{"id":9597,"date":"2016-06-20T14:40:25","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T14:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/9597\/just-because-theyre-sharing-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-reading\/"},"modified":"2016-06-20T16:04:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T16:04:23","slug":"just-because-theyre-sharing-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/9597\/just-because-theyre-sharing-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Just because they\u2019re sharing, it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re reading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- SEO Ultimate (http:\/\/www.seodesignsolutions.com\/wordpress-seo\/) - Code Inserter module -->\n<!-- Google Tag Manager (noscript) -->\r\n<noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.googletagmanager.com\/ns.html?id=GTM-PJMTR4\"\r\nheight=\"0\" width=\"0\" style=\"display:none;visibility:hidden\"><\/iframe><\/noscript>\r\n<!-- End Google Tag Manager (noscript) -->\n<!-- \/SEO Ultimate -->\n\n<div class=\"wp-caption\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"260\" height=\"183\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606retweet_symbol-0687dc8304d0c4bbdd0b83d9b5053ebc0e51cab2.jpg\" class=\"singular-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"retweet_symbol\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>If you&rsquo;re visiting this article before or after sharing it on a social channel, then may I offer you a warm welcome to an increasingly exclusive club. For you are just one of the 41% of people who not only shared the article but actually read it too.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In news that will embolden some, depress others and possibly surprise nobody, a new study by computer scientists at Columbia University and the French National Institute reveals that 59% of links shared on social media have never actually been clicked.<\/p>\n<p>As the Washington Post put it this weekend in one of their best headlines ever &ndash; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-intersect\/wp\/2016\/06\/16\/six-in-10-of-you-will-share-this-link-without-reading-it-according-to-a-new-and-depressing-study\/\">6 in 10 of you will share this link without reading it, a new, depressing study says<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2014, it was estimated that social media referral was responsible for 30% of total visits to websites. However according to <a href=\"https:\/\/hal.inria.fr\/hal-01281190\">the research<\/a> published by HAL (yes, a group of computer scientists publish their research under the name HAL, what of it? Why are you terrified?) and using a dataset amounting to 2.8 million shares, 75 billion potential views and 9.6 million actual&nbsp;clicks to 59,088 unique resources, most people just retweet news without ever reading it.<\/p>\n<p>According to the study&rsquo;s co-author, Arnaud Legout, <em>&ldquo;This is typical of modern information consumption. People form an opinion based on a summary, or a summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>These blind retweeters are also, worryingly, shaping the news agenda, by sharing what is already &lsquo;viral&rsquo; and adding to social platform&rsquo;s &lsquo;trend-watching algorithms&rsquo; without first stopping and reading what they&rsquo;re actually doing.<\/p>\n<p>Or are our favourite news sources so trustworthy that we can put blind faith in anything they publish? To be honest, Facebook will probably just ignore much of the above&nbsp;anyway.<\/p>\n<p>For proof of this, you need not look any further than May 26, when a certain social media manager (*cough*) tweeted the following headline but accidentally forgot to include the link to the article.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Is content marketing really working? Advice and insight from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ClickZChat?src=hash\">#ClickZChat<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MotnFQ49q6\">pic.twitter.com\/MotnFQ49q6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sewatch\/status\/736013068585422852\">May 27, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And yet the tweet enjoyed 25 retweets and 28 likes. That&rsquo;s one of our most popular tweets, and yet not one person noticed the lack of link. Maybe that&rsquo;s the key for us&hellip; <strong>black and white photo + non sequitur headline &ndash; link = engagement gold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>A peek behind the wizard&rsquo;s curtain<\/h2>\n<p>To add our own two pence (or cents depending on where you are right now) to this debate, let&rsquo;s open up our own analytics and let you see what influence SEW&rsquo;s social channel on traffic to the site.<\/p>\n<p>Here are&nbsp;our own Twitter analytics&nbsp;for May 2016&hellip;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61544\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606twitter-analytics-May-300x272-9226e7e50df15e12f449fb7cbc56cc5616c3f07c.png\" alt=\"twitter analytics May\" width=\"300\" height=\"272\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A &lsquo;robust&rsquo; 2.5 million impressions from only 465 tweets is pretty good. But what about actual click-through rate (CTR)?<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at our top tweet in May&hellip;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-61545\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606twitter-analytics-top-tweet-1fff9eff97085a64acd3f23f96b07c89bda3eb88.png\" alt=\"twitter analytics top tweet\" width=\"800\" height=\"295\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The impressions gained from its 29 retweets resulted in 18,202 impressions and ultimately 40 link clicks. This means it had a CTR of 0.2% which is about our average. Sadly,&nbsp;this is a little lower than the industry average for a following of our size.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/twitter-increase-clickthrough-rate#sm.0000083qrd91n7fcwsuohzmfs09p9\">Hubspot<\/a> the average Twitter CTR is 1.64%, and the more followers you have, the fewer clicks you&rsquo;ll receive on your tweets.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Users with 50 &ndash; 1,000 followers had a 6.16% CTR.<\/li>\n<li>Users with 1,000 &ndash; 5,000 followers had a 1.45% CTR.<\/li>\n<li>Users with 5,000 &ndash; 10,000 followers had a 0.55% CTR.<\/li>\n<li>Users with 10,000+ followers had a 0.45% CTR.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And according to this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/Whats-the-average-click-through-rate-of-a-link-shared-on-twitter-by-an-user-with-a-million-followers\">Quora forum<\/a> on Twitter CTR, links shared by Mashable&rsquo;s Twitter account, despite its 7+ million followers, results in a&nbsp;CTR of just 0.11%.<\/p>\n<p>If that&rsquo;s not enough to get you completely down heartened, let&rsquo;s open up <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/02\/03\/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-setting-up-google-analytics-for-your-website\/\">Google Analytics<\/a> and see how much traffic social drove to SEW in May.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-61548\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606social-analytics-3f69faa423d695d3d06ed454a926b96f589525b8.png\" alt=\"social analytics\" width=\"588\" height=\"490\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over the course of 31 days in May<strong>, only 4% of our total traffic came from social<\/strong>. The majority of our traffic comes from organic search (as you would hope and expect from a site with &lsquo;search engine&rsquo; in the title), with direct, email and referral all coming in above social.<\/p>\n<p>To break it down further by social channel, it&rsquo;s 47% from Twitter, 24% from Facebook, 11% from LinkedIn and, uh, 0.3% from Pinterest.<\/p>\n<p>However if we look at Twitter, the most popular social channel we operate, <strong>it drove more than 16,000 sessions to the site<\/strong>, 40% of which are from unique users.<\/p>\n<p>So despite a low CTR, these are fairly considerable numbers, and certainly the research presented by HAL should not be used as an excuse to &lsquo;switch off&rsquo; your social activity. In fact if anything, this is a good excuse for us to take a good look at our Twitter strategy and see how we can improve things.<\/p>\n<p>Remembering to add links to tweets would be a good start.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, you should also be&nbsp;aware that, if your boss is asking for ways to measure your content&rsquo;s engagement, a simple &lsquo;number of retweets&rsquo; isn&rsquo;t good enough.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update:<\/strong>&nbsp;I just tweeted this article. It IMMEDIATELY got 3 retweets within 30 seconds.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-author-signoff\">\n<p>Christopher Ratcliff is the editor of Search Engine Watch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"more-in-category\">\n<h4>Related reading<\/h4>\n<div class=\"post category-border category-border-content\">\n<div class=\"post-thumbnail alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/should-publishers-and-content-marketers-be-playing-the-platform-game\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"120\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606platform-game-1-120x90-2f730a8f16a82886e1d16e57670f0a10c287ed5f.jpg\" class=\"attachment-120x90 size-120x90 wp-post-image\" alt=\"platform-game (1)\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-info\">\n<p class=\"excerpt\">The early 2000s saw the advent of platforms on the web: somewhere that bloggers and publishers could host their content without having <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/should-publishers-and-content-marketers-be-playing-the-platform-game\/\">&#8230; read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post category-border category-border-content\">\n<div class=\"post-thumbnail alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/five-of-the-most-interesting-search-marketing-news-stories-of-the-week-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"120\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606Search-Ads-App-Store-Apple-Developer-1-120x90-e0c01bc175a2b041aa35cdda2a60c4f005f48839-3.png\" class=\"attachment-120x90 size-120x90 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Search Ads App Store Apple Developer\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-info\">\n<p class=\"excerpt\">It&rsquo;s Friday once again, and time for a round-up from the world of search marketing. This week we have App Store search <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/five-of-the-most-interesting-search-marketing-news-stories-of-the-week-2\/\">&#8230; read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post category-border category-border-content\">\n<div class=\"post-thumbnail alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/how-brands-are-using-data-visualisation-in-social-campaigns\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"120\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606narcos-120x90-d35a66c37a4650a9cb8d170edad06e71b148bd12-1.png\" class=\"attachment-120x90 size-120x90 wp-post-image\" alt=\"narcos\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-info\">\n<p class=\"excerpt\">In this post, I&rsquo;ll look at how brands&nbsp;are making the most of&nbsp;data visualization and data-informed product design to bring out data&rsquo;s creative <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/17\/how-brands-are-using-data-visualisation-in-social-campaigns\/\">&#8230; read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post category-border category-border-content\">\n<div class=\"post-thumbnail alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/06\/16\/why-your-audiences-are-so-important\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"120\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/searchenginewatch.comwp-contentuploadssites25201606Eatons_War_Bonds_Rally_1943_Audience-1-120x90-f15fb08c3d5a8df84d42190b3065d822b7e3a74b-2.jpg\" class=\"attachment-120x90 size-120x90 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Eaton&#039;s_War_Bonds_Rally_1943_Audience\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-info\">\n<p class=\"excerpt\">People tell you to write for your audience; locate your audience; conduct keyword research for your target audience; create quality content to please your audience. They don&rsquo;t tell you that you have more than one audience!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"http:\/\/w.sharethis.com\/widget\/?wp=6.2.5\"><\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&rsquo;re visiting this article before or after sharing it on a social channel, then may I offer you a warm welcome to an increasingly exclusive club. For you are just one of the 41% of people who not only shared the article but actually read it too.&nbsp; In news that will embolden some, depress <a href=\"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/9597\/just-because-theyre-sharing-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-reading\/\" class=\"read-more-excerpt\">Read More <i class=\"fa fa-chevron-circle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":9599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[248],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9608,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions\/9608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtomakemoneyonlineasap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}