Once the study is taken into account, even the Drudge Report, a much smaller operation by comparison, out does Twitter and Facebook combined. It should be noted that the king of traffic referrals is, of course, Google. So much so, in fact, they are lapping the rest of the field.

Comfortably.

If the study’s validity is intact, the main lesson from Outbrain’s findings is social media sites do not drive traffic like content sites and search engines do, and it’s not even close. That means that, while all those retweets are nice to see, apparently, few people are clicking the actual link embedded within the tweeted message. The study also sheds doubt on just how effective social media marketing campaigns are. Sure, things are good if it’s part of a current trend, but if not, no traffic for you, apparently.

The same, according to the study, is true for all those Facebook shares, as well. People evidently only react to the subject line, and not the content contained within, or that’s being promoted. A look at the chart of Outbrain’s study shows these surprising numbers quite clearly:

David Sasson, Outbrain COO, had some thoughts on the study:

“With our second report, we’re able to provide a compelling look at fluctuations in traffic referral and reader engagement across some of the leading destinations online. Our hope is to leverage our unique data to paint a picture of macro-level trends in content consumption over time. As Outbrain expands on a global level, we’re able to introduce additional metrics into our report and evaluate international trends, comparing reader behavior across continents.”

It does make sense that Google is a clear leader in such a category. When people search, they usually click a result, which takes them to a webpage/site, ergo, traffic driving has occurred. Same with aggregate sites like Drudge Report and Reddit, although, Reddit’s score is a low 1.10%, which, while still higher than Facebook’s score, brings the study’s validity into question.

Ask Imgur.com how many traffic referrals they get from Reddit.

With all of that in mind, does the study make you doubt the effectiveness of a social media marketing campaign? Especially if people aren’t clicking the links? Even for stuff they apparently like? Let us know what you think.

Update, the report has been pulled, and an Editor’s note from Amanda Lucci’s blog says:

Editor’s note: Since this post was published, Outbrain has reached out and said they are rerunning the numbers “to ensure they’re accurate” and might have an update later.

Perhaps they, too saw the Reddit discrepancy and wondered if they needed to remeasure.

Update:
Outbrain has reposted their findings, and while the gist is the same–content sites drive more traffic than social media–their metrics aren’t as specific. If you look at the first table they created, you’ll notice Drudge Report drove more traffic than Twitter and Facebook combined. Now, that’s not the case:

Granted, their Alexa profile is respectable, but it’s not as powerful as Reddit’s. With that in mind, despite Outbrain’s confusing devaluing of Reddit, the following statement continues the theme from the initial study:

…finally, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Fark.com, reddit, Digg) send 11% of traffic to content pages.

And it continues the theme of this particular post, which is social media isn’t very dependable when it comes to driving traffic.

One of our reader’s comments captures the theme quite well:

Art Butcher says: I’m not surprised by these findings.

I believe people look at tweets or posts with links as a sales pitch.

And many are.

What would be different if the links were content oriented and provided value as you say content is a critical driver. My guess is it takes time to build a reputation as a value driven content provider.

Does the spammy nature of linked tweets make them less attractive to potential link clickers?

Last year, Washington Times White House correspondent Joe Curl came aboard the Drudge ship as an editor. It is now being reported that Matt Drudge is bringing his second Washington Times member to the team.

Charles Hurt, who also worked as D.C. bureau chief for the New York Post is now a part of the Drudge Report. He left his job at the Post about 3 months ago.

Although the Drudge Report takes its stories from a wide range of sources, spanning liberal to conservative, it is common knowledge that the Drudge Report leans to the right. Matt Drudge himself is openly conservative, although he describes his views more as “populist.” Considering the conservative slant from the Drudge Report, Charles Hurt seems like a logical fit.

Some of his last few articles with the Washignton Times have been titled “Reports Continue to be Snookered by Obama,” “Obama Squanders America’s Legacy” and “Obama really not shy about spiking the ball.”

The Drudge Report is a force, now matter if you agree with the politics or not. “Every Republican primary voter has The Drudge Report bookmarked on their internet browser,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican political consultant to The Huffington Post.

It’s most likely not just Republican voters though, as a recent Pew study found that the Drudge Report sends more traffic to news sites than Facebook and Twitter. And in April, Internet Evolution released their list of the most influential people on the web. Drudge finished 5th in the news media section, just behind Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide.

The addition of veteran political columnists can only benefit an already powerful entity on the web, especially as we head into election season.

Hurt photo courtesy.

The study looked at how audiences get to, how long they stay at (per visit), how deep they go into, and where they go after they leave 25 top news sites in the U.S. Among the key findings is that the Drudge Report is sending more traffic to news sites than even Facebook or Twitter.

“The Drudge Report ranked as a driver of traffic to all but six of the top sites studied. And, more striking, it ranked second or third in more than half (12), outpacing Facebook,” says Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “In some cases, Drudgereport.com is an extremely important traffic driver. While Facebook never drove more than 8% of traffic to any one site, for instance, Drudgereport.com provided more than 30% of traffic to mailonline.co.uk (the British newspaper site the Daily Mail), 19% of the traffic to the NYPost.com, 15% to Washingtonpost.com and 11% to Boston.com and FoxNews.com.”

“In other words, the Drudge Report’s influence cuts across both traditional organizations such as ABC News to more tabloid style outlets such as the New York Post,” the organization says. “What’s more, Drudge Report drove more links than Facebook or Twitter on all the sites to which it drove traffic.”

PBS put together an interesting infographic, further ooking at The Drudge Report vs. Facebook and Twitter:

Twitter’s lack of influence on traffic to the sites looked at in the study is particularly noteworthy. Researchers Kenny Olmstead, Amy Mitchell, and Tom Rosenstiel say, “Even among the top nationally recognized news site brands, Google remains the primary entry point. The search engine accounts on average for 30% of the traffic to these sites. Social media, however, and Facebook in particular, are emerging as a powerful news referring source. At five of the top sites, Facebook is the second or third most important driver of traffic. Twitter, on the other hand, barely registers as a referring source. In the same vein, when users leave a site, ‘share’ tools that appear alongside most news stories rank among the most clicked-on links.”

While Facebook and Twitter are essentially both able to be used in similar fashion, Facebook tends to be more personal, while Twitter tends to be more noisy and open. For many users, Facebook is where they are in closer connection with actual friends and family, which can go along way when it comes to clicking on shared links.

The Drudge Report clearly has a dedicated audience, and has made a name for itself over the years as a brand that audience trusts, which makes it a powerful tool for content curation. Given the very low-key design of the site, these findings speak volumes about influence in news and the significance of content curation in general.

I do think we will see news consumers start to use Twitter more effectively as a content curation tool (both inbound and outbound) going forward, particularly as Twitter puts more focus on getting users to understand how to use it (which they seem to be doing since Jack Dorsey returned).

Unfortunately, I recently saw the following ad atop the popular Drudge Report. The ad is without a doubt pulling at the heartstrings of a recession stricken America where hundreds of thousands are currently unemployed.

If you’ll notice the Drudge Report asks you to "Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers". Shouldn’t The Drudge Report hold itself up to a higher advertiser standard … especially since they ask you to click on it? Tell us what you think.

Upon clicking the ad it takes you to newspaper-ish looking article, that has no mention of Twitter hiring mind you, but instead is a story about Mike Steadman, and what do you know… he’s from where I live! Mike claims, "I get paid about $25 for every link I post on Twitter and I get paid every week… I make around $10500 a month right now". Good going Mike!

Oh, and at the bottom of the page it even says "Twitter is in no way associated with this website."

That’s some serious cabbage Mike, too bad it’s painfully fake and you’re probably a stock image from somewhere.

I viewed the source of the page and found out that the page is using a simple script to pull the Geo IP location to make it appear as if someone close to you is getting rich. Below you’ll see the same page as above but now Mike is from Washington, D.C. If you can’t trust Mike, whom can you trust these days?

This fake online newspaper, or whatever it’s supposed to be, is nothing more than a funnel which is attempting to get your credit card information. The moneyback guarantee for "Easy Twitter Cash" made me chuckle, remember the ad that lead me here said that I could be making $75/hr now check this out…

"After six days we will charge you $84.79 for the first month, and a lower discounted rate of $49.87 every month from the signup date thereafter until you cancel. Additionally, you will be charged $6.82/month for a Health Tracker subscription."

Seeing these ads on The DrudgeReport got me thinking about a couple of things…

1.) Has Twitter been too relaxed with their trademark/brand?
2.) Can Twitter do anything at this point to better control use of their brand by outsiders?
3.) Shouldn’t publishers, e.g. The DrudgeReport, step in and ask that such a misleading ad like Twitter Hiring be removed from their sites advertising rotation?

1.) Has Twitter been to relaxed?

That’s easy, the answer is yes. Twitter has been extremely easy going with their trademark/brand. Almost every 3rd party app/service has either Twitter, a bird, or the word tweet in the title. For example Twitterrific, TweetDeck, CoTweet, Tweetmeme… etc.

Below is an official response from Twitter about their trademarking of the word "Tweet"…

"We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important."

Social Media commentator Andy Beal had the following to say about Twitter trademarking the term "tweet" …

"I’m not a trademark attorney–if you are, correct me if I am wrong–but if you register a trademark, aren’t you obliged to police it? I was under the impression that if you didn’t prevent others from using your trademark, you risked losing the protections granted by its registration.

In addition, the above sentiment is how Twitter feels about the situation today, but what about in five years from now? What if it’s acquired by Google or News Corp–and they have a more stringent policy on the use of their trademarks?"

2.) Can Twitter gain control?

Alexander
Macgillivray

I do believe that Twitter can gain control of their trademark/brand, but it’s going to be difficult. Twitter might finally be on the right track with the recent rumored hiring of Alexander Macgillivray, who was Google’s associate general counsel for products and intellectual property. Will Alex bring to Twitter Google’s aggressive approach to protecting trademarks?

My guess is we’ll see a new Twitter before the end of the year, one that doesn’t just roll over.

3.) Publishers need to step up, and are they at fault?

The Drudge Report has 12 million unique visitors monthly, according to the media kit. They also certainly serve a lot of ad impressions to their readers, over 669 million in the past 31 days! Shouldn’t the Drudge Report be concerned with the quality and truthfulness of the ads displayed on their site?

The company that handles the advertising for The Drudge Report is Intermarkets, Inc. The following is a sentence from their website about "corporate integrity"…

"At Intermarkets we are committed to conducting business with integrity, building valuable win-win relationships and providing exceptional service."

With the above sentence in mind, Intermarkets may want to re-look at the "Twitter is Hiring" ad? Twitter isn’t hiring here, there is no Lexington Reporter publication, my Google search of Mike Steadman came up empty, the comments on the article don’t appear genuine, and there definitely is no affiliation with Twitter and the fine print mention of this doesn’t cut it! Oh, and by the way, I would love to meet a real person who makes $10,000 a month placing text ads in their tweets as a result of this program!

So, I guess the real question is… who is to blame for this misleading "Twitter is Hiring" ad? Is it The Drudge Report for not stepping in and saying pull it – or is it Intermarkets for even running the ad in their network? Tell us what you think.

This video comes on the heels of a video interview that outraged the Obama campaign when Joe Biden was asked if Obamba was a Marxist because of his view that government should spread the wealth of its citizens. This video now has over 1.5 million views on YouTube.

The power of YouTube and the Internet is in full swing during this election for sure.

The proxy fight is expected to shake up CNet, whose shares have underperformed the market and its competitors, leaving investors with a 19 percent loss over the last three years while other Internet-related companies grew.

According to the article CNET has rejected the offer because it does not pay a premium above its current stock price.

Previous story….

In a common Matt Drudge move an unlinked headline appeared just after midnight on the Drudge Report suggesting investors are plotting management changes at CNET.

The text reads:

"INVESTORS MAY BE SEEKING A TAKEOVER OF CNET... DEVELOPING..."

It is likely that Drudge was tipped by a news story in progress that will appear later tonight on the web and in papers early tomorrow. Time will tell.

CNET has been the subject of rumors and speculation for months and a recent analysts stock downgrade did not help.