Social Media websites can drive insanely great traffic to your blog if you have a good social media marketing strategy. But it can drive fair amount of traffic if you just submit blog posts regularly to your social media profiles.
Social media traffic is as important as organic traffic from search engines as we can’t rely on Google alone. They continue to push algorithmic updates like Panda, Penguin and who knows the next could be Giraffe.
It means that we must diversify the way we get traffic. I’m going to list the top social media and other websites that you shouldn’t ignore or must use as part of your social media marketing strategy.
I’m NOT going to list all the stupid social media or the so called web 2.0 sites out there as I’m going to focus only on sites that can drive traffic to our websites in one way or the other and not for building backlinks.
Though the traffic quality of social media can’t be matched with that of organic traffic, it is still important. It helps us to keep the bounce rate low which is assumed to be one of the many ranking signals used by Google.
Top 30 Social Networking (& Web 2.0) Sites To Drive Traffic To Your Blog
1. Facebook
Facebook has not only transformed the way people the world over connect, communicate and share ideas, pictures, videos and news, it’s made it possible for businesses to get their products across to a mass audience in a sensational win-win manner.
With over a billion active users it’s the largest social networking website. Leverage your Facebook friends and share your blog posts regularly with your Facebook friends and fan base.
2. Twitter
Twitter is the second most popular social network (microblogging platform to be more specific). If our content is viral in nature then it can bring instant massive traffic to our blog/website in no time.
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is web’s favorite professional networking website with over 100 million active users. LinkedIn’s traffic quality is better than that of Facebook and Twitter as it is mostly used by professionals who are looking for job or business opportunities.
Also try,
- LinkedIn Groups — to discover like-minded professionals and join discussions.
4. Pinterest
Pinterest is the biggest thing that happened to social media after Twitter. According to a TechCrunch article Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.
If your blog posts have quality images then you shouldn’t ignore Pinterest. Just pin those images to Pinterest under the right category and it can send quality traffic to you as Pinterest users are known to spend more money than Facebook or Twitter.
5. Google+
Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook. Though they call it a social network I wouldn’t call it a social networking website. But that said, it is important to share your blog posts on Google+ as social signals are now used to rank web pages.
And that’s not all! As you probably know Google now gives importance to authors (dubbed as AuthorRank). For that they use data from your Google+ profiles. It means that if you’re popular on Google+ then your blog posts are more likely to be on top.
6. Reddit
Reddit succeeded where Digg failed. It’s not the Facebook or a Twitter that killed Digg, Reddit killed Digg. If you write content that’s viral in nature then Reddit can send you instant massive traffic. Just make sure that you use social media timing signals to share the right content at the right time.
7. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is more or less a social bookmarking platform. It used to send good traffic during my initial days of blogging. I’m not sure about how many active users are there on StumbleUpon but according to Wikipedia they have over 20 million users.
It won’t take more than 5 minutes to share your web page on StumbleUpon and hence it is worth the try. You definitely don’t want to miss even a single opportunity that can send traffic.
8. MySpace
MySpace. I’m not sure why this site still exists but I decided to include the same in this list as it was once the most popular social networking site in the world. It even surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States in 2006.
9. Hacker News
Hacker News is a community of programmers, entrepreneurs, and digital ninjas who share “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity”.
So you can share your content (or from across the web) and can comment on popular Hacker News threads to promote your blog.
Hacker News is a lot more like Inbound.org except that Inbound.org is all about marketing whereas Hacker News is all about technology.
10. Inbound.org
Inbound.org is not a social networking website but it can send high quality traffic to your website if you got interesting blog posts that are original.
Inbound.org is a great community of bloggers, marketers and other professionals who love to read and share interesting content.
11. Scoop.it
Scoop.it is one of the most popular content curation tools. It helps you discover new content based on your interest and you’ll also be able to create your own Scoop.it boards to add content from your own blog. The Scoop.it community will be able to follow your boards and you’ll be able to follow boards by others.
12. Delicious
Delicious is the top social bookmarking website and has around 10 million active users. Though it rarely sends traffic, you can still tag your articles there as the submission is super quick and easy. Delicious.com allows its users to group link with the identical topics that can be gathered from the “stack”.
13. Diigo
Diigo is more than just a social bookmarking website. It’s also a collaborative research and learning tool that allows people to pool their findings through group bookmarks, sticky notes, highlights, etc. You can create new groups or join other groups and submit your own blog posts and from across the web to help others complete their research or work.
14. HubPages
HubPages is yet another user generated content, and revenue-sharing website where you can share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors. Quality HubPages articles are ranked high on Google so it can send you traffic if you write and submit good articles to HubPages with links to your website.
15. YouTube
YouTube is the web’s largest and most favorite video sharing website. You can share your videos with over 800 million YouTube users a month. You can host your how-to videos on YouTube with a backlink to your website so that people would visit your website for additional insights whenever they watch your video.
Also try,
- Vimeo — watch, upload and share HD and 4k videos with no ads.
16. Wikipedia
Who doesn’t know about Wikipedia? A platform that shares over 24 million articles, Wikipedia is by now the largest place from where you can get references. Wikipedia can drive quality referral traffic to your website.
Just sign up as a contributor at Wikipedia and improve the current Wiki pages by editing the existing pages with reference to your website. Just make sure that your web page is absolutely relevant to the topic or it will be marked as spam by the moderators at Wikipedia.
17. Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo! Answers is one of the most popular Q&A site on the web. Thanks to the millions of loyal Yahoo! users. There is a category for each subject on Yahoo! Answers. Just write blog posts on common issues and answer the questions asked by users with a reference to your website. It will send you good referral traffic.
Also try,
- Bing Distill — a community by Microsoft where people come together to create answers to questions millions of people ask.
18. Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange is one of the largest Q&A communities with over 160 communities that are created and run by experts. It’s all about questions and answers and is not a discussion forum.
Users can vote up or down answers so that the best answers appears at the top. So if you believe that your blog post will solve someone’s query then you can share it on relevant threads and hopefully it will get you a lot of upvotes and eventually more traffic to your blog.
19. Flickr
Flickr is the largest photo sharing website on the Internet. You can leverage Flickr by uploading interesting photos or videos with a Creative Commons Attribution License. So that people will link to your Flickr profile and may click on your links.
Don’t want to upload photos? Then why not use those awesome photos on your blog and still get referral traffic. Just use the photos or videos with a Creative Commons Attribution License in your next blog post with proper credits to the original author. Then go to their Flickr profile and comment that you have used the same on your blog post and include the link to the blog post.
20. Storify
Storify is a social networking site that lets you create stories or timelines using social media posts from Twitter, Facebook, etc. So you can create social media posts — fetching content from your blog — and promote the same on Storify to get more visibility.
21. Blog Engage
Blog Engage is another community of bloggers where you can submit your blog posts for better exposure, traffic and of course for backlinks. All the articles that you submit goes to their upcoming page and it will be featured on the homepage when it receives enough votes from its users.
It costs a one-time £19 fee to sign up but you can get a free account by writing about them on your blog. They also have some subscription plans that offer premium features like Content Syndication, JustRetweet Bonus, YouTube Video Syndication, etc.
22. Alltop
Alltop features top stories from a variety of sources. So you can find the top stories from Alltop home, or from Most Popular page, or from sub-categories based on your interests.
You can suggest your blog after picking a relevant topic so that they will add your blog to Alltop if it’s approved. Your RSS feed must be active and there should be enough original content.
23. Triberr
Triberr is a community of bloggers and influencers where they come together to read and share great content. Triberr is completely free to use but they do have a premium membership plan that costs $10/month or you can promote your posts for only $5 so that your content will stick to the top of your tribemates’ Tribal streams.
You can sign in with your Twitter/Facbook account to connect your blog with Triberr account and it will pull your latest posts automatically. Done!
24. SlideShare
SlideShare, as you probably know, is the world’s largest community for sharing and discovering slideshows/presentations. You can upload your presentations with clickable links and can even embed them on blogs or websites. Apart from slideshows, you can also share documents, infographics, PDFs, videos, and webinars.
Also try,
- SlideBoom — to share your powerpoint presentations.
- Sway — a digital storytelling app by Microsoft to create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, etc.
- Guides — a free publishing and hosting platform for sharing guides.
25. List.ly
With List.ly, you can create lists on almost anything that you like. Create a list post on your blog and then use the same data to create a list on List.ly with a backlink to your blog. The community members will vote, share, and may even embed your list on their blog.
26. Visual.ly
Visual.ly is a marketplace for infographics and data visualizations. So if you have created some interesting infographics then you can submit there or if you have the budget then you can hire their professionals to create an infographic for you.
27. Quora
Quora is a Q&A network but it can drive targeted traffic to your website if you help others to solve their problems. Unlike Yahoo Answers, Quora is a quality network and is used by many influencers so it’s simply not easy to get a backlink like we get from Yahoo Answers.
Also, make sure that you added a photo, bio and a link to your blog/website so that people can trust you. And always check unanswered questions so that if you’re the first to answer a question then you get better exposure.
28. Instagram
Instagram is not only the hottest photo sharing website but it’s good to promote your brand as well. Sign up for an account, add your link in bio, post pictures & videos, and start following people. But make sure that you’re posting only relevant pictures and videos. Get more tips here and here.
29. BizSugar
BizSugar is a small business community for solopreneurs or entrepreneurs where you can share your articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.
You must make sure that your content is related to small business or entrepreneurship with a catchy title and a relevant description.
When you submit the content it’s added to Recent articles and when it gets enough votes, it is added to the Popular articles section.
30. JustRetweet
JustRetweet is not a social network but it’s a social sharing platform to help you to get more Retweets, Facebook Likes, Google +1s for your blog posts. When you sign up at JustRetweet you get 100 credits and you can use that to buy retweets, likes, or +1s.
31. Viral Content Buzz
Viral Content Buzz is another social sharing platform that helps you to get more Facebook Likes, Retweets from influencers. It gives your content more social love and is search engine friendly. If your content is epic then it may even go viral.
32. Slashdot
Slashdot is the “news for nerds” website that beeps us about all technology news. It includes all user-submitted news and current affairs about tech and science. So if you’re tech-savvy then you shouldn’t be missing out this site.
33. GrowthHackers
GrowthHackers focuses on high quality growth hacking resources and ethical marketing tips to help you with your marketing efforts. So if you have got some good marketing content then you can submit there and it may attract massive traffic.
34. Blokube
Blokube is yet another community for bloggers that lets you share your blog posts or exchange ideas and interact with other bloggers.
35. Medium
Medium is not exactly a social network but it’s a great publish platform to share your long-form (or even short-form) content. That is, you can publish interesting articles or can even republish your blog posts on Medium with backlinks to your blog so that it reaches a wider audience.
Also try,
- Tumblr — a micro-blogging platform by Yahoo where you can share anything (from anywhere!).
36. LinkedIn Publishing Platform
LinkedIn Publishing Platform is now one of the hottest publishing platform as it leverages LinkedIn’s massive audience. Earlier, only influencers were able to publish to their platform but today, all LinkedIn members are able to publish their content on LinkedIn. So it’s a powerful new way to build your professional brand.
37. Facebook Notes
Facebook Notes is now more customizable and it lets you share long-form content and share it with anyone (whether it’s a small group of friends or everyone on Facebook). So you can add a cover photo that shows the theme of your note and it also supports photo captions, headings, quotes, bullets, etc.
38. Facebook Instant Articles
Facebook Instant Articles is a publishing platform that has in-built monetization and analytics. It lets you create interactive, engaging, and sharable content on Facebook that loads 10x faster than standard mobile web articles and is optimized for mobile. So it’s a great alternative to Medium.com.
Have I missed your favorite social media or a community website that can drive traffic to our blog? If so, feel free to mention the same as a comment below!
Happy (Social) Networking! :)
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