Facebook Drives Almost 25 Percent Of All Social Referral Traffic

Shareaholic provides reports on social media traffic referrals, which gives marketers an indication of how eight different social media platforms are performing in terms of driving traffic to websites. In the latest report by the social management team, it is clear that Facebook is the overwhelming leader in social referral traffic, now driving almost 25 percent of all referral traffic.

Facebook’s total share of visits to Shareaholic’s network was 24.64 percent in December, indicating a slight decrease from October and November when the social media network was at just above 25 percent. However, with a 2.27 percent increase from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, Facebook’s growth is certainly impressive. The company’s total social referral traffic is clearly far ahead of its competitors.

Pinterest’s share came in second place at 5.06 percent, although this number is still almost five times less than Facebook. The next six social platforms (Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube) had a combined total of less than 2 percent.

Considering the fact that Facebook has more than four times as many monthly active users as Twitter, its dominance in this realm is expected. However, the 10 percent quarter-over-quarter growth is still noteworthy, particularly given the significant decreases for most of the other major social networks. StumbleUpon was the only social network other than Facebook to show an increase in the share of referral traffic in the quarter.

In addition to looking at the last quarter of 2014, Shareaholic’s report compares December 2014 to December 2011. In these charts, it’s clear that YouTube experienced the biggest decline in social referral traffic. In the last quarter, YouTube traffic referrals dropped by 65.49 percent, according to the report.

When looking deeper into the past, the report shows that YouTube fell by 93.24 percent between December 2013 and December 2014 and by 94.76 percent between December 2011 and December 2014.

“YouTube was the year’s biggest loser; its share was annihilated, dropping 93.24% (0.18 percentage points),” wrote Shareaholic’s Danny Wong. “It currently clings onto a 0.01% share of overall traffic.”

Wong continued by explaining that although YouTube delivers the most engaged social visitors, it actually drives the fewest.

“Since 2011, YouTube experienced a sharp drop (94.76%, 0.23 percentage points) in share of traffic,” he wrote. “Formerly, it maintained a 0.24% share, which is now a paltry 0.01%. For brands and publishers, video is hard (and expensive) to create, but that’s not stopping anyone. Video is a necessary storytelling medium. The fact is: YouTube is no longer the sole gatekeeper of video views. With auto-play videos, Facebook has cannibalized YouTube’s traffic share. Thankfully, this is more a problem for YouTube than it is for you. To maximize the potential reach of your videos, you can (and should) publish them to Facebook and to YouTube.”

As we’ve been writing about in recent times, marketers are increasingly utilizing Facebook as an essential platform for uploading videos. Many industry experts agree with Wong’s statement that the most effective choice is to use Facebook and YouTube in conjunction with each other to maximize the potential views for videos. Earlier this month, Facebook reported an increase in the number of video posts per person of 75% globally and 94% in the United States.

The growth of Facebook also significantly pushed social media’s share of the total share of traffic up to a record high of 31.34 percent. It appears that social has extended its lead over organic search for sites in Shareaholic’s network. Wong confirmed that social led search in October, November and December.

Shareaholic’s report contains a wealth of information, with data going back as far as 2011. Some of the many interesting findings include:

• Since December 2011, Facebook’s share of referral traffic has grown by a staggering 277.26 percent. The social media company’s user growth during this same period is 60 percent, from 845 million monthly active users to 1.35 billion.
• Although Pinterest is in second place and is well ahead of the others below it, the network has been steadily losing ground since its high point of 7.10 percent last March.
• Twitter’s share continues to decline since its high of 1.15 percent in July 2014, when it was experiencing increased engagement during the World Cup soccer tournament. In August, Twitter fell below 1 percent, and the company fell to an all-time low of 0.82 percent in December.
• Although StumbleUpon is the only platform other than Facebook to show a quarterly gain, it has lost 69.41 percent of its traffic share since December 2011.
• Reddit, currently with a 0.15 percent share, has lost almost half of its share of traffic since 2011.
• Google+ (0.04 percent share) and LinkedIn (0.03 percent share) have each lost a third of its traffic share.