I check my Twitter notifications way more than I should. Recently, I checked Twitter and didn’t see any new notifications. I did some other work and came back just a few minutes later and was shocked at what I saw.
25 new notifications on Twitter. That meant in just a few minutes, literally dozens of new notifications had come in. I got excited, hoping this meant that someone had shared one of my posts, and then their followers had shared it, and then an avalanche of traffic would fall on my blog. It would be glorious!
Sure enough, an ‘influencer’ had RTed one of my posts, and almost immediately, their followers started RTing the first RT, and within 10 mins, I had already gotten 25 people either RTing my post, or Liking it.
Excited, I rushed to my Google Analytics dashboard to check my traffic to see how many clicks this flood of RTs was sending to my blog and I was stunned at the number.
Zero.
Over 20 RTs within a 10 minute period had sent a grand total of zero people to my blog. Something is definitely wrong. We were all sold on the idea that sharing is caring. That we want to see our content shared, because when its shared, that translates into more traffic. And when you read a blog and see a post with a high share count, that means more people are reading it.
But is this really the case?
@jeffjarvis @shafqatislam @zseward @felixsalmon We’ve found effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading
— Tony Haile (@arctictony) February 2, 2014
Research into the impact social sharing has on blog traffic has come up with a startling conclusion: There’s little to no relationship between social shares and a change in blog traffic:
A widespread assumption is that the more content is liked or shared, the more engaging it must be, the more willing people are to devote their attention to it. However, the data doesn’t back that up. We looked at 10,000 socially-shared articles and found that there is no relationship whatsoever between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention an average reader will give that content.
So if we accept that the relationship between social sharing and traffic is weak at best, what true value do those social sharing numbers really have? Are they a true signal to readers that a piece of content is more popular (and thus more worthy of your attention), or is this another case of social media numbers being worthless? Further, if we believe that social sharing numbers aren’t credible, what external factors can we use to judge if others find a piece of content valuable? Comments seem like a likely starting point, but with more and more blogs turning off comments, that is increasingly being taken off the board.
What if you had no external signals to tell you if a piece of content was viewed by a larger community as being valuable? How would you know, would you have to (gasp!) actually read it? Perish the thought!
The more I do this, the more I’m convinced the only true criteria of content popularity and quality/value is time people spend on it. Which is contradictory to the notion of people absorbing digital “snippets” or sound bites only. However it’s consistent with the trend towards longer post lengths being more successful (1500 words or so).
Time is the ultimate currency.
Yes and I believe longer posts is a byproduct of the move toward increasing time spent on site. Which makes sense, but also shows that all numbers can be gamed. What’s measured gets managed.
The act of engagement with a post is an emotional act. “I will share this article without reading it, because it comes from a trusted influencer. I will share this post, because it makes me look smart and makes me look like I know my stuff.” It’s really not all that different than any other social experience. For many, it is all about appearances. The act of going deeper, clicking on the link and reading the article is a choice to learn more. It’s like asking a question. “I will read this article (ask this question), because I will learn something more that will help me be better in some way.” So wouldn’t that make shares of an article a qualitative measurement and visits to a blog a quantitative measurement? Both are valuable, but one act will result in a deeper relationship.
I dunno – in either case, these are very hard to measure data points. Plus you have all the “dark social” sharing going on (emailing links etc) so either metric is very hard to measure typically unless you do time on page or viewing time (video). And that’s for non-technical content because with tech content it’s the opposite (the longer you spend, means the more complicated it gets where concision matters for support cases for instance).
Hi Katie! I will admit that I often share links without reading them, if it’s from a person or friend I trust. I think the problem comes into play if we all do this. Because then we as content creators are making decisions on the type of content we will create based partly on social shares, with the assumption being that this content was shared because people read it and found value in it. The reality might be that they read the headline, then shared the link without reading the post.
It’s a tricky line to walk.
Very!
YES! I cheer every single time someone writes about this topic. The level of “curation” out there is getting out of control. Entire Twitter streams are now *nothing* but collections of links. I guarantee that the vast majority of them are never, ever read by those posting them. There’s no way they could be. No work would ever get done – everyone would just be reading blog posts.
The fact that you can get an email from Buffer that tells you that your queue is empty while simultaneously supplying you with a list of links that you can add to your queue *without even reading them* tells you just how screwed up this whole practice is getting. It destroys credibility, it destroys true engagement, and it’s destroying the things that really made Twitter special.
Hi Eric, Twitter has definitely morphed from a conversation to a broadcast channel over the years, and I hate it. And good point about the Buffer emails, Hootsuite does something similar. Don’t read, just share!
Did too read it. 😉
That’s why you’re on my Favorites list, Kerry 🙂
XOXO
We, as a society, seem to have become so consumed by numbers. As a result, I coined a new word – Staturation™ – and wrote a blog post along these lines: http://www.thecoachkexperience.com/stop-the-staturation/
We also seem to be obsessed with using social media to promote ourselves to strangers rather than using it to build relationships. 🙂
I am fascinated,overwhelmed & excited!
Great post, Mack. I love this question: “What if you had no external signals to tell you if a piece of content was viewed by a larger community as being valuable? How would you know, would you have to (gasp!) actually read it?”
The only way I consider a post read and of value is through commenting; either a word of thought in response to where they read the article (Tw, FB, G+…) or a comment where it was posted (Medium, LI, blog..).
There is so much content though, do people have time to comment? Is content unique enough to comment on? What are the goals of people sharing — do they even care about reading? That might be your goal (hits back to the website), convert down a funnel, make a purchase? Our goals may not be aligned with the content producer’s goals.
Influencers sharing bring eyeballs and more shares but that really only does something for you, the content site owner if the end action is aligned with what the content creator is looking for.
I agree, shares are not equal to traffic. We need to take them for what they are, just a share, until someone signals us on our site that something more is happening.
Here is something I just thought about, related but then again not:
When I read your post — I read the entire post in email. There was no incentive for me to go onsite to read it. In fact, I wanted to comment and that is why I clicked through. Otherwise, I would have just read it in the mail.
A sneak-peak with a read more button always pushes me onsite and from there I usually always share once I am on site.
For the record, I believe I have read just about every post from you for the past 5 years 🙂
Thank you Kelly 🙂 I think you are right, as content creation skyrockets, it seems commenting and engaging on and around content is falling at the same time. When there was less content we had time to more critically examine and think about each piece of content and were more likely to comment. Today, it’s too easy to quickly find something else to share and move on before commenting.
Glad you didn’t here, thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
In alignment with that same idea, Mack, it’s also harder and harder to get anyone to subscribe and comment. They might retweet or share and move on, but that piece of content is viewed as a stand-alone item of momentary value, instead of something bigger. Loyalty to individual bloggers and authors dwindles as meaningless curation grows.
I think it has a lot to do with how completely overwhelmed we ALL are, and how that impacts our ability to act mindfully and with purpose. Forethought and deliberation is getting lost far too often. We’re too reactive, and it’s only getting worse.
Hi Carrie, that seems to be in line with the idea that it’s not longer about great blogs but great blog posts. A lot of the interaction and discussion around and about content isn’t happening at the source, it’s not on the blog, it’s on social channels, often where someone is commenting on the idea without ever having read the content being discussed.
It’s a bit like the toothpaste being out of the tube, at this point.
Oh my gosh you guys hit that right on point. I missed blog chat last night, heading there today to read the golden nuggets. But yes! I too see shares, but didn’t see the analytics that would support a share equating to a visit. Just like I’ve seen a visit not equate to a share or comment.
It’s so hard to fully put together analytics of what works and what doesn’t because sometimes what happened this week may not happen next week.
It’s such a roller coaster.
Hi Marilyn, hope you can make the next #Blogchat! It’s sooooo easy to inflate the sharing numbers, either organically, or via bots, etc. I think 5 years ago, sharing drove traffic. Today, not so much.
I read it AND I shared it!
And you have fabulous hair!
Hey Mack,
You made me read this post just by your Headline, nice.
Yes most of the times people do share but they don’t read.
Thank you Karan, I share without reading sometimes too!
The phenomenon you mention is primarily true for Twitter. I see less of the share but not read on LinkedIn. I follow my buffer stats and I will see on LinkedIn 3-4 shares or likes and 0 clicks but not as often as Twitter. I have so little activity on FB I cannot comment.
I have read the post but have not shared it yet. 8^)
sometime that’s look so important, but i just read for no share 😀
Hi Mack,
I think that you’re onto something. Social shares and views can often end up being a bit of a vanity metric, if they don’t result in website traffic or lead conversion.
I guess that there’s two ways forward. One, we have to check what factors are common to high-share posts, and two, we need to make sure that the content we write that has those high-share characteristics also has enough value presented through the headline and copy to encourage readers to convert to leads.
Correlation doesn’t mean that that’s what causes high-share posts, but I recently wrote an article on what makes a post shareable, if you wanted to check it. In it, I touched base on how we can provide the kind of value that makes people click through to read the link too.
http://www.more-business-online.com.au/blog/these-3-factors-correlate-with-high-share-blog-posts
Hope you’re having a good day.
Regards,
Brooke
think the problem comes into play if we all do this. Because then we as content creators are making decisions on the type of content we will create based partly on social shares, with the assumption being that this content was shared because people read it and found value in it. The reality might be that they read the headline, then shared the link without reading the post.
Great points
Personally I won’t share each and every post I read and
I won’t read each and every post I share …for 2 main reasons
1. Time- There are some post need lot of time read long posts so I do share them so i can easily read them later time ?
2. Trust- most of my shares (almost 85%) are from trusted resources, people I know and follow
Sometime I do share for some kind of show-off all though I am not much interested to read that
Read the whole post and love to share it 🙂
Thank you Mamie 🙂
I find your blog interesting. Actually I came to read your post ‘How to write your first blog’, didn’t find any option to comment there, so thought to put it here. Hope you don’t mind! 🙂
I wrote my first post in extempore, but after reading that post, I added what I will be writing on my post, what a reader can do if they find something or not of their interest on my blog. Thanks Mack. Merry Christmas! 🙂
Thanks Deepak, Merry Christmas!
Hey,
Thinking for the perfect title is always been a difficult work for me but after going through your this article, i must say sharing probability will be 100%. I really loved it ! Yes ! I have shared it too 😀
Thank you Elle for doing both 🙂
Read it ;). Fantastic headline, Mack, and excellent points, all.
Thanks and Happy New Year!