According to a recent study, social media giant Facebook is outperforming all of its rivals when it comes to directing traffic to other websites.
In quarter three of 2014, it was reported that the site had referred traffic around four times more than its closest rival, the photo-focussed Pinterest. In June alone, Facebook accounted for about a quarter of all social referrals on the web.
The news, which would be of interest to internet marketing specialists, comes from Shareaholic’s Social Media Traffic Report for this year’s third quarter. Looking at eight of the major social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Reddit and Google+, it was found that Facebook easily came out on top of the pack.
Surprisingly, Twitter only came in at third place, with Facebook directing 20 times as many referrals. Compared to Pinterest, Twitter only refers around one fifth of traffic.
Last on the list was LinkedIn, with Facebook witnessing around 1,000 times as many referrals as its business-focussed rival. However, the platform did receive a greater share of traffic than it did in Q2. The only other site to see an increase was Google+.
When it comes to online marketing techniques, such as the creation of tailored news feeds, it could help companies to focus any promotional efforts on the platforms that perform the best. This could help their content to engage with as many social media users as possible, encouraging likes, favourites, replies and comments, and garnering retweets and shares.
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