Facebook: Almost all your traffic will come from Facebook.
Reddit: Good luck. If you crack it, you are a God.
Tumblr: Slow cook it to perfection.
Twitter: If you do it right, it can make a dent.
—Upworthy
“The traffic potential of the social web is far beyond what most media sites recognize. We all might think we understand Facebook and Twitter’s power to drive traffic. But it turns out that when you actually create content specifically meant for those networks—particularly Facebook—they drive vastly more traffic than ever seemed possible.”
—Ezra Klein
Addendum (2/24/2014):
“[People] talk about ‘social media’ and ‘sharing’ generally, but specifically it is as much about gaming Facebook as SEO was about gaming Google.”
—Alex Pareene
Addendum (11/4/2014):
“Search from Google still creates inbound interest, and Twitter can spark attention, especially among media types, but when it comes to sheer tonnage of eyeballs, nothing rivals Facebook.”
—David Carr
Addendum (12/30/2014):
“A story’s shareability is now largely determined by its shareability on Facebook.”
—Alexis Madrigal
“Facebook should be 80% of your effort, if you’re focussed on social media.”
—Emerson Spartz
Addendum (2/20/2015):
“Every good media organization knows that the road to traffic leads through Facebook rather than Twitter ... Twitter is worthless for the limited purpose of driving traffic to your website, because Twitter is not a portal for outbound links, but rather a homepage for self-contained pictures and observations.”
—Derek Thompson
