So, what did these companies do that made people flock around these sites? Is the opportunity to express oneself without editorial controls – ‘citizen journalism’ – the reason? Or, is it the ability to showcase one’s talents – exhibitionism – an adequate reason that explains the popularity of these sites. Is there some common denominator amongst the top sites that satisfactorily explains the meteoric growth of social media?
To examine these issues one has to understand how traffic gets generated on the Internet.
Generating Web Traffic
Web visitors arrive at a webpage (thus generating Web traffic) in one of three primary ways:
- Typing the webpage address directly onto a Web browser. This results in “Direct Traffic.” Generation of a lot of direct traffic is contingent upon a lot of people knowing about the webpage and remembering its address correctly. Further, the webpage may be required to satisfy an existing need that compels the “surfing public” to return to the page repeatedly. Information about the webpage address and its contents has to be disseminated widely amongst Internet users either through promotion (by traditional means or otherwise) or through viral means (word-of-mouth, e-mail, etc.).
- Clicking the hyperlink (to the webpage) provided on another webpage the Internet user has visited. Such traffic is termed “Referring Sites Traffic.” If the content on the webpage is useful, it is possible that Internet users may refer and even hyperlink the webpage (called ‘inward link’) in their own Web content. Thus, visitors looking up other Web content may follow links provided and arrive at the webpage. Such inward links also bump up the importance of the webpage (i.e., its “Page Rank”) and lead to higher rank in the listing of results for relevant searches.
- Clicking the result (i.e., the hyperlink corresponding to the webpage) of a search on a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. This traffic is called “Search Engine Traffic.” As explained earlier, the more inward links to the webpage, the higher our webpage will rank in search results. And the higher a webpage ranks in search results, the more likely the user is to click the link and arrive at the page.
Now, the above explanation holds good for a website, which has multiple pages. So, the traffic of the website is the sum of the traffic generated by each of its individual web pages.
Generating Traffic for Social Media
Social media sites are typically content-intensive sites. Apart from lacking “stickiness”, social media sites with very little content are unlikely to generate any appreciable amount of traffic (particularly, referring site and search engine traffic). Besides, most users of these sites initially will be just content consumers (and NOT content contributors).
Further, old media has often provided the seed material (often copyright-protected print and multimedia content) for social media site owners during the initial stages. This has often provided the impetus for Internet surfers to flock these sites. Consequently, it is customary for social media site owners to seed their sites with content (relevant to the site’s theme / concept) initially. Seeding content has proven to be the best bet for attracting initial traffic.
Once the social media site gets seeded, its traffic's is likely to increase over a period of time, particularly if the site is actively promoted. Promotion typically means getting inward links into various pages of the site and attracting users through conventional advertising. Aggressively promoted sites thus get more eyeballs, which makes the sites attractive for online advertising. The social media site owners then capitalize on the opportunity to sell or earmark space on web pages for advertising.
However, it is simply not economically viable for social media sites to sustain traffic growth by seeding content on their sites. Eventually, they must rely on user-contributed content for traffic growth. But, what is the motivation for the vast majority of content consumers to go that extra mile for taking the time and effort to create and contribute content on social media sites? In the answer to that question lies the secret of the success of many social media sites.
Opportunity for Generating Traffic from Social Media Sites
The Internet as we all know is being used for a wide range of business-related activities (including, but not restricted to, online advertising). Clearly, a for-profit website needs to enhance its traffic – the more traffic a site generates, more the potential for revenue generation. Thus, owners of business-oriented websites will devote substantial effort to get eyeballs to their sites.
Individuals seeking to promote themselves (e.g., a speech or presentation; an amateur music composition) have also tended to use social media extensively. Often self-promoters (typically website owners) use “old media” content and copyrighted material to promote themselves (e.g., using a MTV video clip with their website address captioned on it). For owners of for-profit websites, social media offers a no- or low-cost means for site promotion. The absence of editorial control provides an opportunity for creating inward links into their web pages and for generating eyeballs.
Clearly, vested interests drive both ‘self- & site-promoters’ to use social media. Looked at differently, social media sites have proved to be a breeding ground for a new-genre of “spamming”. And, being non-disruptive, it also has a certain degree of legitimacy (without the ill-will) that conventional (e-mail) spamming never did.
Therefore, it is little wonder that much of the content on social media sites is promotional in nature!
