Facebook is still the largest supplier of traffic. A new report from the U.S. shows that all other social networks can not come close to Facebook in the fourth quarter of 2013. Surprisingly, only the performance of Pinterest, because the "Social Network for images" can be increased slightly and claim second place. All other candidates, including Twitter and Google+ seem rather among the "also rans" and really do not care for that one then has significant advantages with referral traffic if you talk a website. But what precise conclusions can be drawn from the current development?

For the survey of Shareaholic the activities of 200,000 websites were analyzed to find out how much traffic from Facebook actually ends up there. The same was true of course also for other social networks, as well as Twitter, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn have been investigated. But that's not enough.

In order to display meaningful comparisons within the competition, including providers as StumbleUpon or Reddit were considered. This is clever, because even if Facebook a very large part - not only in Referral Traffic - makes all the smaller players have together also a certain range.

This range should not miss, which is why the treatment of Shareaholic from my point of view is very good one.

But what is the specific statement of the survey and what can be derived for their own Facebook marketing it. One, who is keen on more coverage, can not make an intelligent online marketing without Facebook. In other words, when not in use Facebook at the current time or only insufficient for the generation of additional traffic, then no one uses the full potential.

On the other hand, it is never good to stand on one leg, so it makes sense not to make too big the share of the traffic from a particular source . This is true not only for Facebook, but also for all other sources, including Google.

With a clean established Internet project, the maximum proportion of a traffic source should be more than 40 percent in my view, in any case, because it can cause massive problems in case of a failure of such traffic sources otherwise.

Second: More traffic always means more attention. So if ignored Facebook, playful great opportunities to be perceived in the long term. Branding and brand building are the key aspects here.

Moreover, if one keeps in mind that the mobile area in the coming years, more and more powerful and at the same time considering that Facebook a "Mobile First" Company now is, then is certainly a danger that you drift off into irrelevance can. Whether it comes to that, is of course different from project to project.

But who scatters the traffic risk, will be able to continue to respond much better to fluctuations and is not equal to the abyss, if there is a massive update for example on Google again.

What the survey also says? Share to follow and is even more influential. YouTube provides relatively little traffic and LinkedIn and Google+ play at the current time does not matter. In absolute numbers, and at a base of more than 200,000 Web sites that may be true, but I myself can confirm that you can now generate plenty of traffic with Google+.

But I also have to admit that, especially technical issues on Google+ work well, general topics, however, probably not. That's when Facebook completely different, here you can create with just about any content traffic for an external Web site. Also, the way Twitter does not provide seemingly for as much traffic as many that would like to see. However, it is also always on the subject, it is in my view the same mindset as for Google+