What is the most effective way for marketers to spread their message online? Facebook? Twitter? Company blogs? Email?
According to a new report by marketing firm SocialTwist, Internet sharing trends have shifted heavily shifted toward social networking, but other platforms still have a strong presence for word-of-mouth advertising. SocialTwist analyzed more than a million referral messages sent using the company's Tell-a-Friend tool, a widget that lets users share sites through social media.
In the last year, social networking sites saw a 10% increase in usage, and a 16% bump in click-throughs. Overall though, email still accounts for 55% of referrals.
However, when it comes to click-throughs, social networking sites are far more effective, accounting for more than 60% of the market share.
Among social networking sites, Facebook is by far the most preferred service for sharing, making up more than 78% of usage. Yet other sites are gaining: Twitter maintains 5% of referrals, and MySpace, surprisingly, comes in at second with 14.5% share
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Yet Twitter has become the most effective tool for click-throughs. Twitter yielded a whopping average of 19.04 clicks, whereas Facebook only produced 2.87 clicks.
This is great news for Twitter, which has hinged its business on Promoted Tweets and Trends, tweet-size ads that companies purchase for $100,000 a day. With such a high click-through rate, it's no wonder new Twitter CEO Dick Costolo boasted yesterday that the company has "cracked the code on a new form of advertising, and we feel like we’ve got a hit on our hands.”
