As second-tier social media sites become more popular with consumers, these sites are finding their place within the social media ecosystem, referring traffic to larger social networks, as well as seeing traffic arrive from Facebook and Twitter.
In November 2011, Compete analyzed referrals of US traffic to Facebook, and found that, in addition to retail sites bolstered by holiday traffic, Meebo and Pinterest were two social sites increasing in influence.
- Meebo’s US referral traffic to Facebook grew 314.48%
- Pinterest’s referrals rose 57.22%.
The top sites visited by US internet users after visiting Pinterest included several social networks. Additionally, larger social sites are referring traffic back to these second-tier sites. This demonstrates that consumers may be experimenting with these newer or second-tier social sites, but they also feel the need to share content from the larger networks and point it back to Pinterest or Tumblr.
Read more on this study at emarketer.
Tags: Social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
