Leveraging Social Media
Ilya Grigorik
@igrigorik
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Tab, F5, Tab, …
I’m a confessed ‘statsaholic’
I love data, and I have a ‘F5 twitch’
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

postrank.com/topic/Wordpress
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

SEO – search engine optimization
• Structure & best practices (microformats, etc)
• Good keywords
• Good hosting
• Subset of…
SEM – search engine marketing
• Paid placement (adwords)
• Contextual advertising
• Niche & targeted search
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

SMM – social media marketing
• Completely new playing field
• New tools, new strategies & lots of confusion
• Old tools perform poorly (anchor text, etc)
Benefits:
• Viral media gives you the ability to brand
• Viral media helps rankings through links
• Viral media helps grow your fan base
• RSS subscribers go up
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

“Digg effect”
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

#1. Facebook 18.59% #4. Digg 4.43%
#2. Google 11.6% #5. NYTimes 2.5%
#3. Yahoo 5.16%
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Did I mention that I love data?
and we have lots of it at PostRank
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

20%
On-site (ex: comments)
80%
Off-site (ex: twitter, facebook, …)
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
Social Media, kthnx SEO Land (aka Google)
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Case Study: Digital Photography Review
example of social media tsunami
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

The post is simply a collection of 15 amazing images all illustrating
the same technique (long exposure photography). The images are
all creative commons images from Flickr (meaning they are all
available for republishing).
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

“I tweeted about the post - noting that it was doing
well on SU. This was the only ‘help’ I gave the post - a
viral like thing began to happen.”
“People saw the Digg button and were clicking it
naturally.”
“The post hit the ‘popular page’ on Delicious (where it
remained for at least 15 hours) … again an unusually
long time.”
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

“Social Media Traffic Tsunamis are exciting events but
the real challenge is to keep growing your loyal reader
base by providing quality content day in day out.”
Almost… but not quite…
Social Media Traffic Tsunamis
are not random!
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Time… aka Velocity
Is your friend and your enemy
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

The first 10 votes have exactly as much weight
as votes 11 through 101 (ouch!)
Favor earlier stories by giving them a larger score.
(45,000 seconds =~ 12.5 hours)
• 10 votes is easy to get & often enough to get you high placement in a sub-reddit
• If you make it to the top, you’ll stay up in the top list for ~ 1 day
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

10 votes, hour 1 … Points: 9
10 votes, hour 2 … Points: 2.25
10 votes, hour 3 … Points: 1
Velocity, Velocity, Velocity!
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

• Rank of users voting on stories
• Number of comments (positive comments)
• Size of your friend list
Velocity of votes (40-50 votes to front page)
Time from posting is not as important, but velocity matters!
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

SMM Tip: find friends on small networks!
and get them to vote on your content
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Score = # of bookmarks in 3600s
3600 seconds = 1 hour
You’re not penalized for having an aging story!
“The post hit the ‘popular page’ on Delicious (where it remained for at least
15 hours) … again an unusually long time”
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Only site where time does not matter!
• Use the toolbar, free points
• Less juice if you’re friends
• Don’t submit same domain over and over
“StumbleUpon has the potential to send decent traffic to a post for weeks
(and months). In the long run I expect StumbleUpon will probably send
more traffic to the post than Digg (although Digg has currently sent triple
what SU has).”
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Time: Yes
Time: No
Network: No
Network: No
SMM Time: Yes
Time: No
Network: Yes
Network: Yes
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

Social Media Tsunamis are not random!
1. Reddit: get yourself some Reddit friends, get them to vote early!
2. Delicious: build your delicious network, time matters! (60 hour
window)
3. Digg: velocity is the most significant factor. Weak ties are your
best strategy
4. StumbleUpon: Time is not important. Weak ties are your best
strategy
5. Twitter: perfect tool for strengthening your weak-ties!
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

http://www.postrank.com/publishers/wordpress
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09

http://www.postrank.com/
Twitter: @igrigorik
Questions?
www.postrank.com/publishers/analytics
Leveraging Social Media http://www.postrank.com/ @igrigorik #wct09