Top 20 @PamMktgNut Social Media Posts of 2011

Wow, what a great year 2011 was for the social ecosystem. It's amazing how much the understanding of what it takes to be a social businesses has evolved yet we still have so far to go.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a data junkie. The desire to measure impact and ROI runs deep in my bones. I can't avoid it.

As I prepare for the new year ahead I am deep in analytics to understand what went right, what could have been better. There is so much to learn from analyzing how readers interact with and share our content. As I dig thru the data, reviewing the content that was popular at the beginning of the year to now, it's really evolved. I'm not sure if it's just me and my loyal readers and community or if it's the ecosystem as a whole. My assumption is it's the later.

Below is the first 2011 output analysis of my personal blog at www.pammarketingnut.com as well as our agency site ZoomFactor. It includes the top 20 posts by unique pageviews. We are also analyzing everything from viral shares, traffic sources, impact of syndication to conversions. Using simple and free measurement tools such as Google Analytics, Infusionsoft email marketing CRM and sales reports we can track exactly what blog posts drove what actions and business results. Very exciting for a data nut!

We hit and beat many of our business and online marketing goals this year. We could have never done it without the loyal readership of all of you. There are no words to explain how thankful I am for your readership, tweets, Facebook posts and friendship. I am blessed to have gotten to know many of you personally and look forward to 2012 and meeting and working with more of you in real life!!

Key Learnings and Summary:

There were some surprising differences between the top shared and the top viewed. Top shared posts doesn't necessarily equal top viewed thanks to Google organic :)
Google organic really kicked in for us starting late July. This is right after the launch of Google+ and also the same time I switched to the StudioPress framework. My guess is the increase in organic traffic is a result of both.
Twitter posts get higher shares on Twitter.
Facebook posts get higher shares on Facebook.
LinkedIn drove more traffic than we expected.
Facebook posts performed extremely well.
The social business posts performed very well even though most were written in the past two months several almost beat out posts written in early 2011.
BufferApp drove traffic within seconds of installing the button. Thank you BufferApp team for including us in your launch of the latest button!
Taking time for proper selection and right placement of share buttons pays off. We spent much time on this and don't regret it.
Moving domains makes it difficult to easily measure viral shares. We moved the agency domain to www.zoomfactoronline.com and lost some easily measurable viral share data.
Time to publish / market for new content drives organic traffic. Being one of the first to write about a new feature or topic provides traffic benefits for months.
Having an opinion and being brave enough to share it drives not just traffic but also conversation, builds relationships and can help establish thought leadership around specific intentional topics.
People like to be inspired. I always talk about this. However, nothing speaks louder than data. Most of the fun posts that we wrote with a crazy spin to them did very well. Many had top viral shares.
People like to be educated. Sometimes the simple “how to” posts drive the greatest benefit for some readers and have the longest “shelf life” in regard to Google organic and other traffic.
We have the same but also very different readership on my personal blog at www.pammarketingnut.com vs the agency site www.zoomfactoronline.com. The data proves this easily.
Top lists and tips work. I know some people preach these are bad. However, people read them. Time on page is longer, pages visited is higher, bounce rate is lower.
I love Social Media Today and Business to Community and am very thankful for them both syndicating my content. Both sites drive good amount of traffic.
Many thanks to Dino Dogan, Dan Cristo and my Triberr buddies and particularly my own Social Nut Tribe! Thanks for sharing my posts with your followers and taking the time to get to know me and my content.
Continuing to pump out the best possible content you can create will eventually pay off. Even if you have 10 visitors a day right now don't give up! I launched my personal blog just over a year ago. In 2011 it made the AdAge Power150 and Top 100 Technorati Small Business blogs. You can do it! Go get -r-done peeps!

What do you think?

Have you done the analysis on your blog and other social platforms? What surprising metrics did you find? Were the results what you thought they would be?