I love the "ShareThis" service. It makes it so easy to pass a page along to a friend or colleague via Email, Twitter, Facebook, or one of a couple dozen other services -- so I have it plugged into my website (see the green icon at the bottom of each blog post), and I use the "ShareThis Button" in my web browser. A couple of weeks ago they published some very interesting data and discussion of "The Value of Sharing: Social Engagement" on their blog. It is a quite instructive (and quick) read for anyone seeking to better understand the dynamics of the Internet's sharing culture. Tim Schigel begins by explaining:"...sharing is growing. On a “per page view” level, we’ve seen a 200 percent increase in the shares per page view across our 125,000+ sites in 2009. This means for every page view consumed, the rate of sharing has doubled, meaning our publishers are getting better at optimizing their sharing and consumers now expect it to be there."Focus for a moment on the last suggestion, that “consumers now expect it to be there.” We all know what its like to judge the quality of the content or the organization publishing it by the quality of the website, but I wonder if there is not a growing trend to judging quality based on the forethought shown by the publisher in providing a means to share it. I know that, when I find a site that makes sharing difficult I often think “pshh, they don’t know what they’re doing here, do they?”
I’d also look at their graphs concerning the “Share” and “Click” phase, suggesting that the inverted source phenomenon (so few shares on Twitter producing such a proportionately high amount of actual clicks) may be attributable to the possibility that the heavy Twitter users are the folks playing the “connector” or “maven” role in the information society. They are, to borrow the phrase, "small, yet mighty?" (And, given the depth of the visit, these folks may also be a tad bit busier than the average grandmother with an email account.)In any case, there are some interesting insights fed by some interesting data. Give the full post a read.