According to bitly, the half-life of a link isn't measured in weeks or days, it's about three hours on most social networks. Does it matter where the link is posted? Absolutely. For the most bang for your social media buck, YouTube is the winner.The half-life of a link is the amount of time it takes for a link to get half the clicks it will ever receive. The company looked at the half-life of 1,000 popular bitly links posted to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to see whether it matters where a link is posted.
For good measure, the company also looked at direct links – those that are sent out via email or over IM. The results? Hilary Mason, chief scientist at bitly, says that links posted to Twitter have a mean half life of 2.8 hours. Facebook boosts that to 3.2 hours, and direct sharing has a half-life of 3.4 hours. YouTube, however, beats them all hands down with a half life of 7.4 hours.
