(15 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
A brands website has been the single biggest ”online” focus for 99% of businesses over the last 10 years apart from banner campaigns and microsites here and there, but with the evolution of social media growing at unheard of rates (Twitter is up over 3500% alone this year, while Facebook increased over 700% to finally overtake MySpace and then turned them to dust!) businesses really need to think about what’s happening to their website traffic…
I recently read a great post on Supercollider by Geoff Northcott (via Martina on Adverblog) that talked about the end of the destination web, along with adage, we are social and adweek about how the times are fading for websites and microsites are dead – Geoff posted a few good Google trends graphs, so I thought I might take that a little further, find a few additional graphs and look at why and where this traffic is going…
What you’ll notice from the graphs below (you can see them here) is that some of the biggest brands, websites and portals are loosing unique visitors hand over fist for the last 3 years. Doesn’t make sense right? More and more people are connecting online, brands are spending bucket loads of cash on digital campaigns, so website traffic should be the complete opposite? (note. the graph below with out a heading is the BBC.co.uk)
So with such dramatic declines in website traffic and rapidly increasing numbers of Internet connected people, where is all that traffic going? The Social Web – the emerging networks where everyone is connected, everything is relevant, and everything can be shared with a single click and browsed, summarized or bookmarked with ease…
There are 2 key reasons why website traffic is declining.
- Social Networks (obviously) are growing and most people prefer to hang out there instead of searching the big brands websites for content to interact with. Your friends on Facebook and Twitter share what you’re already interested in. Everything is relevant and you don’t have to leave to get the best content from 10 of your favourite brands / websites.
- Off-Site Content Distribution is rapidly growing, I’m talking RSS Feeds, Twitter, YouTube Channels, Facebook Fan pages and so on… All the best brands and websites now actively push their content (the same stuff you use to get from their website and still want to access) to as many various “off-site” sources and platforms as possible.So naturally this removes unique visitors from their main sites, channeling them into a maze of various networks, feeds and tweets…Oh, and ofcourse, widgets/apps – we’ve only just seen the start of these.
Over the next few years, brands will need to re-structure they way they deliver experiences to their customers online (the best ones are already doing it), and that means delivering unique content to anywhere customers want to experience it.
Maybe that’s the latest offers by RSS feeds, new product demos by YouTube, campaigns by iPhone apps, online shopping via widgets in facebook or branding exercises by seeding stopmotion viral videos (they seem to be all the rage!)?
The fact is, agencies and brands will need to work out how to deliver the relevant content, branding and experiences they are currently achieving on their own websites, into highly competitive social networks, feeds, apps and widgets, where every “campaign” or “offer” has to be groundbreaking just to get noticed… and then there was tracking…!
I don’t think websites & microsites are dead yet. There are still years and years of usefulness ahead for them, we’ll just need to come up with better ways to connect them and their content into the social lives of customers online…
In addition to the information graphed for large companies I also feel that a lot depends on what you are selling for instance a service such as photography or design, even architecture. Although the social media aspect might make the initial connection for those looking to get good vibes from an individual the website identifies much more about the quality of your style taste and content.
For large companies it’s usually the product and price.
Let’s hope websites continue to indentify the quality individuals and their services and clients for a very long time to come. Folks can chat their way out of a paper bag today but to see the work they produce and how it is presented that so far seems to be the job of a website.
Interesting post and it’s great to see so much solid data backing up your argument. Although it is important for companies and brands to participate in social networks to give users the content where they want it, I still think the number one thing to consider is that these are third party site and any company or brand needs to comply with their terms and conditions (which usually specify their account could be shut down at any time for any reason). Therefore it’s important to create multiple contact points with the users on multiple social networks as well as your own website or microsite.
Hi,
Where did you get this data?
When I run the same data in google trends, i get a different picture, it looks like both brand sites and SM sites are up?
Could you confirm the source?
Thanks
[...] via Losing To The Social Web: Visualized | Digital Buzz Blog. [...]
[...] just how long ago Facebook superseded MySpace in regards to site visitation, will attest (http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/loosing-to-the-social-web-visualized/). This only being further compounded over the last 12 months where the site has experienced a 16% [...]
[...] at this time. Corey Gouker, I enjoy thinking. This does seem to be the case.http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/l…http://www.feedgeeks.net/2010/08…Insert a dynamic date hereCannot add comment at this [...]
I’d say that brand site traffic was going to lean down anyway. I’m predicting that with tablets and other mobile devices we’ll see news traffic and other content rich sites reverse the downward trend.
What blows me away about this whole thing is that companies are actually choosing to ignore their organic sites and instead put their focus and energies on Facebook / Twitter. I just can’t see how a 3rd party site will ever be a replacement for a solid company website. The social network name may be more recognizable, but what happens when and if it goes under. then what are you left with?
Just re visiting this reminds me I need to write an updated version!
I just made the same experiment with the graphs using Google Trends and I don’t know what Geoff did to it, BUT – I can’t see ANY decline.
I think it is logic that social media sites succeed more and more because they are interactive and people love that! They didn´t have that before without Blackberry, Iphone etc. to that extent!
The other media is only one way!
Does anyone know if the above trends have continued or have they flattened out?
“What blows me away about this whole thing is that companies are actually choosing to ignore their organic sites and instead put their focus and energies on Facebook / Twitter. I just can’t see how a 3rd party site will ever be a replacement for a solid company website. The social network name may be more recognizable, but what happens when and if it goes under. then what are you left with?” – from Boogie Guy. I agree I just don’t understand it but if that is where the customer is going then I guess we need to follow in some shape or form.
[...] Losing To The Social Web: Visualized | Digital Buzz Blog [...]
[...] by social media adviser Ian Lyons, who found this chart on the Datalicious website, referencing a DigitalBuzz article. (It’s what you might call highly ‘sharable’ content, [...]