As well as being great for noseying at ex-classmates, Facebook is a phenomenal driver of web traffic – if you know how to play the game. We’ll assume your content is as compelling as possible, but what else can you do?
Social plug-ins are the answer – with stats like the average media site, when integrated with Facebook, increase its referral traffic by 300% – what’s not to Like? (There’s a button for that, you know.)
Success stories are many and impressive. American Eagle added the Like button and found that their Facebook-referred visitors spent an average of 57% more money. Levi’s saw an increase in 40% in referral traffic, and the Huffington Post doubled theirs. It’s where it goes that counts too – Metacafe added an additional Like button at the top of its content as well as the bottom, tripling its daily Likes and also doubling traffic.
It’s all about social recommendations these days. Not sure whether to buy that 11-inch glitter ball? You probably will if your friends have all Liked it. It’s about personalising your Like too – the option to add comments, or view friends’ thumbnails, increase the snowball effect of Likes.
Such a small button – such a big impact.
Don’t forget Google either. It might not be integrated with Facebook, but it still captures a lot of data – and is able to mine it for valuable data at a personalised level. These shows up in Google’s social connection tools, such as Dashboard: direct connections are drawn from a range of sources, including Facebook. A Google profile that is connected to Facebook, seen by someone who has a Facebook connection, could create a Facebook interaction that is facilitated by, and appears on, Google.
That Google uses Facebook data in realtime search means that lots of Facebook shares result in higher ranking on Google News – same as Tweets. Not to mention the strong presence Facebook has in brand searches.
So get going – and get liked.