Sharing: 10% of All Internet Traffic, Facebook Leading the Way
A report from ShareThis, Rubinson Partners Inc. and Starcom MediaVest Group reveals that sharing is a huge part of the Internet, with Facebook leading the way.
The report, titled “Sharing: More Than Just Fans, Friends and Followers,” found that sharing generates more than 10 percent of all Internet traffic, or nearly half the volume of search. Facebook leads the way with 38 percent of clicked links, followed by other channels (bookmarking, blogs, etc.) with 34 percent, email with 17 percent and Twitter with 17 percent.
Sharing is also 31 percent of site referral traffic, according to the study.
The methods of sharing depends on the type of content. For example, 65 percent of shared arts and entertainment content is broadcast via Facebook, while 64 percent of shared music content is spread through Facebook.
Interestingly enough, the study found that the more informative the content, the more likely people are to use email and LinkedIn. For example, 34 percent of shared business and investment content happened through email, while 40 percent happened on Facebook. For shared health and science content, 31 percent is shared through email while 54 percent is shared through Facebook.
“Reach is driven by the first share,” notes the report. Shared content on Twitter gets an average of 4.8 clicks, while shared content on Facebook gets 4.3 clicks and shared content via email gets 1.7 clicks. Shared content through other channels gets an average of 5.3 clicks. The overall average is 4.8 clicks.
The report also examines the question of whether or not “influentials” really exist. “Sharers tend to share information about specific topics that interest them, rather than having influence across a wide range of categories,” according to the report. “Therefore marketers should not focus on a small number of influential people, but should reach as many people as possible to maximize chances of further propagation.”
More than 80 percent of people share just one category in a month, according to the report.
When people share, it’s an “of the moment” look into their specific desires, according to the report. Marketers should build around these moments of relevance to reach only the consumers who are most receptive to their messages.
Building scale requires an understanding of “content super-clusters,” the name given to the idea that certain topic categories go together in a way that if one is shared, the other is more likely to be shared. For instance, religion, government and law form a super-cluster, while arts, entertainment, music, video games, shop electronics and technology form another.
Source:
http://www.slideshare.net/ShareThisStudy/what-weknowaboutsharing-8217211
