Traffic Spike - The Viral Case Study

deano6410 · 19-12-06

Good evening,

As you are probably aware it has been a crazy week for me.

I posted an amusing e-mail conversation on my blog and someone put it on Digg.com where it got over 1000 Diggs and actually appeared on the main page twice as two seperate submissions.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the traffic and recognition from Digg was very impressive, but then on the same day the story was picked up by Reddit.com and I was featured on their main page (top 10) for around 24 hours. This brought even more traffic and on two occasions the server crashed due to the amount of traffic.

72 hours later the story had been picked up by numerous blogs and webmaster related sites, and by Tuesday it was starting to calm down. But all of that changed on Wednesday evening when my site was featured on the Slashdot.org main page.

Once again the traffic was immense and my server went down for 15 minutes.

Anyway, it has now been over a week since this all started and this morning I had an msn chat with a friend who is a webmaster. He told me that if I created an ebook as a case study of this whole experience then I could make a LOT of money from it.

But I am happy to just release it for FREE as a case study to answer any questions that other webmasters may have regarding what has been described as "the viral marketing story of 2006" :eek:

So if my experience can help anyone else, then it may be worth doing.

Here are some of the topics I think may be of interest:

Digg v Slashdot v Reddit (Which was best? which got the most traffic? which got the most links/attention?)

What I would have done differently

Why I think the story was so big

What to do after you have gone viral

What not to do

Hoax or genuine?

Legal advice I received

Expect a backlash

My Alexa rank vs national tabloid newspapers

Is viral marketing a valid method for promotion

Also....

I believe it is VERY rare for a web site to appear on virtually all of the main social news sites in such a short space of time. I was also featured on Del.icio.us, stumpleupon, Fark, Netscape, Shoutwire, newsvine and numerous others. I also featured on the major SEO sites such as v7n, seobook, seroundtable, searchenginejournal and many, many more.

I am probably not the first person to have featured on all of these sites, but to have featured on them in such a short space of time is certainly unique. What is also very interesting is the fact that prior to this traffic spike my blog was PR2 and only had around 150 visits per day, so this means that it is very easy to calculate the EXACT effects of this experience. If you compare this to perhaps thesun.co.uk then it would be extremely tricky to assess which links/traffic etc were caused by which factors.

So from a webmaster perspective the data that I have compiled could be extremely valuable.

I have taken over 100 screen shots of all aspects of this event, and I have detailed stats on all areas: Alexa, backlinks, traffic details, conversions, feed stats, adsense revenue and a LOT more.

I also have learned a LOT about viral marketing because of this event. So I am considering compiling my thoughts and tips and also speaking to other experts in this area.

So my BIG questions are... Would you be interested in any of this? is it worth me writing this report? what what you like me to discuss in this report?

I am keen to hear your feedback.

Dean

deano6410 · 19-12-06

Those of you wondering why I am calling this "Traffic Spike" Alexa graph

Feel free to compare my traffic to that of a4uforum.co.uk :eek:

loquax · 19-12-06

Quote:

Would you be interested in any of this?

I'd be interested if there was a section included in why the whole thing became so big? I've read your blog, the various sites, the comments and I just don't see what the big excitement is about - was it (i.e. the email) really that big a deal?

The SEO bullying aspect imo kind of cropped up to fit round the initial story - and for me it was an email that became a "eeh you can't do that you swine" story out of very little (ok fair play to you for what it created, can't argue with that). Had you ran the story on say the third/fourth communication with the other party and that clearly demonstrated the issue - then for me that'd have given things a bit more gumption.

Being slightly in devilish mood (as by now you should expect) - if you receive an email from a customer/user of your website - at what point is it acceptable to cross the line from private communication to airing the issue in public?

Overall, no to buying the ebook, fascinated by the whole snowball affect of what for me is a pretty non-event (sorry) - although it does now make me think I shouldn't delete crappy emails from all and sundry but instead publish them - we've been sat on viral traffic gold for years and didn't know it

Nice one - and overall whatever I think you can't argue with the stats.

Jason

deano6410 · 19-12-06

I'd be interested if there was a section included in why the whole thing became so big? I've read your blog, the various sites, the comments and I just don't see what the big excitement is about - was it (i.e. the email) really that big a deal? Initially I was thinking exactly the same. I posted it as a bit of fun because his e-mail amused me. But I also had no idea that anyone was going to care. I have since done a lot of research, and I can now see why it had so much attention.

The SEO bullying aspect imo kind of cropped up to fit round the initial story - and for me it was an email that became a "eeh you can't do that you swine" story out of very little (ok fair play to you for what it created, can't argue with that). Had you ran the story on say the third/fourth communication with the other party and that clearly demonstrated the issue - then for me that'd have given things a bit more gumption. Agreed.

Being slightly in devilish mood (as by now you should expect) - if you receive an email from a customer/user of your website - at what point is it acceptable to cross the line from private communication to airing the issue in public? These were my exact thoughts. That is why I removed any sensitive information from the e-mails. However, I have since had some legal advice, and to be honest I would not recommend publishing e-mails. However, this is more about viral marketing as a whole, as opposed to my experience.
Obviously I will be discussing my experience a lot, but only so that other webmasters can take away the general points and apply where necessary to their business.

Overall, no to buying the ebook, fascinated by the whole snowball affect of what for me is a pretty non-event (sorry) - although it does now make me think I shouldn't delete crappy emails from all and sundry but instead publish them - we've been sat on viral traffic gold for years and didn't know it. There will be NO buying of any ebooks, as I said "It is FREE".

Nice one - and overall whatever I think you can't argue with the stats. Agreed. I would imagine that a 50,000 pound budget would be required to get anywhere near the exposure I got for free, so this is obviously a major marketing tool that is only just starting to be used by the major companies. But it is by far the most powerful tool ANY web site owner has.

loquax · 19-12-06

Quote:

this is obviously a major marketing tool that is only just starting to be used by the major companies

Are you saying that Viral Marketing is just starting to be used by major companies?

Jason

deano6410 · 19-12-06

I am not an expert, but it seems that companies are starting to see it more and more as the most powerful tool in their armoury. In the past it was seen as more a novelty thing.

For example, how many of the webmasters here on A4u set aside a certain amount of time/money each year for viral campaigns? now compare that to the amount of people who have time/money for SEO & PPC.

There are viral sites popping up all over the place now, I may be wrong, but I expect viral marketing to be a major talking point in 07.

Alfie · 19-12-06

Hi Deano, i'd be very interested indeed! Obviously the key is coming up with a great Viral idea - but from what you have said, and what i have read, this report could help to exploit a successful idea to the max!

Also, well done! Thats an awesome amount of traffic!!

Alf!

renegade · 19-12-06

I'm interested, I think any webmaster looking for traffic would be. Top marks for being so organised and keeping records of everything, I look forward to reading the report - which will be your next traffic spike.

Soletrader · 19-12-06

180,000 visitors in the last 30 days. Oh I do hope you're making an absolute fortune!

All webmasters and bloggers. Oh, I could do so much with that audience

Stellar · 19-12-06

Deano,

I would love to read the ebook when it is done. I am very interested in viral marketing and plan on try some myself at some point soon.

I had a look at your blog (haven't seen it until now) and it looks good.. I have added it to my delicious account so that I remember to read it reguarly!

Nice one.