Heather Hopkins at Hitwise has been doing some interesting research on how Facebook is becoming an important sources of traffic to news and media websites.

First, she found that Facebook (3.52%) is the #4 upstream source of visits to News and Media sites last week, after Google (17.32%), Yahoo! (7.89%) and msn (4.43%), much ahead of Google News at #9 (1.39%). News and Media is the #11 downstream industry for Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the site’s traffic. This trend will become stronger as Facebook encourages users to subscribe to news pages and create their personalized news channel.

Second, she found that Facebook sends downstream traffic to broadcast media websites like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, while Google News sends downstream traffic to print media websites like New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Moreover, she didn’t find any correlation between the amount of traffic Facebook sends a site and the number of fans a brand has on its Facebook page. So, it seems that Facebook users are sharing more stories from broadcast media than from print media.

Third, she found that visitors from Facebook are more loyal to News and Media websites than are visitors from Google News. Among the top 5 print media and the top 5 broadcast media websites respectively, 78% and 77% of Facebook users were returning visitors compared to 67% and 64% from Google News. It’s not surprising because users who are subscribed to news and media Facebook Pages are more likely to visit them repeatedly.

So, if you are a news and media company, here are the key takeaways –

1. Create content that your readers want to share with their friends.

2. Build a strong Facebook Page with a large subscriber base and encourage fans to share content with their friends with a clear call to action.

3. On your own website, make it easy to share content on Facebook, by doing a deep Facebook Connect integration and displaying Share on Facebook buttons prominently.


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