“Facebook increased our traffic by 20%, bringing 4,000 extra visits in!” A case study of Drifted.com
A good friend of mine, Alex Quail, this week offered to show our readers how social media has impacted a blog he co-owns, Drifted.com, driving over 12,000 visitors through Facebook. I’d like to share this case study with you, and hopefully encourage you to consider what a well-implemented social media campaign can do for your business, large or small.
Case study on social media traffic
Although a relatively new website (launched in April 2010), our traffic has grown steadily each month since inception (with a 53% increase in traffic this month alone). Although visitors come from a number of sources, for the majority of Drifted’s existence, the main referrer has been Facebook. The site’s main marketing efforts have been through Social Media channels. Promotion through websites like Facebook are low cost, quick, and easy. Sites such as twitter and wordpress can also be integrated with Facebook, meaning you only need to update one to update them all. [It's also important to understand your market and audience. Alex identified that being an blog about cars, image and video was important as was discussion about the various events and projects that their followers wanted to engage with.]
Acquiring fans/followers with social media can be tricky at first, but as soon as you get those first few, the total number will grow exponentially (providing you supply them with what they want to see – quality content).
The first steps you could take could be to find existing Facebook groups which target a similar audience to your own. Add friends from the group’s fans, and promote your Fan Page on your profile. If they’re interested in your niche, they’ll find your group and hopefully become a fan. Once you have some fans/followers, provide links to your best website content, provide links to other’s website content (not necessarily competitors), and most importantly, interact. Fans won’t stay fans if they feel like you’re trying to sell them something. Building a rapport with your fans can make the difference between a one-time visitor, and a long-term customer. [A key insight into how your relationship with your customers will set you apart and keep them following your activity. Remember that social media in any form is about give and take.]
This is a strategy that has worked well for Drifted.com. Over the past month Facebook has accounted for 20%, of our overall traffic, sending over 4,000 visitors to our website. Although in the grand scheme of things that’s not a huge amount of traffic, for a smaller scale e-commerce website, that’s 4,000 potential conversions. Our facebook fan page allows us to interact with our visitors, which in turn makes the website feel personable, encouraging them to visit and leave feedback. They will often post our links on their own profiles/blogs/twitter pages after seeing our updates in the Facebook fan page. [This of course increases your back link profile, and will enhance both rankings and overall exposure of your brand.]
Social Media is also incredibly important for networking (the original intended purpose of many of social media sites). Although you are most likely to be targeting potential visitors/customers with your site’s fan pages and social media profiles, they’re also useful tools for building a list of contacts that may be able to help you with your site development. This could be something small like a webmaster who wants to partake in a link exchange, all the way up to a potential site sponsor or investor. The possibilities really are endless with social media, and in this day and age, it is one of the most important tools for building an online presence for your website/business. [It's worth noting that since I've known Alex, his blogs have attracted some healthy sponsorship that has created another source of income for him. This is purely through honest content and his engagement with his audience, and goes to show that keeping things simple is often the best way to go about things.]
I’ll leave you with this graph of our top ten traffic referrers. It shows you the amount of traffic Facebook has sent Drifted.com since we started the site in April. Social Media is a powerful tool, use it to your advantage!
I’m fortunate enough to have Alex as a close friend, and I recommend you follow him on Twitter. You will learn first-hand how he remains active, always engaging his readers and contributing his thoughts. Repeating the same strategy with your customers will always result in a win/win situation.
If you’re yet to take advantage of the opportunities that social media can present your business with, get in touch and arrange a free consultation – you’re only missing a trick if you don’t, as Alex has proved in this case study!
