Does Twitter or Facebook Drive More Traffic to Your Blog?

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments
Categories: Blog, Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, twitter


Have you ever visited a discount book store and looked at books sitting on shelves and trestle tables gathering dust, begging to be read.Does Twitter or Facebook Drive More Traffic to Your Blog?

These are books that languished in a proper book store only to be banished to a clearance outlet.

These lonely unread tomes are the work of writers that have poured their heart, soul and time into their writing, with the hope of it being read and maybe with the faint promise of it becoming a best seller.

Their is nothing more depressing for a blogger than to write an article and publish it and no one turns up to read it.

A book and a blog post needs readers and they require promotion, marketing and sharing.

Social media has provided digital publishers the means to promote and share their content with the world’s 2 billion internet users easily and instantly. Sharing the latest blog post on Facebook or Twitter is one of the quickest and easiest ways for bloggers to attract  readers to  their latest publication.

Should I Share on Twitter or Facebook?

The question often asked is which social media channels are the best for social sharing to drive traffic and page views for your posts.

Hubspot has just collected some data from 5,000 blogs that reveals the importance of Twitter and Facebook and discovered some facts that are maybe not expected for Facebook centric marketers.

Twitter Drives more Views than Facebook

Twitter is certainly revealed in this study as the prime driver of traffic and having a Retweet button on your blog makes it easy for people to share your content on Twitter.

The Numbers:

  • Blog posts shared only on Twitter had 63% more page views than those shared on Facebook only
  • Posts shared on Twitter only, had 117% more traffic than posts with no sharing
  • Posts shared on Twitter and Facebook drove 160% more page views than a non-shared post

Twitter Drives more Views than Facebook

Sharing Increases Your Search Engine Optimization

How Google ranks the importance of a website or blog and how high it will appear in search results is based upon many factors.

One of the most important criteria is the number of other websites linking to your site. The more websites that link to your content and the more credible they are (a link from the New York Times will be more valuable than a link from a small company website)  gives Google a good idea how valuable your content is. This is called an inbound link (an example of this is the link to Hubspot that I have included in this blog post).

This study revealed that combined sharing on Twitter and Facebook increased inbound links by 149% more than a post not shared at all, so  therefore increasing the search engine ranking value to Google and other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.

Sharing Increases Your Search Engine Optimization

Facebook Shares Create more Comments

Bloggers love receiving comments as it indicates that someone cares enough about your content to actually take the time to write a response. Comments are also extremely valuable as it provides valuable feedback for bloggers as to whether their content is resonating with their readers.

Facebook sharing was shown to produce more comments than Twitter. Also posts received 55% more comments when shared on the Twitter and Facebook social platforms compared to no sharing at all.

Facebook Shares create more Comments

What would have been interesting to see would have been the effects on page views with shares on Google+ and LinkedIn. These two social media channels with 50 million and  100 million plus users respectively also have significant impact on traffic.

I am finding that LinkedIn shares can often surpass my Facebook shares.

On my last post  ”6 Fantastic Facebook Marketing Infographics” the shares for my four social network share buttons were

  • Twitter – 702 Retweets
  • LinkedIn – 541 Shares
  • Facebook – 136 Shares
  • Google +1 Button – 19 Clicks

Now this doesn’t reveal the numbers of page views, but more sharing does drive more traffic.

So Twitter and Facebook are not the only channels you should be sharing on and LinkedIn is especially important if you are a B2B blogger.

Takeaways

  • Sharing  is essential to increase views to a blog
  • Multiple sharing to Twitter and Facebook is more effective than a single channel approach
  • Include a LinkedIn Share Button especially if you are a B2B blogger
  • Consider sharing on Google’s social channel Google+ as it now has 50 million users and continues to grow

If you have the time and resources consider sharing on other social media channels such as Digg, Stumbleupon and Reddit.

So what drives the most traffic to your blog? Look forward to hearing your story!

More Reading

Image by Telstar Logistics



  • http://twitter.com/skypulsemedia Howie at Sky Pulse Media

    Facebook was always my personal platform with my friends and family. I never ever mixed business and pleasure that way. 97% of my contacts are not in my industry or care or give a bleep about my blog posts. Twitter is the opposite. 95% are business networking (with many that are friendships).

    That is moot since I quit Facebook last week. Hope Zuckerberg gets the gout and falls off a high bridge.

    That said for a client that I run twitter and facebook and Twitter drives more Traffic. But when I cross post I get a bigger bang. Not sure about comments. We are conversational on Twitter facebook doesn’t allow that. Meaning I can call people out on the Twitter where Facebook I have to sit and wait for people to show up after seeing a post.

  • http://www.wouterkleinsman.nl Wouter

    Thanks for the great info Jeff.

    I always thought sharing it on Twitter and Facebook was great. And when you would reach the b2b then also sharing it on LinkedIn. With these results you posted, Im really sure that it is effective.
    Thanks again!

  • http://twitter.com/CherylSchirillo Cheryl Schirillo

    My analytics show that Facebook drives more traffic to my blog posts and that when people “reshare” those posts in Facebook my true reach is greater than sharing in Twitter.  However, my blog (MyBridges.net) is focused on a localized community as are our Facebook Followers.  For sharing on general topics, or when we write about something with a B2B focus, our Twitter crowd mobilizes.  I personally get a lot more value, fun and learning from my Twitter community so I value it highly.  Of course, this could all change next week …. which is what I love about social media : )
    ~ Cheryl
    P.S. to my TC … hope you’re having an awesome day.

  • http://twitter.com/BusinessPartnrs Business Partners

    Some would argue that Twitter is more business-oriented, thus the reason for most website traffic stemming from that platform. Facebook pages, however, tend to drive a lot of traffic to small business websites.

  • http://twitter.com/neicolec Neicole Crepeau

    This is great data, Jeff.  But I would really like to also see bounce rates as well. It’d also be nice to know to know dwell time. Twitter provides only a headline, versus the paragraph of text in Facebook posts. The stream also makes it very easy to scan and click. But I wonder if the bounce rate is higher than with FB posts. 

  • Jane Robinson

    Thanks for the information.   I use both but you reminded me to use my linked in groups and contacts too!  Thanks.

  • Jane Robinson

    P.S. I found this on Twitter.

  • http://www.BigDealPR.com Carri Bugbee

    You quit Facebook? Brave of you. As a marketer, I feel like I have to be there, but it’s now relegated to “necessary evil” status. When people send me personal messages, I direct them to use my email address — which is NOT gmail, BTW. ;-)

  • http://www.socialherding.com/2011/10/does-twitter-or-facebook-drive-more-traffic-to-your-blog/ Does Twitter or Facebook Drive More Traffic to Your Blog? | Social Herding

    [...] Does Twitter or Facebook Drive More Traffic to Your Blog? By Jeff Bullas On October 3, 2011 · Leave a Comment Tweet Tweet [...]

  • http://twitter.com/SteveS1 Steve Schildwachter

    The answer to this question depends on what you’re sharing and with whom.  We forget that Social Media, for most people, really is “social” first and “media” second. 

    So for me, with a blog about marketing, Twitter is the way to go, but I hesitate to add that links to my own blog are only about 2% of my tweets.  The other 98% is all about marketing, too.

    A recent exception, however, was Tom Fishburne’s recent post on how he became a cartoonist.  It was such a personal story that I shared it with family and friends on Facebook instead of Twitter.

    One of my oldest friends is a successful lawyer specializing in crowd safety.  He uses Facebook because it allows him to explain things in ways Twitter can’t.  Plus, his prospects use Facebook.

    So: for me it’s Twitter, but the answer will vary for each person and their network.  http://twitter.com/SteveS1

  • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

    Hi Jeff, Interesting post. Have you ever had one of your blogs go viral on StumbleUpon? Suddenly the traffic spikes as StumbleUpon sends hundreds of people to one of your blog posts. But unfortunately, their like fairies who visit in the night. They don’t comment or share, it’s as if they were never there. 

    You article makes me value Facebook more because the visitors from there tend to comment more. I really value comments, so Facebook gives me more of what I’m looking for. 

  • http://lovehateadvertising.wordpress.com/ Mitch Devine

    Thanks, Jeff, for another insightful post. I’m curious whether the folks at Hubspot measured a single Tweet vs a single Facebook post. On FB, I don’t want to overdo the sharing, so one post (per blog topic) is all that I usually put up. But Twitter lends itself to more frequent tweets about the same subject, since your followers aren’t all going to see the same tweet. Obviously a combination of FB & Twitter is most effective. And yes, I saw this link on Twitter. :)

  • http://twitter.com/dfortes99 Danny Fortes

    I have been a huge twitter fan for a while now. It’s more interactive, less of the mundane, & more niche specific for attracting new contacts and obviously driving traffic. I see nothing but great growth potential in the future for twitter especially with all the constant changes to facebook. I’ll have to start cross posting especially on linked in. I’m pretty new to this stuff so I learn a lot from good posts like this and great additional info from Howie, Carrie, & Cheryl.

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  • http://twitter.com/cammipham CamMi Pham

    i find that I get more view from Twitter, and most convo on Google+. I hardly see reaction on fb.
    But I am not a big FB person and my friends do not like FB that much either. that might be the reason

  • http://twitter.com/cammipham CamMi Pham

    i find that I get more view from Twitter, and most convo on Google+. I hardly see reaction on fb.
    But I am not a big FB person and my friends do not like FB that much either. that might be the reason

  • http://twitter.com/cammipham CamMi Pham

    Agree its easier to start convo on Twitter….lately I find google+ does a even better job

  • http://twitter.com/cammipham CamMi Pham

    Agree its easier to start convo on Twitter….lately I find google+ does a even better job

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  • http://www.bukisa.com/articles/552204_proven-ways-to-drive-traffic-from-facebook-and-twitter IdeaCreator

    Actually some one uses Facebook and Twitter as his/ her personal whether some one uses it for business. It’s up to them.

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  • http://GrowMap.com Gail Gardner

    I noticed you have a trackback on this post from Niche Success Pro. They are promoting the unethical plugin Automatic Backlink Creator that is flooding blogs with phony trackbacks. On their site they are not visible on the blog but can be seen in the source code and are no followed. I blacklist all blogs that generate phony trackbacks and have so far identified two plugins responsible for most of the trackback spam: Automatic Backlink Creator and Digi Auto Links. There is a post on my site that explains further.

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  • http://twitter.com/timothywp Timothy Wirjo Pawiro

    Hi Jeff, 
    Another great post!

    If I look at my site stats, Facebook is still #1 referrer to my blog, followed by Stumbleupon. Twitter is at number 4 after the search engines ;)

    I haven’t used Reddit, so thanks for the input :)

    PS: my blog is a personal blog (www.mixedupalready.com), not a business one :)

  • http://www.getdailyviews.com/ youtube play increaser

    Thank you for publishing such a great article for the world to see.

  • http://twitter.com/sudhanshu_80 Sudhanshu Saxena

    With an average friend count of facebook increasing to 160 it makes sense. How about maintaining a Facebook fan page as well which can be searchable at the same time can be seen as your share ?

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