Every Online Business, large or small has some few consistent sources of Online traffic to their website. Mainly the Direct Traffic, Sponsored Advertising Traffic and Organic Search Engine traffic.
The Long tail for Traffic Sources can be explained as:
A) Numerous Sources each generating smaller amount of targeted traffic.
B) Cumulatively form a significant percentage of overall traffic.
Advantage of Long tail traffic sources
A) Never be completely dependent on few sources of traffic. Never put all eggs in one basket.
B) Mitigate the risk due to competition & market dynamics.
C) Find New segment of target audience.
a. Forums, Social Networks, New Media formats also attract good amount of targeted traffic.
93% of IT professionals in US find social network helpful for professional solutions.
b. 60% of facebook users login daily.
c. It Industry spends more time in Social Media
How to develop a long tail of traffic sources
A) Optimize sites to support all types of users, media formats (Video, Images, Audio).
B) Do not ignore the needs of even a small percentage of users on your site.
C) Include features in your site for every new type of users as well. For example: Video/Audio/Image content users,
Why the effort?
A) People are increasingly using social media sites like del.icio.us, digg, facebook, answers etc.
B) Support your users to use your product on every social site.
B) Competition on newer traffic sources is less, so it is better to make the first move.
C) It is important to increase the length of the long tail.
D) It is also important to increase the width of the long tail.
D) Develop applications to like Blog, gadget, Facebook application, podcast subscription.
Using the Face Book example, which has more than 230% growth even in countries like India:
A) The idea behind making the site Open to developers was to increase the long tail of traffic.
B) Facebook now supports all type of users & all needs of users.
C) Even the need of small percentage of users to share Books is met by a Book application, which notifies people of best books and rates them. Face book car pool application, Face book Linkedin Application
D) Each application on facebook could have been a new profitable online business altogether.
E) Facebook’s is a collection of multiple brilliant ideas put in one single site. This has exploded the website, traffic, activity and popularity & brand value.
F) Every small & medium business can cash in traffic on Facebook by creating an innovative application for users. By giving freedom to external developers it has allowed them to create products for Facebook. These products meet the needs of even the smallest percentage of users on the site.
G) This is the biggest USP of facebook: satisfying the remote need of the smallest percentage of users with products developed by external developers who in turn get their brand promoted.
Overall Facebook wins by ensuring the long tail grows longer and wider.
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