4 Things You Already Knew About the State of Social Media Marketing

You don't need to be a brain surgeon to know what social media platforms are out performing others.

I don't know about you, but I am always seeing news and updates about social media, especially Facebook and Twitters IPO being plastered all over the media.

You clearly know which ones are flourishing and which ones are falling, right?

Well in the event that you have been living under a rock for the past year, here is a little insight into which social media marketing platforms are generating more traffic than others.

Shareaholic recently came out with a study that tracked 8 major social media platforms. The study showed the percentage of traffic the social media sites were driving to publishers. The data they collected was over a 13 month period.

Social Media Platforms on the Rise

Facebook continues to rise above the rest of the other social media sites. It has over 1 billion users and continues to grow.

Over the 13 month period, Facebook grew its traffic to publishers about 59%. This platform is flourishing because of the amount of users it has, these people pass advertisements on the site everyday.

With their new ad features, they're making it easier for companies to create ads. As a result, it's helping drive more traffic to publishers because more companies are marketing on the site.

Pinterest actually beat out Facebook in this 13 month span by having a 66% growth of traffic. I'm going to admit that I was extremely shocked by this statistic. I honestly didn't know the platform was doing so well.

The social media site has made some big improvements lately, which is going to continue to catapult them to the top. They recently decided to introduce ads into their site for marketers to use.

Unlike other promoted posts, the platform made the ads look just like regular pins, this gives the ads a less intrusive look, which will hopefully increase the number of users who will click on them. This will help drive even more traffic than they already do.

Twitter continues to increase their traffic finishing in third with a growth of 54%. This makes sense because Twitter is an easy platform for companies to rapidly share information, while also engaging with consumers.

Those Social Media Platforms Falling Short

Reddit, which is a popular user submitted news sharing site, has continued to not generate much traffic to online publishers. They declined 35%, which was the lowest of the 8 platforms studied.

The site doesn't have many places to generate traffic. If a company posts an article it can easily be pushed down the ranking system if viewers don't like it. This is different than the promotion based advertisements of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Also, many people are looking for their news through social sites like Twitter instead of going to Reddit.

Another site that has declined in growth is StumpleUpon. The site has lost 27% of the traffic it was generating to publishers.

The social platform revolves around randomly bringing users to websites that the site feels they will like. If a user does not stay on StumbleUpon long enough they won't get exposure to all the publishers.

On a platform like Twitter or Facebook I will pass 3 or 4 ads/links in a matter of seconds.

The Middle of the Pack

YouTube grew 52%, which is not far away from Twitter. Companies can take advantage of YouTube by continuing to create funny and educational videos that engage their viewers.

Another way that they can continue to generate traffic is by the company sharing the video on other social media platforms.

LinkedIn also had an above average increase in growth of 34%. LinkedIn's success comes from the professional feel that it gives off. Users like the formal feel of the platform, which you don't get from the other ones.

LinkedIn is a great place for B2B marketing, which will continue to increase their traffic to publishers.

Who to Wait On

Google+ is in a category of its own because of its increase of 7%.

A lot of people use Google+, but the site just doesn't generate a large amount of traffic for publishers. I wouldn't be so quick to count it out as worthless for marketing though. They have a lot of room to grow and I wouldn't be surprised if they added in a feature that will help increase their traffic.

You probably already knew which social media platforms where performing better than others, but it is nice to see the numbers to reassure what you already know.

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