Is Social Media our Only Savior at this point?

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   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   If we pump up our use of social media, i.e., marketing our articles more, will it help increase our traffic much? Or won't it make much difference because we are more dependent upon organic traffic? Something tells me we might have to wait out this drought. What say you?

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      The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      How about trying it on one Hub, as a test Hub, and leaving it a while to see if it works better than the other ones?

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I tweet and use my Facebook fan page.

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      sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Definitely think that social media helps. I don't do Facebook much myself but a radio station in the states linked one of my hubs to their Facebook page yesterday, the result of which has been quite striking.

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         brakel2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I think Pinterest is very helpful, especially if you have a good picture and text that draws interest. My feeling about our traffic is that it began to drop for individuals who lost the Google author ranking. At least that happened to me. Great job Sallybea to get attention from a radio station. It must be a hub with interesting content.

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            Dr Billy Kiddposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Google's re-ranking system cut my outside traffic in half for a while.

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            jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I do get pins every week, brakel2 but not enough to turn into real traffic. Like Facebook, I'm not as active there as I could be, don't have Pinterest savvy.

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Good for you, sallybea! I hope to get a hit like that. I'm not on the "social" side of Facebook either. I have a fan page/business page and post my articles there. I really don't have enough followers to get big hits, haven't taken the time to "boost my audience" as they say.

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            sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            i have very few followers, not sure how they found the hub but I did not post it - the radio station posted it - it has sure made a difference.

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               jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Nice! I guess it takes luck, too.

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         Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That's really something. Well done!

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      kenneth averyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      janshares, my dear friend, I bombed at Twitter two years ago--never could get anyone (with morals) to hcat with, so I just fell back on Facebook, but only on an occasion. I do not want to just post every hub I write for the friends I have on Facebook seemingly do not know how to understand the topics I publish, so I just use it sparingly.

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      eugbugposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      From my own personal experience of adding links to these social media entities, Pinterest is the only site which sends some traffic to my hubs. I have found Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Reddit, Digg, Delicious and similar sites useless and have received practically no traffic from them. Apparently you can be "shadow" banned on Reddit and Stumbleupon. This takes the form of showing posts to users so that they are unaware of the ban, but they cant be seen by others.
      I haven't had much luck with Facebook, but Google+ communities relevant to the topic of your hub can be a reasonable source of traffic.
      Learnist, which is similar to Pinterest, sent quite a lot of traffic to my hubs originally. I cant make out what they are up to recently though. They have quite a lot of categories/boards but only the select few pins make it onto these and the pins don't seem to change.
      Twitter could be a good way of marketing hubs. Unfortunately if your followers follows a lot of people, your tweet will just appear for a moment and get lost in the stream. So unless a follower is cyber stalking you and hanging on every word (sorry I mean tweet!) which comes out of your mouth, they are unlikely to catch it. Engaging in conversation with your followers is probably a good thing, rather than just broadcasting, and posing questions also stimulates activity. Its good also to add hashtags to all tweets so that they may appear in a list when someone clicks on a tag. Also Twitter users sometimes set their accounts to trigger a retweet on detection of a specific hashtag, so that's another reason for doing this.

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks a bunch, eugbug.

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      Phyllis Doyleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Sharing our hubs on social media is always a good idea. I mainly use G+ or facebook. Plus, when I read a hub from someone else,  if I think it is really good I share that on fb and/or G+ - so, it helps other hubbers.
      
      It is tough for all of us right now, but I am going to ride it out. I think that all the negative threads about HP on the forums does not help any of us - it only spawns more negativity and you can bet we are not the only ones to read that stuff.  I just go on with my usual routine and have faith that all will be well.

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         DrMark1961posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         This week I communicated with a hubber (via email) who had almost 100,000 page views this month. Do you think he is going to come onto the forums and announce this? I seriously doubt it, since if he does so his hubs will probably be copied.
         Is it any wonder that most of the forum users are complaining?

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      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Pinterest is my #1 referrer most days, which makes sense, because I write in two areas that are very pinnable: craft how-to lessons, and recipes. I do pin my own hubs to various boards. A lot of my mixed-media stuff goes on a group board that has over 6,000 followers.
      
      I think you should tailor your social media approach to the type of articles you write. For example, anyone writing on business topics should be posting them on LinkedIn, where they'll get more attention, rather than pinning to Pinterest.

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         The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Interesting lisavollrath, hmm, I am definitely going to consider that from now on.

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      peachpurpleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      i notice that is a slight difference when I share my hub links at the share medias, maybe around 5 views but that is better than nothing

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      relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      How do you expect social media to fare against a search engine that has declared war on content farms?

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      OldRosesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Jan, Pinterest is starting to generate traffic for me.  Of course, that may be because I write in the gardening niche which is very popular on Pinterest.  At least it is easier to figure out how to be successful at attracting Pinterest traffic (great photos) than it is trying to figure out what makes the Google gods happy!

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Goods pics to go with a popular topic will do it, OldRoses. Thanks for your input.

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       Vortex-Successposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       I'm new here, but aren't the guidelines suggesting not to share our content too much on the social media?

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          OldRosesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          To which guidelines are you referring Vortex?  Many hubbers market their hubs via social media.  I use Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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          Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          It is important not to spam social medias. So you do need to actually participate on those sites, and not simply post your links on them.

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       t aaron brownposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Does anyone here sponsor a Google+ community that I can join. I would like to participate.

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       t aaron brownposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       This group might be able to answer my question before I need to start a new discussion.
       
       Can I host the Title and Summary on my own website and have a hyperlink to the article?
       
       I do this with other editorials, and it is supported. HubPage policy is tricky to understand.

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   chef-de-jourposted 9 years ago

   I wish I had a definitive answer for this one! But I suspect no one has.
   Your solution - to wait it out, see what comes next - is perhaps a good option but I think maybe it's also a moral booster to look deeply at the hubs we've worked so hard on and tweak them here and there. Spruce them up. Work at them. Study SEO even, get the max we can out of these articles we love so much but Google deems mediocre content.
   
   And keep the quality of new hubs as high as we can, to counteract all the poorer stuff!! That's the reality I'm afraid.
   Jan I wish you all the best if you do experiment with social media. Fingers crossed. Please come back and tell us if you hit gold!

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      jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, chef-de-jour. I do tweet with hash tags but haven't hit big yet. I like your advice. I've been tweaking here and there, especially titles, and also removing some links and ads.

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   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   Thanks, kenneth. It seems that social media like Facebook and Twitter is more about the social part (tweeting, posting, liking, favoriting, pinning, following) than about actually clicking the link and reading the article. We really have to work hard to get a hit.

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      kenneth averyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi, janshares,
      How correct you are. I know that I would be perfectly-content to be a hit, so to speak, on HubPages. And with tollowers/friends like yourself, i am already a hit.
      Much peace to you, my friend.

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      Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I'm getting quite a bit of traffic from Pinterest. It is easy to use. You need to try that.

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I need to make better use of Pinterest, Barbara. I do get some traffic from my pins there but I don't visit or interact very much.

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            sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Pinterest is one of my best sources for traffic - it takes time to build up followers but is well worth it.

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               jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               

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            The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I have people pinning all day everyday Jan. The only other one that I use is G+.

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            The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Jan,
            According to GA, I get many views from Pinterest, but I am still not doing something to get comments from them. I have to figure that out.
            I know that I have many followers on Pinterest, that is still growing.

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               jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Kevin, thanks for your input. I keep hearing that it's good to use, especially with a lot of followers.

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   Marie Gailposted 9 years ago

   I've been actively marketing myself on social media for the past month both because I'm regrouping here on HubPages and because I am launching my web content business. LinkedIn seems to be promising, but I'm having trouble getting actual clicks. My FB posts are working better. I make sure to tag friends I know will be interested in a particular Hub when I share the link, and sometimes I post links to a related Hub when I'm conversing on a thread on someone else's FB page. Those almost always garner clicks. I haven't "figured out" Pintrest yet, but it sounds like that might be an important next step for me. I thought it was mostly for photos rather than substantive articles.

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      jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, Marie.

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   sara0129posted 9 years ago

   Just like sallybea, pinterest is my best bet at the moment.

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      sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Twitter is good too - the more your following the better it will be.  Use # in appropriate places as this will take it public wide, rather than just to your followers on twitter.  Reply to those who are nice enough to follow you or send a message and tweet their hubs too when you can.

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   Solarasposted 9 years ago

   I was using the referral tracker to post to Google+ and thinking G+ was not doing much for me.  Yet, when I checked that earlier today, I see 8700 traffic views (mostly from the last 5 months), those must be coming from G+ shares as FB does very little for me. 
   
   So it is not as worthless as I was thinking.  My original thought was a G+ share brought in 5 or 6 views, but they do keep growing.

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   Solarasposted 9 years ago

   Also, it makes a big difference if you comment on the share and don't just post the link.  No comment is viewed as spammy, while a lead in gives people a reason to click.

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   sweetpikezposted 9 years ago

   I'm also new here and tried different ways that I know can help accelerate my traffic. Sharing via social media like facebook is a plus factor in my traffic source. This was testified by GAnalytics.

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   shellys-spaceposted 9 years ago

   Ditto on the comments about Pinterest. I have not had as much time to spend on Pinterest since the "switch" over to HubPages, but it continues to be a main source of traffic for me.

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