New Stats Show Facebook Still a HUGE Website Traffic Generator

I hear a lot of cries from marketers these days that Facebook is dead.

Page managers are frustrated that their reach has dropped & they have to buy Facebook ads to connect with their fans. I get that.

But don't forget that Facebook is STILL the world's largest social network!

With more than a billion users, it's still a HUGE website traffic generator -- no other social media website even comes close.

So if you give up on Facebook, you'll miss out on a huge amount of potential web traffic & customers.

Just consider the stats. In June, Facebook accounted for more than 23% of all social media referrals, according to Shareaholic.

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And Facebook is the only social media website that saw referrals increase in the 2nd quarter of 2014.

Stunning!

New Stats Show Facebook Still a HUGE Website Traffic Generator

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The numbers can't be ignored.

I'm told day in & day out that Pinterest is the best place to get traffic -- yet these stats say otherwise. And the numbers are based on activity from 200K websites & more than 250 million unique visits.

In other words, the info is rock solid.

This 12-month snapshot dates back to June 2013:

Though traffic referrals were flat or decreased on 7 major social platforms -- referrals from Facebook continued to climb.

But why?

What Separates Facebook From Other Social Sites

One thing Facebook does better than all its competitors might be what you hate the most about the social media behemoth: the news feed algorithm.

As people complain that the algorithm has caused reach on their cat memes to plummet, Facebook has quietly built a website traffic generator unlike any other.

Take a look at recent referral traffic to the Post Planner website:

Facebook accounted for more than 71% of all referral traffic!

Wow! So much for Facebook being dead, right?

FYI: this was just referral traffic, not overall traffic from organic searches -- a category dominated by Google:

Overall, Facebook accounted for more than 15% of our traffic from June 22 to July 22.

And in the past 12 months, Facebook generated almost 66% of all referral traffic to our site.

Thanks to Facebook's news feed algorithm, users see better content from credible people & pages.

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And clicks to websites are increasing even more now that link posts have a full-width image preview.

Time to embrace the news feed algorithm.

What it Means For Your Business

These numbers tell me that if my business has a website where I sell goods or services, I should post links to the site on Facebook as often as possible.

Don't worry if the posts get no Likes, comments or shares -- that's OK. Your goal with a link post is to drive traffic to your website, not get engagement from fans. If you get engagement, great -- but that shouldn't be your top priority when posting a link.

Keep posting links & don't get discouraged if nobody clicks Like!

Dive into your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from & you might be pleasantly surprised.

How Our Sharebar Can Help

Did you notice #6 on Post Planner's list of traffic referral sources? It's facebook.mysharebar.com.

This is the URL for my customized Sharebar I have working on my Post Planner app -- and it accounted for 1,888 visits -- 3.2% of all referral traffic!

The Sharebar is a feature built right in to Post Planner. Basically, our app lets you put a branded toolbar & link at the top of any webpage you share on Facebook.

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The sharebar shown below is my personal sharebar that I use on link posts from the Post Planner blog.

I have almost 50 blog posts scheduled to re-queue over & over on my Facebook profile -- and the sharebar is part of every one of them.

Click HERE to see my sharebar in action.

Summary: Get Your Sharebar On

Knowing that Facebook drives huge amounts of web traffic, I use my sharebar to brand almost every link I post.

Why? Because I can share a link from another site & brand the article or image my way.

The ad on the left points to any URL I want -- maybe an affiliate link or landing page. Next to that is an easy way for people to follow me on Twitter & Like my Facebook page.

At the far right there's a link to my website with a description. And soon I'll be able to add a way for folks to join my email list -- yes, I use my sharebar for lead gen.

I'm surprised by how much referral traffic the sharebar generates. I knew people clicked the links, I just didn't know how often.

I'll definitely continue to post articles from the Post Planner blog using the sharebar. Remember, Facebook is tops for referral traffic! :)