Introducing the “Sphinn Effect”

Filed in Social Media by Matt McGee on July 16, 2007 3 Comments

The new search-specific social media site Sphinn has been online less than a week, but already has more than 500 registered members (by my unofficial count). In the first couple days, many of us have written about Sphinn with words like “fun,” “cool,” “distracting,” and “addictive.”

But is it also good for business? In other words, are there benefits to having your site/blog featured on Sphinn? Is there a Sphinn-effect when you hit the home page, like the well known “digg-effect” from having your site/blog hit digg.com’s home page?

My Yes, Virginia, There ARE Followed Wikipedia Links post hit the Sphinn home page on Friday, as shown here:

Sphinn screenshot

Here’s what happened:

1) Links: For reasons I haven’t thought about yet, the exposure didn’t generate much in the way of links — only 8 total, four of which Technorati lists as duplicates. And I’m sure at least one of those links happened before the post reached Sphinn’s home page.

2) Traffic: Here’s where the real benefit was. On Friday, while that post was featured at the top of the Sphinn home page for at least a couple hours and stayed near the top almost all day, traffic to this blog increased dramatically. Here’s a chart showing traffic on my “Sphinn Friday” compared to the previous four Fridays before Sphinn existed:

Sphinn effect

Going backwards, traffic was up 52%, 127%, 39%, and 119%, respectively, over those other four Fridays. The gray bar shows more clearly the distance from each previous Friday to the “Sphinn Friday.”

3) Feed subscriptions: My Feedburner stats passed 1,200 for the first time on Friday, which was up about 30 from the day before. Feedburner numbers are an inexact count from what I understand, but that’s still a positive jump.

Conclusion: Is there a Sphinn-effect? I’d say so, based on the traffic and subscription numbers. You’ll be disappointed if you expect to see anything like the tidal wave Digg creates, but c’mon — Sphinn isn’t even a week old! Based on my first-ever Sphinn home page appearance, I’m more than pleased with what happened. It’s good to get Sphunn. ๐Ÿ™‚

PS – Welcome to the new readers and subscribers! Thanks for hanging out. Comments are always welcome, but you do have to register and your first comment is moderated.

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