A Cre8asite Forums thread discusses the "problems with social media traffic." The thread creator lists three problems with the traffic.
Suggested Problems with Social Traffic:
- Click Through Rate May Drop: If you increase your traffic and the traffic referrer base is not that targeted towards your content and offering, then your CTR will drop on your ads.
- Surge In CPM Data: If you charge your advertisers on a CPM basis, the advertiser may not want to pay for that surge.
- Poor Quality Links: The types of links gathered from a Digg or social linkbait attempt may be poor quality links from blogs and forums.
While I can possibly agree with points one and two, I very much disagree with point three. But let me throw arguments towards each point.
Arguments Towards Suggested Problems:
- Click Through Rate May Drop: Sometimes you cannot control getting on the front page of Digg. You are just a great writer and someone Dugg you. You need to be prepared that your CTR may drop in these cases, these are outliers and the data can easy be extracted.
- Surge In CPM Data: Same as above, if your advertiser is upset with the new exposure and branding, then give them a refund. Extract that data. But I know plenty of advertisers who would like to get their ad in front of thousands of new faces.
- Poor Quality Links: Not only do you get great quality links from blogs and forums, but news agencies have a higher chance of picking up your site and content. The more links to your site, the more chances are that someone important will read your content and find it useful. If they become a long time reader, then you may get some awesome quality links time and time again, from that single Digg. Plus most of those blog links and forum links may be worth more than you expect.
So what is the down side of getting Dugg?
- Server Issues: For some, their site, application and server cannot handle the mass number of visitors at one shot. For others, they can.
- Negative Comments: Some Digg users can be harsh, very harsh. The first big Digg I received was almost two years ago when I announced First Ever Wedding Proposal via Search Engine. I had to watch the comments on my blog post throughout the day, to remove some of the very negative and hurtful comments from some of the Digg users. I did not want my wife to read them. Some of those comments are still available at the original Digg, I personally buried them back then, but it can be hurtful to some who don't fully understand the Digg user.
It is not all negative, check out my post on the power of Digg.
I am sure there are other negative aspects of getting social media traffic. Would love to see more at the forum thread.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
