I’d never been the recipient of a major web-traffic surge until a few months ago, and I’ve been meaning to write about how it went down.
First off, my little blog here is silly. Collegewebguy.com is never going to be something I attempt to “monetize” or put text ads on. The returns I expect from this blog are limited to the arena of professional development. I’m pleased and flattered when people react, comment, or share. And I’m humbled that a handful of people actually subscribe to the feed. So any kind of strange surge in traffic was out of place. Strange in fact.
Back in April, I posted a few dozen screenshots of espn’s “E-ticket” web features and wrote incoherently about how they’ve done a great job of introducing feature-styled magazine writing to the web. Basically the point I was making was that many designers get discouraged before they realize full possibilities of this medium.
Over a span of two or three days, the post got deluged with comments. (Yes, 14 comments is a deluge, by collegewebguy standards. shut up.)
Curious about traffic, I checked google analytics and there it was. 18,519 pageviews on that post over the course of 16 days. It looked like an earthquake readout on a seismograph. Web surfers love design eye-candy. (ie smashing magazine) I’d predict at least 15,000 of those visitors didn’t read any of the post and just scrolled through the lovely screenshots, as many of the commenters assumed I was the designer.
But, I was immediately curious about where the traffic originated. Did a popular blog link to my post? Was it referenced in some kind of popular messageboard thread?
Of course with google analytics, the answer was a click away:
A little more investigation revealed who initially tagged my post on stumbleupon. And now we’ve come full circle, with Mr EduGuru himself, Kyle James.
So Kyle James tags my post and kicks off an avalanche of attention for my little website. I’d like to hypothesize that Kyle is some kind of heavy hitter, a trendsetter, a StumbleUpon VIP. He tags something and has thousands of followers who in turn, also tag it, visit it, promote it, etc.
But this hypothesis isn’t completely true. Maybe one of Kyle’s followers on StumbleUpon is the big hitter. Or a follower of a follower. In any case, social media makes it easier for people who hold a particular shared interest to unite, and share. It’s really empowering to think that something I posted appealed to a particular subset of people(web design internet nerds), and they told each other about it.
In conclusion / Lessons Learned
1. StumbleUpon can pick your site up and take it for a ride. The same can certainly be said for Digg, Delicious, and others. These forms of social media can bring a huge boost in traffic, if, you post something deemed interesting and if, the right person picks it up and shares it.
2. Apparently the formula for increased internet traffic is to send a link to Kyle James, or hope he reads your blog and “discovers” you.
3. A question. Let’s say a public university with a regional outlook is mainly focused on communicating with prospective students within a 200 mile radius. What good does a major spike in web traffic through social media accomplish, if the visitors are coming from all over the world? In traditional terms, isn’t that similar to getting a press release on an international wire, when perhaps all you want is local media attention?
I would assume that social media which localizes attention to specific geographic areas is what most universities need, or can directly benefit from. ..Just something I’ve been thinking about. If you have any thoughts. Please share.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
The same thing happened to my site a few months ago - a huge spike from StumbeUpon and as quick as it came it was gone. Here’s a quick post about it: http://highedwebtech.com/2008/05/29/ive-been-stumbled/
You’ll see that there’s some disagreement in the comments about if SU traffic is valuable or not, though Kyle did add this, which I think is valuable:
“IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW GOOD YOUR SITE IS IF NOBODY IS VISITING IT!”
For a university, especially if you are doing something cool or interesting, it can be some worthy press and name recognition.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Hey, Kyle! How much do I have to pay you to tag one of my posts?
November 11th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Drew so you knew this was coming…
What are you doing looking at analytics!? Either I’ve converted you or you are a closet analytics guy afraid to accept your geeky passion. Maybe even through small nudges I was able to excite you into caring about them?
I did write a post way back about Higher Ed Marketing on StumbleUpon. The one thing I would add to that post is that StumbleUpon people are very fickle… their traffic just doesn’t stick as you have noticed. You got a huge spike, but how did your RSS subscription count grow? Also certain things work well on StumbleUpon where others don’t. That specific post did work on StumbleUpon because it was the kind of braindead fun to look at with a little fun that seems to work on that network.
As far as a power VIP StumbleUpon user… well I’ve done a little networking on that network and Digg and have a little over 100 “friends” on each. I say friends in that way because I really don’t know any of those people and they don’t really know me, we just kind of toss stuff around.
I’ve kind of slowed down my social media consumption lately as I just have way to much stuff to do lately, but still I’m going to stumble this one for you. Case Study traffic I hope your ready… But then another thing about StumbleUpon is the first page that you stumble on a site gets the biggest push.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Well, considering that I just stumbled this page, it seems you’re going to get some more traffic!!
November 12th, 2008 at 4:01 am
Wow, interesting, Drew.
Your 3rd point (what good does it accomplish?) is right on target.
I think that some of ideas about traffic are still focused only on the advertising-supported web publishing world.
When I worked for About.com a century ago (almost literally), the name of the game in the editorial department was page view because About was selling CPM-based ads.
Today, what has become important is attracting as many visitors possible through search engine traffic, especially people who are going to bounceback like crazy — because your content isn’t what they are looking for — to make some real money with PPC ads. If they found what they are looking for why on earth would they click on your ads?
Exposure is always good as you might get a few of your prospects in that huge pool (or maybe some journos and end up on CNN). However, if resources are tighter (and it seems to be where we’re heading), I don’t think the wide-net approach is the best one.
The Web can do so much more with a targeted approach.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:36 am
This is cool. Good job Kyle. I had a similar experience with my twitter account this week. An unsual number of people have decided to follow me. (Side note I have 62 followers compared to the 50 people I follow). I later found out that my twitter account was posted on a blog by Karlyn Morissette who was posting a follow up to the Stamats Conference I was attending.
http://karlynmorissette.karlyn.me/2008/11/reflections-on-stamats/
November 12th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Point three - Name recognition and creditability at the national.international level can become a plus for marketing at the local. As a community college we are constantly trying to enhance creditability as we compete with the many local four-year and “private” institutions.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Kyle thats spot on about Stumbleupon users/traffic. They’re very fickle. It isn’t really the kind of audience I’d want to shoot for if I was looking for anything more than click/ad revenue. BTW, why don’t you post more about analytics? It’s such an interesting topic.
Karine those are some great points about targeted vs wide net approach.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Great post.
To answer #3, I’d say that it accomplishes a great task. Any kind of exposure to audiences who otherwise would’ve NEVER found you is an opportunity to show the world what you’re made of, especially if you’re a place that’s built a site that’s user-friendly, informative and designed well.
I don’t know if it can result in a spike in say, the bottom line of increasing applications, but I think that it could have an effect on other things that could be good.