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Twitter’s Click-Throughs are Crushing Facebook’s. (Fast Company Says So Anyway.) Updated

Posted on October 14, 2010

A report by SocialTwist has been causing some commotion this week, with Fast Company reporting “Twitter Crushing Facebook’s Click-Through Rate.” Hmm, let’s take a look at that. First, if you’re not familiar with the report, a brief breakdown via the Fast Company article:
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.

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.
Wow, good news for Twitter, right? The implications would seem evident, with Twitter reigning as the go-to for advertisers. But comments throughout the net provided some needed perspective, as well as needed questions. The first being:

“SocialTwist analyzed more than a million referral messages sent using the company’s Tell-a-Friend tool.” So they’re doing their own math? Really?!!? Aside from that, what million? Sampled how? Who’s using this ST tool? Can we and should we assume it is typically of ALL internet users? My point, there are quite a few holes in that one sentence. Holes that compromise the downstream value.”

I would definitely like to see some specifics in regards to Social Twist’s math.* (Twitter doesn’t own them do they? I kid.) But let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that these numbers are correct. Another point to consider, from John Ragland of Contagion Marketing in the Fast Company article’s comments:

What the report doesn’t say is that Twitter clicks do not convert into sales. On average we see that email referrals convert the highest and that Facebook clicks are 5x more likely to become a new customer. To be clear we are talking about things that are shared amongst friends/followers and not Twitter or FB ads. This holds up because anyone can follow you on Twitter whereas on FB you can be selective and thus have fewer yet stronger relationships.

And some interesting figures from Contagion:
We commonly see clicks from a single Twitter post in the15-25 range whereas on Facebook we see 2-6 clicks. This may seem like a huge deal for Twitter and in fact the report emphasizes this as well as the Fast Company article. However marketers should be aware that not every click is the same. Here’s some data for a recent campaign we ran:
Facebook
Invites posted: 3,271
Clicks: 3,727
Conversions: 72
% Conversion: 1.93
Twitter
Invites posted: 455
Clicks: 8,083
Conversions: 1
% Conversion: .01
Certainly, like SocialTwist’s numbers, Contagion’s figures are also only one of many possible snapshots, but interesting nonetheless. Regardless, take this earth-shattering, Facebook-crushing news with a grain of salt.
*UPDATE: Mike Crosson, VP of Sales for SocialTwist was kind enough to comment on our post, as well as provide a link to the their entire report summary (here.) I thought it worthwhile to post the majority of Mike’s comment below. Thanks again to Mike for his perspective.
Both the author and John Ragland make some good points. As the VP of Sales for SocialTwist, I’d like to point out that the controversial title was written by Fast Company, not by us. They took some of the key findings and made their own interpretations, which of course is their job.

As John points out, click-throughs do not necessarily convert the same for different properties. He is correct in saying that email clickthroughs tend to be highest and convert the best, but there are so many variables, it’s not a hard and fast rule. Some campaigns go viral very quickly through just YouTube alone.

The most important element of any social media campaign is to imbed the ability to share – because social media is ALL about interaction and sharing. Our Tell-a-Friend application is one popular too, being used by over 73,000 websites, but there are many others, including Add This and Share This. (Do be aware of the privacy issues using other platforms, however, since they cookie users and sometimes collect PII).

2 responses to "Twitter’s Click-Throughs are Crushing Facebook’s. (Fast Company Says So Anyway.) Updated"

  1. Michael P. Crosson 14/10/2010 23:11 pm Reply

    Both the author and John Ragland make some good points. As the VP of Sales for SocialTwist, I'd like to point out that the controversial title was written by Fast Company, not by us. They took some of the key findings and made their own interpretations, which of course is their job.

    As John points out, click-throughs do not necessarily convert the same for different properties. He is correct in saying that email clickthroughs tend to be highest and convert the best, but there are so many variables, it's not a hard and fast rule. Some campaigns go viral very quickly through just YouTube alone.

    The most important element of any social media campaign is to imbed the ability to share – because social media is ALL about interaction and sharing. Our Tell-a-Friend application is one popular too, being used by over 73,000 websites, but there are many others, including Add This and Share This. (Do be aware of the privacy issues using other platforms, however, since they cookie users and sometimes collect PII).

    To take a look at the whole report summary, go here: http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/sharing-trend-2010.jsp

    Cheers,
    Mike Crosson
    VP of Sales
    http://www.SocialTwist.com

  2. Lee McKnight Jr. 15/10/2010 02:08 am Reply

    Hi Mike,

    We greatly appreciate you visiting our blog and taking the time to comment. I felt it deserved to be seen, so posted it in an update to my post.

    To be fair, while I did mention the title was via Fast Company in the body of my post, my post title didn't reflect that, so I did update it.

    As you point out, John does make some good points and I'm eager to read your report summary for a better perspective. Thanks again.

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