So what effect do Twitter referrals have on traffic to news sites? Next to none, apparently
It may seem strange or counter-intuitive to people like myself, who increasingly find themselves using Twitter as their preferred source of referrals and feeds for news content, reportage, opinion and analysis from media sites around the world, but new research from the European internet monitor AT Internet Institute shows that Twitter’s impact on news traffic in France is minuscule – only 0.1 per cent of referrals. Facebook is responsible for 1.3 per cent of traffic.
As PaidContent.org points out, these figures for Twitter are not dissimilar from those in the States, although Facebook has more referring power there.
It’s a well-known fact that journalists love Twitter for its speed, its brevity and its openness – it’s a gossip’s dream. But I wonder is it possible that their enthusiasm for the platform causes them to over estimate its importance in the media landscape?