Survey: Twitter Less than 1% of Traffic to Newspapers and Magazines; Facebook 1%

by Adam Sherk on March 2, 2010

For my presentation on Twitter Marketing Tactics at SMX West this week I wanted to get a sense of just how much traffic Twitter is driving to major news sites. So I conducted an informal poll of 10 US newspaper and magazine sites that Define works with or I am friendly with.

The surveyed group included a mix of sites covering general and breaking news as well as specific topics such as lifestyle, sports or entertainment. Most organizations prefer to keep their figures private so I’m not able to share the actual sites but they are all well-known brands. I looked at referral data for 2008, 2009 and 2010 to-date and for comparison also included Facebook and Digg.

So what percentage of total site traffic came from Twitter and the other social sites? Here are the group averages:

Twitter, Facebook and Digg to newspaper and magazine sites
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Make the Most of Your Retweet Buttons

by Adam Sherk on February 25, 2010

In working on my presentation for the Twitter Marketing Tactics session at SMX West next week I’ve been looking at the various types of share and retweet buttons used on news sites.

I’m partial to the Tweetmeme button, although displaying the number of tweets is a double-edged sword. It looks great when there are a lot of retweets; when there aren’t many it can weaken user perceptions of the content.

But regardless of which tool is used, the formatting of the tweet text is something that not every site is making the most of. [click to continue…]

AOL Newsroom: A Model for the Future or Shades of 2001?

February 23, 2010

There is an interesting article in BusinessWeek on how AOL is utilizing software and analytics data in an effort to match content with user interests and monetize it more successfully.
Are you sure you want to write that article, Dave?

News Sites: Tame Your Blog Tags

February 19, 2010

Ever notice all the tags that some blogs add to their posts? Adding a few meaningful tags is fine, but news sites in particular have a habit of taking this practice much too far.
The Huffington Post is a good high-profile example:

Google Buzz and News Sites: Good Potential But Facebook Still the Better Play

February 17, 2010

Google Buzz has certainly gotten a lot of attention in the past week be it for privacy concerns, suggestions for improvements or its “Code Red” push to get things right. But at this early stage, how strong are the marketing opportunities for news sites?
Sharing and discussing content is a key component of Google Buzz, so [...]

Foursquare and The New York Times Archive Would Be a Great Match

February 9, 2010
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Now that Foursquare is all the rage (or the bane of existence if you don’t like all those check-in and badge tweets invading your Twitter stream) news sites are looking at how best to leverage location-based social networks.
The recent partnership between Foursquare and Canada’s Metro is a good early example of the potential that exists. [...]

Does Social Media Increase a Journalist’s Value?

February 4, 2010
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A major newspaper is about to undergo another dreaded round of layoffs. After the first wave of buyouts, a tough choice has to be made been two journalists of equal talent and seniority. One journalist has a large following and active presence on several social media sites. The other does not. Who offers more value [...]

20+ Major News Sites Ranked by Domain Authority

February 1, 2010

When it comes to competing for search engine visibility, major news organizations tend to benefit from having strong, trusted domains. But just how strong are those domains?
Using SEOmoz’s new Open Site Explorer I did a head-to-head comparison of 20+ news sites to see which had the most domain authority.
To calculate the scores, SEOmoz uses an [...]

10 Quotes on the Apple iPad and the Business of News

January 28, 2010
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Now that the first wave in the Apple iPad crazy-a-thon has past, I thought I’d do a quick round-up of what people are saying about the iPad from the perspective of the news media.
You can view this in the spirit of Robert Scoble’s To create or curate?, or catch on that I’m on a [...]

Social Media Super Bowl: Which Team Has More Reach?

January 26, 2010
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So the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints will meet in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV. NFL analysts and sports writers now have two weeks to dissect the matchup, talk about players and schemes and come up with good storylines. But I’m here to look at what really matters – which team has more reach [...]

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