Unbelievable Moment on Wizzley!

Thank you very much, Jase.

Jo, those are the stats that are interesting (to me at least).

1k hits from countries other than US and Canada are still sig. figs. for a single day on a single article. Don't forget, when you have something positive to yell about on the Wizzley forum, it is equally worth shouting about on Twitter etc. Not only for you but for Wizzley also. 

When Wizzley takes off as your article did, then it will benefit us all. Did the clicks through to Amazon generate any sales of love fiction?

It would also be helpful to understand how long a viral Reddit takes before the traffic returns to normal.

Thanks for sharing and adding to our overall knowledge of how these things pan out.

Now we need to sit down, get our community thinking caps on, and figure out how we can cause similar traffic flows and to generate income from them.

Anyone interested in forming a think-tank on this phenomenon?

A wonderfully done page Jo, big congrats to you! 

I, of course, cannot contribute anything of value to a think-tank on this subject. But consider me an enthusiastic cheerleader, waiting patiently to hear the analyses of those more versed in this subject than me.

I so appreciate the knowledgeable responses to Jo's post and thank you all for teaching me so much.

From a direct income standpoint - traffic from such a source is nearly worthless, can even be damaging in the short term.

It can be extra annoying if you are paying for the bandwidth, it is not incredibly uncommon to block such sites as traffic sources or to simply have a site go down from being overwhelmed with traffic.

Usually, the only real plus is if you can succeed in getting subscribers (via rss/feedburner/email newsletters) then perhaps you can reap some longer term gains in readership, sharing, brand awareness, ego etc.

I like to play with tweaks in real time when an article is in the midst of a reddit/digg/trending spike. 

Reddit in particular is used by more techy types who have complete ad blindness/use adblockers and are savvy enough to go look for a better deal if a product happens to catch their eye.

Other than increased chances for random luck, I cant think of any real direct (income related) use for social traffic at a shared site.

People who own their own sites can even use the inflated stats figures to charge more for advertising - but on a shared article site, I think it is only the joy of being read and sharing something you cared enough about to write about.

which is reward in its own right, innit

By the way, if you do not already know Sunforged you should look out for, and take notice of, what he has to say. I have always, and will always, place great stead in any post he makes. You should all do likewise.

Thank you all for your comments.  :)

Chaz, I've certainly been shouting about it on Twitter. Starting with from the service station last night.

There have been no sales from the Amazon clicks; and I will let you know when it returns to normal.  It's not quite as yampy at the moment.  A mere 1250 hits so far today.  Mere... *grin*

I'll let you know when it all returns to normal.

I'd be well up for a think-tank.

Sunforged, are you saying don't use social networking now?

Hi Jo,

I certainly still do some basic social promotion, the ease of the process and the small time expenditure is worth the "gamble"

I would even say I do lots of social networking as most of the niches I found any success in I expanded to their own branded sites with the full litany of connected accounts at all the social networks.

I was just trying to give some perspective between the usual outcome of organic targeted traffic that actively searches out your content and the uninvolved, "browsey" fun traffic that appears from digg/reddit etc (What we would usually call "social bookmarking" rather than "social networking")

No, I don't self submit to digg/reddit etc, but you didn't either!

I intended more of a "don't be disappointed by the direct earnings" and was agreeing with Chaz in the dilemma that those sources create, my response to the think-tank, really!

There can be all sorts of ancillary benefits that we cant define or track so readily. I have read an article or two of yours in the past, they are well written and If I remember right included some topics off the beaten path ..who knows if you got a read by an editor, a journalist, a webmaster with big readership etc etc. You never know within that 70k plus visits what eyes you caught and how that may pan out to other opportunities. Unfortunately, we do pretty much know that a direct earnings spike is very uncommon but that isn't the only benefit.

So, congratulations! It is still an awesome achievement!

*blush*  Thank you.

And yes, I do know not to expect riches to go with the fleeting fame. :)    I was mostly clarifying whether I should still be Tweeting etc, but it sounds like I'm on the right path.

Thanks for your valuable insights.

Congratulations Jo! If anyone is interested in promoting their content on Reddit, as I am a frequent user of the site, I've written an article here which I hope covers all bases and may answer any questions anyone may have about the site. It is also my second ever article so any improvements or feedback is much appreciated!

Thanks for creating it, Paul.  It was very, very useful!

It also includes a screenshot of my stats right now, if anyone wants the laugh.

Paul, your Reddit article - readit, and I found it a well-written informative read. Keep it up, you will be well received here when you share your experience with Wizzley authors. We are also very supportive and share our time as appropriate.

And Jo, I see what you mean about your stats graph being of little use for some time hence. You've been spiked!

Congrats, Jo!

Having that many people look at your work has to lead to much more wonderful news! Big congrats.

What it does teach us all is that there are that many people out there that are willing to use their time to read even what is an esoteric article - we could not call Jo's article mainstream, and none of us would have found this subject using keyword research.

Find the right place to promote a work, or better still find someone else, who has influence or the knowledge, to promote it in the right place for you and the sky is the limit in terms of visitor numbers. If we can crack the 'right place' issue then traffic will follow.

Paul has suggested some good places for certain types of content to be posted on Reddit. Perhaps a new forum category could be set up that has posts about where best to promote certain types of content for the best results - Chef???, good or bad idea?

With knowledge we move forward. With shared knowledge we all move forward together.

Thank you for your kind words Humagaia! I'm more than happy to share my knowledge of Reddit in terms of where things should be posted if that's needed anywhere. :)

Thanks Paula and Digby. :)   And thanks for the insights, Chaz and Paul.

Up-dated info:  The day after the unbelievable spike, I was still getting a traffic boost, but not in the same league.   Usually I average between 500-700 hits a day.   Yesterday I got just over 2,000.  

None of this has made a monetary impact.   But I am seeing referral links from a lost of new sites.   I'm taking this as being invaluable for publicity and organic back-links.

Paul, how worth it would a Wizzley sub-Reddit be?   Or would that only serve to isolate our articles there?

A Wizzley subreddit probably wouldn't be the best idea as the most likely case would be that people would need to have heard of Wizzley before they searched for the subreddit. Furthermore it would only serve the same features as what the Wizzley homepage does now albeit with a different ranking system. I think it would also be somewhat detrimental to the articles as it would force more of the discussion onto Reddit rather than on the comment section of the posted article.

On a side note, for your hits yesterday, were they all the same article or was it a combination of them all? It'd be impressive if Reddit is still giving potentially 400% boost in hits the day after.

And this is why having someone familiar with Reddit is so useful!

No, my figures are for a combination of my articles.   However, the article in question contributed 1000 of those hits.  Until then, it was one which wasn't getting a great deal of attention.  Perhaps 5-10 hits a week.

Half of the internet appears to be linking to it now.

I just stumbled it. Maybe you'll see another little boost.