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Call me old fashioned, but I can’t understand the buzz about social networking, I really don't get it, who in their right mind spends their valuable time conversing with a bunch of narcissists, chattering about what’s on TV, funny pictures and bragging about what they’ve done or achieved, it all seems so phoney to me.

My site is reasonably popular, I get a rough 50/50 split of my visitors from referrals and organic and an infinitesimally small amount of traffic from social – Oh yes I hear you say,” that’s because you haven’t fully embraced social networking.”

But here’s the thing, my social traffic doesn’t come from me at all, it comes from followers of my own social network (forums and user of my software liking and sharing my products and content), who have kindly shared on my behalf.

Now when I visit Analytics to study the data from social traffic I find that it gives a huge bounce, 100% from Facebook, 93% from Twitter and 79% from LinkedIn, when my average is just 39%. The same applies to time spend on each page, less than a minute for all of the social sites, when my average in close to 7 minutes.

So ok, social networking for traffic is a complete no go, let’s look at it from the perspective of out reaching. How can I break into that?  I hate TV, I don’t find pictures of cats funny and I’m modest and humble, how can I possibly even begin to converse with these people?

After using Twonk I got followed back by a good amount of users, but had to delete most because of the complete crap they were sharing, do I really want to know that someone ate lasgne for dinner, read about the top ten english railway stations, or what colour lego brick is someones favourite!

Honestly I’m not trying to be funny with this post, and no offence to anyone here, but I just don’t get social networking, I’d love to but it seems a complete waste of my time and effort.

Hi James,

have been considering ssl for a while, maybe time to make the switch, thanks for the share.

Have been struggling with bounce ever since organic overtook referrals, is pretty hard to create product documentation and get people to move to another page, especially as most bookmark the pages and close the page when they've finished reading.

Having blog pages has helped and since including a forum bounch has dropped, but still a little over 40%.

Good luck with the new site launch, hope it goes well for you

What can I say other that WOW, WOW, WOW!!!

Moz Analytics shows an increase of 750% in social traffic in one week.

Way to go Monica, I owe you a coffee, you were spot on

Will do

Awesome answer Monica, I've seen enough, sorry to throw that small spanner in the works, but your evidence seems to suggest otherwise, appreciate the share

If Matts cuts is to be believed (personally I don't trust Google at all) high rankings have more to do with the fact that the content was good and thus was shared at numerous other locations, and the social links where just coincidental and played no part in the rankings.

I'm not denying the benefits of social to you or the other guy that commented earlier, I'm just saying that I haven't seen any benefits, not in rankings or in out reaching from using mainstream forms of social.

Incidentally, I wonder, how do you guage how social signals have improved your rankings?

lol

Isn't this suggesting that the benefits from social are more to do with out reaching than "organic rankings", atleast directly, which takes us right back to my original question, e.g. what's the point if the referrals are mimimal or none.

After reading this article I wonder if more can still be gained from producing good content on our blogs, operating our own social networks (i.e. a forum) or atleast using social to drive people to our forums or blogs, although from my experience, people that use facebook don't like using private networks (as a general rule) - I have facebook and twitter login apps at my forums and they've not been used once.

email is still a major form of social for me, I get more than 50, sometimes close to a hundred personal emails every day, from strangers, clients, potential clients,  members and users. I've made a great many friends, gained some lucrative deals from this means of contact - simple but very effective.

I still plan to start a Facebook group as you suggested, I'll also give it my all, but still I think there are better, more honest and personal ways of communicating with people and developing stronger, valuable and lasting relationships.

Do you have a blog Monica and have you tried anything else other than social? You might be surprised at how this can be of benefit.

I've also found it trememdously beneficial to offer something for free, as you know people love free stuff, which also helps drive traffic to guides and tutorial pages and when they get stuck they join the forum, at which point the social part kicks in, I can display my kindness, politeness and willingness to help no matter what.

From this people realise that I'm trustworthy and every once in a while (so far its been about once a month) I land a business deal. OK its quite some marketing funnel, but it works, not as well as I'd like, hence why I've joined Moz.

Best, Lee

Just though I'd throw this article into the mix!

Will do thank you

I followed and liked your group btw.

If you don't mind when I've set the group up, can you take a look at it for me, sorry to ask, and of course you're welcome to say no, you've helped me enough already

Hey another brit!

A side question, sorry what's your real name, calling you Cocoonfxmedia doesn't seem right or respectful? Are there benefits from running on an ssl? Also noted the geo trust icon?

What is your bounce rate? just wondering what you consider to be high?

lol if I could afford you, I would hire you too

I'm sold, going to setup a facebook group tommorrow.

Monica,

If I thought I was lost at the beginning, now I'm completely flumuxed! Not really ....

The scope for what you're sharing is really very broad isn't it? There's no mention of generators, but you're talking about issues related to generators, definitely going to have to get my thinking cap on.

I also see that a lot of your content is (and I'm not being sexist I promise, just an observation) aimed at ladies, am I to assume females are those that decide to purchase your products, or is it that you're interested in these things?

Do you find Facebook better than Twitter? I was of the understanding Twitter was the better of the two?

Would you care to share the link to the page you manage? Maybe good to see good social in action.

Are you saying then that I don't have to be engaged in social media personally, that its enough to simply allow visitors, customers and members to share my content and news and that each time my site or content pages are liked this contributes to trust? Ah I think I follow what you mean by social signals now.

I think maybe I misunderstood the purpose of social networking, it takes a shift of perception from posting as an individual, to posting as an organisation, will definitely look at posting content relevant to my brand without getting too involved in the small talk from now on

You've been great by the way, thank you for your patience, I'm still a lost when it comes to social media, but now atleast I can see its purpose and value.

best Lee

Hi Monica,

many thanks for responding

Some really great ideas in there, particularly like what you say about sharing industry related articles, though reviews would be a little too boastful for my tastes, I always feel that posting such material is saying something else, like "I'm posting these positive reviews because my products are sub standard" - not so sure that big companies post reviews either.

Also I have lots of likes and shares, but what's the use in it when the is no obvious positive benefit, yes I can see big or medium sized businesses benefiting from social signals (what ever they are) but the small guy, I'm not so sure.

I supply free open source software, maybe sell five $50 items a month to people that have used my free software and see that it is quality, they also know that I provide high quality support at no extra cost, from their experience, I also help people out for free (actually I do that a lot of the time) and get donations because small businesses appreciate genuine, no alternative motive feedback and advice - this isn't me flagrantly spamming btw!

How could I possibly get this message across on a social network?

The problem for me is that the people that frequent such sites, don't appear to be my kind of people, I read a recent research paper (I'm so sorry that I can't recall where now) by a US university (perhaps you recall it?) that most people that frequent Facebook and Twitter, are narcisists, selfish, lack imagination and do not have a university education, while I'm not for single second condemning any of these traits, they are not the type of people I would care to do business with or be associated with (my line of work requires a lot of trust and I only work with people I like because it stimulates my creative juices), is this practical, probably not, is this attitude going to make me rich, definitely not, am I taking too much stock from a universtity paper, I don't think so, as it fits with my personal experiences and what Analytics is telling me (unless I'm reading too much into the high bounce and low page time).

And to reinforce this with a recent example;

1. Read the Moz beginners guide on social media
2. Used the Twonk service, followed 12 Twitter users
3. 5 followed back and 1 messaged me about my services, asking how much I charge
4. I messaged back and gave email
5. User mails me asking the same questions, with details of her project, but points out she has a limited budget.
6. I respond with a price, but also give details of my commercial and free software
7. No response! That was 8 days ago.

Now I was completely honest with this lady, my bespoke creations cost a lot, usually a lot more than individuals can afford (though of course I didn't say this, I just gave her a price). It is also my practice to refer to the free and reduced cost alternatives, because I like to be upfront from the beginning, after all the lady would have visited my site at some stage and found the free software anyway.

So why no response? I was polite, gracious and honest, I also gave her advice on her project and how she could obtain my software for free (given her limited budget) or by purchasing the commercial version of the software.

So now I not only have the Analytics data and a university paper, I also have experience telling me that social is not worth the effort.

Many, many thanks for answering though, you raised some very valid and interesting points that I will look into in greater detail.

Best, Lee