure sharing, then use the data to increase the appeal and "sharability" of their content. Getting people to spread the word about your brand is tantamount to success in this social world: the first step is to find out exactly who is talking and what they're sharing.