Digital 2022: Social Media Referrals
With so many companies now using social media for marketing, it’s worth exploring the role that social media referrals play in driving traffic to third-party websites, as well as which platforms drive the greatest share of social media referrals.
Just before we begin, please note that this article focuses specifically on referrals; if you’re looking for more general insights into social media’s role in the marketing mix, be sure to check out our complete Digital 2022 Global Overview Report too.
Context
Overall, data from Semrush shows that social media actually plays a relatively small role in driving traffic to websites.
For example, with the exception of bit.ly – which is mostly used as a “redirect”, rather than being a destination in its own right – Semrush reports that none of the top 20 websites receives more than 5 percent of its total traffic via social media referrals.
However, these particular findings may in part be skewed by the fact that the top 20 websites are common, and typically “planned” destinations, which may mean that the majority of visitors type the respective domains directly into their browsers, rather than relying on hyperlinks.
But even if we look at websites that may be more reliant on social media to drive traffic, the figures remain low.
Social media referrals to news websites
For example, social media referrals still don’t account for a significant share of traffic for news websites.
This is particularly surprising when we consider that more than one-third of respondents to GWI’s global survey (35.1 percent) say that “reading news stories” is one of the primary reasons why they visit social media platforms.
There may be a few reasons for this:
Many people may prefer to go directly to a news website or app to get their news, resulting in “direct” traffic accounting for the majority of website visits, even if social traffic is an important source of new visitors.
Many social media platforms now open web pages directly within their own apps, which may impact how easy it is to measure traffic.
Significant numbers of people who go to social media to ‘read’ news may never make it past the headline (research by Columbia University puts that figure at roughly 3 in 5)
Social media referrals to brand websites
However, even consumer brands that actively invest in social media marketing may not see a significant share of overall traffic from their own social media activities, or from organic shares.
Kepios analysis of traffic to the dot-com domains of some of the top brands in the sports apparel category reveals that these sites typically only gain about 1 to 2 percent of their total website traffic via links in social media.
Even the ‘most social’ of brands in this category only attracts around 5 percent of its total traffic from social media activities – and that includes organic sharing by users.
However, despite the low share of overall traffic, those social media referrals still drive roughly 1 million website visits per month for the brand in question.
So, while figures for social media referrals’ share of overall web traffic may not make any headlines, it’s clear that social media referrals are still a vitally important source of traffic for marketers.
It’s also worth noting that GWI reports more than a quarter of working-age internet users visit social media platforms for the specific purpose of finding products and services to buy, while social media ads remain one of the top sources of new brand discovery for the world’s internet users [note: you’ll find full details on these findings in our complete Digital 2022 Global Overview Report].
Top social platforms for driving website traffic
But returning to a more general view, which specific platforms drive the greatest share of social media referrals?
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the sheer size of its audience, Facebook is still top dog when it comes to referring traffic to third-party domains.
Things obviously vary meaningfully across geographies and between different kinds of website, so it’s worth digging into this data in more detail before building specific plans for your own brand.
However, figures from Statcounter reveal that – outside of China – Facebook drives roughly three-quarters (74 percent) of global social media website referrals.
What’s more, the platform’s share of social media referrals has increased by almost 8 percent (+541 basis points) over the past 12 months.
Interestingly, Statcounter reports that Twitter and Pinterest come next in the rankings, with both platforms responsible for roughly 7.7 percent of total social media referrals.
However, both of these platforms have seen significant drops in their respective share of referrals over the past year.
Meanwhile, despite its limited linking functionality, Instagram comes in fourth in Statcounter’s current ranking, accounting for 4.5 percent of total social referrals.
It’s also worth highlighting that Instagram’s share of social media referrals has more than doubled over the past 12 months, albeit from a relatively modest base.
But perhaps the biggest surprise in this data is that YouTube only ranks fifth, driving less than 4 percent of all social media referrals to third-party websites.
Beyond offering insights into the behaviours of each platform’s users, these findings may also help marketers to identify the role that each channel might play in a broader social media mix.
For example, Facebook ads might be an obvious choice for driving traffic to your website, while YouTube ads might be better suited to raising brand awareness.
If you’d like help making sense of social media referrals in your category, get in touch with our consulting team.
Click here to see all of Simon’s articles, read his bio, and connect with him on social media.