Commentary
Less than 1% of Web Site Visits Come from Social Media
- by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, April 7, 2011
One of social media's big selling points is the high degree of user engagement it generally produces -- but paradoxically this "stickiness" may also be a liability, as heavily-engaged users are also less likely to follow links leading to sites outside the social media universe. At least, that's the conclusion I draw from some interesting research findings just released by ForeSee Results.
Overall, fewer than 1% of visits to Web sites come directly from a social media URL, according to ForeSee, which conducted 300,000 consumer surveys on more than 180 Web sites across the private and public sectors, the Department of Defense, Drugstore.com, General Mills, ESPN, Express, Kellogg, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Ticketmaster, Sears, and Suntrust.
That figure compares with study findings from ISL Consulting suggesting that as much as 61% of all Web site visits come from search engines, with 41% coming from Google organic search alone; another study found that 85% of initial Web site visits come via search engines. The disparity between the proportion of Web site traffic coming from social media and search is even more remarkable when you remember that people spend more time overall on social media. Clearly, search remains a more effective platform for connecting consumers directly to Web sites (provided, of course, marketers are diligent in areas like SEO and SEM).
But this doesn't mean that social media has no impact on online behavior: ForeSee also hastened to point out that 18% of visitors to Web sites report being influenced by social media to visit that Web site -- even if this isn't immediately obvious from clickstream data. ForeSee, which explicitly aims to go beyond traditional metrics such as referring URLs or raw counts of tweets and Facebook followers, is presenting these figures as benchmarks so marketers can see how they stack up in indirect attribution.
Indeed, ForeSee president and CEO Larry Freed stated: "What this tells us is that traditional clickstream metrics don't give us a full picture of what value social media efforts are bringing to our business. Companies have long been able to count how many Facebook fans, how many Tweets, and how many people click through ads on social sites, but they haven't had a way to calculate a tangible return on investment for social media efforts, not to mention other marketing initiatives. Now they can."
This is an interesting attempt to grapple with ROI, which remains one of the main issues facing social media: a big part of solving the ROI problem will undoubtedly be figuring out how to measure indirect contributions of social media to brand awareness and affinity, as expressed through Web site visits as well as offline behavior, including visits to brick-and-mortar retail and so on. However I feel like a bigger, more basic question is still hanging there, as marketers still haven't figured out how to determine the value of some of the more simple indicators cited by Freed -- for example number of fans, followers, Tweet brand mentions, etc.
Clearly social media measurement is still in its infancy, but it needs to grow up fast if marketers are going to maintain and increase their investments in the long term. I am the first to admit this is a tall order, in view of the rapid rate of change: it's like the whole world is a moving target.
Erik Sass is editor of Publishers Daily. You can reach Erik at eriksass@gmail.com.
For my clients, I see social media accounting for as much as 10% of visits WHEN the referrals are tagged for proper attribution. Many (most?) businesses, regardless of size, don't use tagging which results in a severe under-counting of social media visits, in my opinion.
In the haste to embrace social media, we've seemed to forget that the reason people are there has to do with their social connections. And, since companies aren't people; brands aren't people; and products aren't people connecting with anything valuable to a commercial entity is relatively insignificant reason people are around social. (Most people don't want to be a brand/company friend/like on Facebook. A few do.)
So, this isn't surprising. I'd expect to find some areas with relatively higher influence by social media (e.g. 10% to 15%). But primarily, it's a narrow medium that reaches a narrow audience that can be quite useful to you.
It's crap conclusions like this that make it difficult to get companies to adopt social media. Seriously, do you guys think before you open your mouths and pop off stupid? Where do you think Google gets the content to index so potential clients can find you? Social media includes blogs and distributed networks.
When you make distinctions between a "website" and a "blog" you already reek of old man stink.
Just get out of the way. You are already gumming up the works.
Clearly not the case for the brands I work with! Our sites have much higher traffic from social media. Yes, I do social media for a content company, but maybe that is just it ... brands need to be more of a "publisher" to drive traffic to their site. That is part (not all) of the secret sauce.
I agree with the stickiness factor. I think ultimately you need to identify what your goals are and where and how you want to engage your clients. If you are OK with interacting on Facebook and Facebook alone, so be it. If you are hoping your activity on Facebook will equate to a boost in site traffic by default, you are missing the point.
Gerard, if your business is going to live or die based on the findings of one study, you must not have a very compelling business model. Just sayin'.
Web sites are so 2005! Why would outside of social media expect anyone inside social media to "get out of the pool" when the water is so refreshing? Abdandon your old-fashioned web sites and jump in the pool! Companies that cling to old ways will be marginalized.
??
Is Twitter considered social media in this study? Were shortened URL's seen as Bit.ly etc. referrers or from Twitter.com? 90% of my Twitter stream is links to websites...hmmmm.
Can this study be trusted?
I agree that measuring effectiveness of social media is still problematic. But there is nothing wrong with using click through rates when the social media strategy is designed to drive traffic from, say, Facebook to the company's website.
That is why I have doubts in the validity of this study. If you bother to take a look at Facebook pages of, for example, the DoD, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, some Kellogg’s brands (Frosted Wheat Thins, Special K, Cheez-It, Pop Tarts), it is clear they are not really trying to get people to their websites: less than half of their status updates contain links to the sites.
And drugstore.com seems to be on a mission to keep you away from drugstore.com – you have to “like” them and/or accept a Facebook shopping (?) app.
So, why are these companies a part of this study?
Really, it’s like accusing Tina Fey of failure to embody a femme fatale.