The popular chat app WhatsApp and other chat apps have become a big source of traffic for many websites. Some of them, such as Buzzfeed and the Spanish football team Valencia FC, have even added a WhatsApp sharing button, with great results.

“Every time we looked at WhatsApp’s numbers, it blew us away,” said BuzzFeed president Jon Steinberg. “We knew last April this was a huge social network and have become increasingly obsessed with it.”

Valencia FC has added a WhatsApp button to their news stories and their stats show that the number of shares via WhatsApp outnumbers Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The greatest thing with people sharing a link from your website via WhatsApp is that the link is very likely to get clicked on. When someone you know sends a link to you, it’s pretty rude not to click on it and read, right? This is confirmed by stats from Valencia FC showing what share of the traffic the shared links generated: Facebook 27%, WhatsApp 48%, Twitter 22%, Google+ 3%.

This is how it looks when you share from WhatsApp:

…but don’t forget to do your homework first

It’s important to find out what chat app is the most popular in your country. Valencia FC choose WhatsApp since 62 percent of spanish mobile users use WhatsApp. In other countries apps such as Snapchat or Kik can be a better choice.

Share of mobile internet users in selected countries who are active WhatsApp users as of 2nd quarter 2014

Main source to this post: Niemanlab.com