When it comes to link sharing in social media, it turns out it's not about where you share it -- it's about what you share. New research from URL shortening service bitly focuses on how long a link is "alive” before people stop engaging with it and whether it matters what kind of content it is or where it was shared.
By calculating what bitly is calling the link's 'half life' (the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak), bitly evaluated the persistence of 1,000 popular bitly links, and found some strikingly similar results.
Half Life Research Results
- The mean half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours.
- The mean half life of a link on Facebook is 3.2 hours.
- The mean half life of a link via ‘direct’ sources such as email or instant messaging clients is 3.4 hours.
- The mean half life of a link on YouTube is 7.4 hours.
In a nutshell, bitly's research reveals that generally, links shared on Facebook, Twitter, and via direct sources like email or instant message have a shelf life of about 3 hours. This excludes YouTube, where people remain interested in links for more than twice that -- 7 hours! And while you can expect that the majority of links will only remain interesting for less than 2 hours, others can generate a lot more interaction and clicks, lasting for more than 11 hours.
From this, bitly concludes that when it comes to the lifespan of a link (if you exclude YouTube from the equation), it's not where the link is shared that matters; instead, it's more important what the link shares (the content) that has the potential to attract more clicks and engagement.
Marketing Takeaway
Bitly's research indicates that when it comes to promoting content in social media, marketers need to focus mostly on quality. Whether a link makes it in social media depends on the content it points to, so marketers should put the majority of their efforts into creating remarkable content that has the potential to make an impact. It's not enough to just post any links to Facebook and Twitter. Rather, marketers need to make sure that the content they link to is high in quality and valuable to its audience in order to reap the maximum benefits of social media marketing.
When it comes to content creation, are you placing enough emphasis on quality?
Photo Credit: Alex Barth
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Kim Phillips 9:04 AM on September 08, 2011
Not sure how this data indicates that quality matters. If the shelf life of a link is only 3 hours, what difference does it make what it points to? Seems to me the data indicates that WHEN you post is the most important thing.
The Click Whisperer 9:32 AM on September 08, 2011
Pamela, where's your twitter handle so I can follow you? This is a great article and sums up what I've been preaching all along.
What does it mean practically though? How does this tell me an optimum post frequency on each SM presence/publication?
Anyone?
Anshul 9:58 AM on September 08, 2011
Kinda agree with Kim here....
Pamela Vaughan 10:00 AM on September 08, 2011
Kim: The reason bitly is saying it's about quality is because posts ranged from a half life of less than 2 hours all the way to 11 hours. They think that what makes a post last longer has to do with the quality of the post, meaning a post that had a half life of 11 hours was probably better quality than a post that lasted less than 2 hours.
@Click Whisperer: The research didn't really focus on post frequency, but here is some data about tweet frequency: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4594/Is-22-Tweets-Per-Day-the-Optimum.aspx. (You can follow me @pamelump) :o)
Kim Phillips 10:40 AM on September 08, 2011
Good content is always the key and probably does make a link last a bit longer. But the main takeaway I see here is that timing is key.
Delilahj 11:37 AM on September 08, 2011
Don't you think the shelf life is longer when others take your link and re-post? For others to take the time to re-post your original link, it must be good quality or it sits on the shelf, just like any other inferior product.
Kate Haley 3:24 PM on September 08, 2011
I tend to agree with Kim here as well. "Quality" is hard to measure and it's speculation that this is the determining factor on link longevity. It seems that Kim's hypothesis on the post timing has more weight and would be easier to demonstrate. I'd be interested in seeing some test cases run....
Hsuan 4:00 PM on September 08, 2011
I agree with Delilahj and Kim. I would think reposting plays a factor and timing plays a HUGE factor.
Simon Birt 8:41 AM on September 09, 2011
So bitley needed research to come to the conclusion that quality of content matters? Seriously?
Sam Ash 1:32 PM on September 09, 2011
This tells me that most people don't click on youtube links during work hours. They wait until the end of the day or when they get home.
The delta between FB and Twitter is marginal at best. Don't read too much into this report folks.
George 2:48 PM on September 09, 2011
Really interesting post. I'm curious as to the half life of links posted in blogs.
Nick Phillips 5:16 PM on September 09, 2011
I'm with Kim on this one. I thought the "what" was a typo at first. The whole time I was reading this I kept thinking about how it is more important to know what the best time is to post. The what argument maybe would have worked had you talked about edgerank and how better content would lead to higher engagement allowing the edgerank score to be higher thus keeping it in the feed a little longer and allowing it reach a larger group of fans/followers
Debbie Bruce 8:17 PM on September 09, 2011
Even though I came across this link a good 24 hours past it's shelf life, I still think it's relevant ;) Great posting.