1. The Rise of Social Referrals Michael Tadlock Director Product Management – Y!OS

2. Social Referrals = More, Better, Leads “ For the 1st time ever, more people are finding my blog from Twitter and Facebook referrals than via Google . The total number of people coming to my blog is increasing” - Mark Cuban – Owner Dallas Mavericks & Internet Investor – 5/14/09 “ We have investments in about 25 portfolio companies… Google continued to be a dominant source of traffic (in referral trend analysis)… Facebook and Twitter (referrals) are growing at 30 to 40 percent per month … they’re getting close to 20% of Google… The combined power of Facebook & Twitter will surpass Google for many sites in the next year" - Fred Wilson - Flatiron Partners & Union Square Ventures – 5/22/09 “… page views increased 75% year-over-year, with individual page views per person going up 55% in the same time period . Internal data reveals page view increases were driven by an increase in users sharing and consuming content via social media tools like Twitter and Yahoo! Buzz.” - USAToday Press Release – 5/14/09

3. Social Referrals Produce Loyal Users http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/study-traffic-sources/

4. Social Referrals Drive Engagement Most traffic to Yahoo! Local comes from search and Yahoo.com Users from Yahoo! 360 were 50 times more likely to participate

5. Social Referrals vs. Search Search Referrals (paid + organic) Search Referrals (paid + organic) Social Referrals Quantity Value $ $$$$$ (loyalty and participation)

6. Today’s Social Referrals Are Mostly Link Shares

7. Link Shares Are The ‘Fast Food’ Of Social Referrals

8. Offer ‘Fast Food’ And ‘Fine Dining’ to Maximize Return + “ Mike shared foo link” + “ Mike rated foo” “ Mike commented on foo” “ Mike uploaded foo” “ Mike created foo” “ Mike is a fan of foo” Etc. Etc. Etc.

9. Fast Food And Fine Dining Are Both Important “ Interestingness” Of Update # of Users Consume Participate Produce Fast Food Fine Dining Click Through Rate

10. Fine Dining in Four Courses Distribution Consumption Production Conversion Failure in any course ruins the entire meal!

11. Production Distribution Consumption Production Conversion

12. Leverage Existing Participation Add Album Rating Answer Install Blog Comment Blog Post Buzz Up Bookmark Comment Connect Create Event Attend Favorite Follow Join Location Note Photo Upload Playlist Profile Update Rating Review We found more than 150 publishable ‘verbs’ on the Yahoo! Network

13. Give The User A Voice Fast food: Fine dining :

14. Include Meta Data

15. Distribution Distribution Consumption Production Conversion

17. Use Tools With Bundled Distribution

18. Know Which Users Offer The Highest Return Key metric: referrals per update produced

19. Consumption Distribution Consumption Production Conversion

20. Include Media, Especially Photos Updates with photos are clicked on 4.5 times more often than updates without photos.

21. Conversion Distribution Consumption Production Conversion

22. Show The User What They Expect To See Beware of Comment Pagination Consider A Public View Think through all four courses as the user will experience them

23. Acknowledge The Relationship

27. Thank you! – Ask A Yahoo! For Updates Handouts http://developer.yahoo.com/updates/ Mike Tadlock – mtadlock@yahoo-inc.com