Will Facebook help drive more traffic to your website or Twitter? Are incoming links from Digg more valuable for improving your site’s organic rankings than than from YouTube or Flickr? Which is the best social site for engaging with people who are already in love with your brand?
For answers and ideas, check this handy chart (PDF) from cmo.com that compares the benefits of sharing content on various social media websites and whether they are worth your time or your (limited) social media marketing budget.
Some of the points mentioned in the chart aren’t valid anymore like your site won’t derive any SEO benefits from Flickr or delicious.com as they nofollow all external links. On the other hand, Facebook has a huge potential for driving traffic especially if you have a public page (example) that is indexed by search engines.
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Reader Comments
In addition, there are a good number of forums (communities) focussed on verticals (mobile payments, healthcare, wi fi, gaming etc.). Create a profile there (some allow home page URL’s to be displayed) and create a good reputation by participating and contributing value to your customers (potential, maybe). Over time you may see some trickle in traffic. Although you cannot expect the forums as a huge source of “referral traffic” you can surely create groups, discussions and make them more aware of your products or services. Either way, it’s good from a marketing perspective. The best part is, you are contributing to a VERY RELEVANT forum!
Hope this helped!
Written by Santosh Bhandarkar on 03.10.10
Thanks for such an informative article, and the link to the PDF. I am just developing my blog and this will help me narrow my focus for SEO and traffic as my resources are limited. Thanks again.
Written by Cliff on 03.11.10