Traffic Exchanges: Social v. Non Social…Is One Better Than The Other?

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a long time now so many thanks for ThumbVu‘s John Guanzon for giving me the incentive to do so.

If you have been following this blog lately you will know that John has a ‘Crowd Sourcing’ experiment going on at his own blog as part of a series of posts about traffic exchanges.

His latest ‘Crowd Sourcing‘ question is: “Social or non-social. Discuss the pros and cons of each,” so here are my thoughts:

A somewhat knee-jerk reaction to the question would be to simply answer “social traffic exchanges are better than non-social ones in every way,” but this is a far too simplistic approach to the subject.

It is important to realize, that regardless of your view on this matter, it is wrong to say that social simply must equate to better than non-social.

Shades of grey...but traffic exchange comparisons are far more tricky.

I remember when I was a child growing up in the midlands of England that we could not afford a color television. In fact we could not really afford the black and white set which was rented from a High Street hire shop and paid for by depositing coins into a slot meter on the side which allowed a set amount of viewing per coin! (1970s pay-per-view no less!)

It was only when I started working that we got our first color TV and I don’t think anyone could doubt that the upgrade from B&W was by far and large an all round improvement.

Now while I personally prefer social traffic exchanges to their non-social counterparts I don’t think the analogy with the television actually holds true in this case.

Social is certainly different but that does not necessarily mean that it is automatically better.
For example there are surfers who find the whole chat-box function as nothing more than an unwelcome distraction to the  serious business of surfing for credits.

Among people who fall into this category are those who are trying to get the maximum amount of credits in the minimum possible time. They are surfing not necessarily for pleasure but because they want to earn the online currency which will allow them to show their sites to others.

Often, it will be found, that people in this category may be surfing half a dozen, a dozen (or more) sites at once, carefully coordinating their efforts to ensure that the next site is on their screens as soon as the surf timer reaches zero. For these people social surfing holds no appeal.

Now I must admit that I am not in this camp but it does represent a body of traffic exchange users so this group of people cannot be ignored.

There are others who enjoy surfing, who actually look at the sites of others which appeal to them, don’t get overly annoyed at auto-play videos and yet still don’t want to chat, and there is nothing wrong with that approach either.

For example if  you are surfing for credits and have set aside a certain amount of time for this task (say an hour or two per day) then chatting to other surfers will eat into your productivity and slow down your surfing rates, so you may either prefer to use non-social sites or use social sites and ignore or disable the chat function.

I know there are times when I need credits and I have only a short time to surf so I surf and ignore the chat (a practice known as slurking (surfing and lurking)) but generally if I am online in a social traffic exchange I will also be chatting.

Also non-social traffic exchanges work in that they get conversions for their advertisers (as measured in sign ups to your squeeze page, down-line or whatever action it is you want viewers to take.)

I will surf non-social traffic exchanges (Tezak Traffic Power is one of my favorite traffic exchanges and there is no chat function there) but, for me, they have to do something special to capture my attention for any extended period of time. Tezak is a great example of a superb non-social traffic exchange with a host of features to keep surfing enjoyable.

So the pros of non-social TEs are that they let you concentrate on surfing without distraction while the main point against them, at least for me, is that unless they really stand out from the crowd one can get bored using them very quickly indeed.

Social surfing. Let’s deal with the cons first. Well, for me, there simply are none at all. Sometimes I do spend much more time chatting than surfing but this is no downside in my opinion.

The social element has revitalized traffic exchanges, made them more user-friendly than ever before and has brought traffic exchanges truly alive. Social surfing also has its own “First Lady” – Brenda Broyles who has been crowned the Queen of Social Surfing by her peers (and even has her own badge to prove it.)

Social works. It is not a gimmick like some people say, it is not some fad, some shiny object, some mere distraction or some ten minute wonder.
Social is a growing online movement, and social traffic exchanges are the natural home of social online marketers of which I am but one.
Social is fun, it makes me feel part of a community of like-minded individuals and I love being part of it.

My final point is that marketing is more and more about people; finding the human needs and desires of your customers and meeting those needs and social traffic exchanges are about people too and I have met some great people since I started using social traffic exchanges.

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Tagged as: crowd sourcing, John Guanzon