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There's a particularly irksome reference in this article: > took out roughly 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic while hammering its profit margins. From my

There's a particularly irksome reference in this article: > took out roughly 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic while hammering its profit margins. From my admittedly limited expertise this would be called "Social" traffic. In a time gone by, even "Referral" traffic. I don't imagine that the frequency of links appearing in private news feeds would lead to any change in organic traffic. It may well be an editorial error, but if it's from the horses mouth it's almost as worrying as the marketing strategy itself.

paxys 9y ago
I'm almost certain that this isn't an error, and they actually lost 75% of all real traffic. The entire "marketing strategy" of blogs/sites such as these is to create viral/click-bait articles and hope people share them on Facebook and similar websites.
shostack 9y ago
You are correct from a cross-channel standpoint, FB traffic would typically be called "Social" or even "Referral" in some cases. In this case, I'd guess they are referring to their organic reach within FB that in turn drove traffic to their site. I could also see it impacting actual organic traffic though. To the degree search algorithms may factor in social relevance, any backlinks gained from things shared on social and then posted to websites, etc., I could see plummeting social reach ripple out to organic traffic to Google potentially.
AJ007 9y ago
The better word for organic here is free traffic. Buying newsfeed ads was either at a loss or break even but the sharing/interactions from the paid stuff triggered the free traffic. The founders of LittleThings knew what they were doing. I’m guessing they pocketed good profits in the beginning and then tried to cash out at the end. Everyone knew this Facebook newsfeed traffic would end like Zynga. It has been a big positive for publishers who were getting lower CPMs because these sites were sucking display network ad spend dry every day. I assume it’s also a big positive for society since fewer drivers are looking at dumb Facebook clickbait while flying down the highway.

paxys 9y ago

I'm almost certain that this isn't an error, and they actually lost 75% of all real traffic. The entire "marketing strategy" of blogs/sites such as these is to create viral/click-bait articles and hope people share them on Facebook and similar websites.

shostack 9y ago

You are correct from a cross-channel standpoint, FB traffic would typically be called "Social" or even "Referral" in some cases. In this case, I'd guess they are referring to their organic reach within FB that in turn drove traffic to their site. I could also see it impacting actual organic traffic though. To the degree search algorithms may factor in social relevance, any backlinks gained from things shared on social and then posted to websites, etc., I could see plummeting social reach ripple out to organic traffic to Google potentially.

AJ007 9y ago

The better word for organic here is free traffic. Buying newsfeed ads was either at a loss or break even but the sharing/interactions from the paid stuff triggered the free traffic. The founders of LittleThings knew what they were doing. I’m guessing they pocketed good profits in the beginning and then tried to cash out at the end. Everyone knew this Facebook newsfeed traffic would end like Zynga. It has been a big positive for publishers who were getting lower CPMs because these sites were sucking display network ad spend dry every day. I assume it’s also a big positive for society since fewer drivers are looking at dumb Facebook clickbait while flying down the highway.