17
2012
Social Media important to Government
Just over two years ago, one of our researchers posted a story about how Government sites were seeing more traffic from the Experian Hitwise Social Networking category than from the mainstream media our Print (News and Media) category.
It struck a chord, with a request coming through just last week for a follow up, with the question: was the shift an individual event or an ongoing trend?
In 2004, Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was a sound, the Cloud was in the sky and 4G was a parking place.
It’s worth noting that this underscores an important point: everything changes – especially when it comes to online. “In 2004, Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was a sound, the Cloud was in the sky and 4G was a parking place” is a tweet doing the rounds that captures this extremely well. If anyone knows where this originated, let me know as I haven’t been able to pin down the originator so far.
So, did we capture a one off back in 2009 or was it something else entirely?
As can be seen below, it was the start of an ongoing trend– as Print never regained the top spot from Social Networking when it comes to driving traffic to Government sites.
Social media has doubled the amount of traffic it sends to Government sites
In fact, Social Media looks set to double the amount traffic going through, whilst Print, despite a slight rally in recent times, has seen a 4.16% decline.
In all, the 2009 article captured the last point at which News – Print drove more of the Australian public to Government sites. Ever since we’ve sent each other to Government sites, with some help from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Power to the people .
Experian Hitwise. Now you know.
Hi Tim,
Interesting insight. By nature, humans are social creatures. We all like to share, help and educate others. With these traits in mind the Internet is the only medium that allows us to engage in multiple conversations from almost any location and reach a huge number of like-minded people. We are all connected online, socially, and we are empowered with the ability to choose our level of engagement.
I believe most people have a need to be seen as the source of a story rather than simply being the referrer. Social Networking makes it possible to gain attention, build a following and to be “Liked”. Twitter has the Retweet (RT) option, Google has the Google+ and Circles and Facebook has the “Like” option. Of course other sites and apps have similar features, such as the Instagram app where people can “Like” your photos.
I am certain we are yet to see a major upward shift in the number of referrals from social sites to Government sites and resources. People tend to ask others for advice or perhaps post a comment that garners a response, rather than taking it upon themselves to research and make decisions. This type of interaction detracts from search engine usage to some degree, and operators such as Google know it. Hence Google’s push into social networking, mobile devices and creating alliances with website development and hosting services with its “Getting Business Online” initiative.
Sites such as Mashable, are on the social bandwagon too, where subscribers can follow each other, “Like” user’s comments, post news items, build credibility, share stories and more. News and Media sites will have to do the same in order to increase their market share … share is the pun …
The quote “In 2004, Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was a sound, the Cloud was in the sky and 4G was a parking place” – came from Author and New York Times Columnist, Thomas Friedman.
Cheers,
Paul
Thanks Paul – especially for the quote reference. The world surely is flat if I can use a quote of friedman’s without knowing the provenance.
Agree on our inherently social nature as humans too.
Regards,
Tim
Just a question about how these data were gathered. Were they captured from questionnaires? And does someone who visits after reading a news story or print advertisement have the same likelihood of answering a popup user questionnaire as someone who gets their info via social media? Was the difference controlled for in your model?
Hi Daniel – not at all.
In fact, there were no intrusions, popups or questionnaires involved. Our data is based on anonomised web usage, sourced from data partners.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Tim
Okay, so how does a website detect that a user has been referred via print media without asking the user? I understand that campaign-specific landing pages will help identify some of those referrals but there will be substantial leakage from users entering on the top-level domain or locating the site via Google rather than URl entry. I would suggest the difference you’re identifying is at least partly due to the higher precision of tracking referrals from social media compared to print.
Daniel, this is at a web level, as opposed to website level.
Data is from user behaviour, with no tracking from Social (or Print) sites, let alone other sites.
To quote our homepage “Each day, Experian Hitwise provides insights on how 3 million Australian Internet users interact with more than 1 million websites, across 165+ industries”.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Tim