Does the Announcer badge count visits from social networks only?

Question

I'm confused about the "Announcer" badge and some questions were raised in my mind.

When you share it only shows social network icons. Can we only share links on social networks (FB, G+ and Twitter)?
Is there any way to know that how many people visited that link?
The description says that unique IP addresses are considered for visiting that link. If someone visits that link with a Mobile Device is the MAC address of the device considered as a visitor count for that link?

Thanks for link. It is very helpful if we will get help for #1 and #3. — Kampai, Oct 31 '14 at 6:56
As for #1, you can just paste the link wherever you want. The URL of the link contains your user ID, so no matter where the visitor came from (except from within Stack Exchange), it will be counted towards the badge. The icons are just shortcuts. — Shadow Wizard, Oct 31 '14 at 6:58
@ShadowWizard Can i share it on website and blogs other than social networks? — Kampai, Oct 31 '14 at 7:00
Sure, just put the link. It won't be "oneboxed" but it will work and count towards the badge. (that is its true goal, sharing with other people) — Shadow Wizard, Oct 31 '14 at 7:00
I also changed the title to describe better what you really ask here, hope I got it right? — Shadow Wizard, Oct 31 '14 at 7:02
Still #3 is remains to be clear. Mobile device MAC address will be consider as separate IP address for visit count? — Kampai, Oct 31 '14 at 7:09
@Kampai: I've not seen anywhere any indication that MAC addresses are counted separately. — Martijn Pieters, Oct 31 '14 at 7:46
That means visit count only works if link is open from PC, Right? Can we confirm from support team? — Kampai, Oct 31 '14 at 7:50

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-20 10:30:58Z

You can share the link anywhere¹. The icons for the major social media platforms are only there as a convenience. (I think there used to be one for email as well.)
As Shadow Wizard mentions, the actual visit count is not available to normal users. You'll only know if a certain threshold was reached when you get the badge.
I expect that the counting is performed by looking at the HTTP request headers of the incoming request. From what I recall, MAC address is not included there. So if you were to visit a link via your PC and your smartphone which is on the same WiFi, only one visit is counted. (If you were to use your mobile data instead, though, that's obviously a different network and thus a different address.)

¹ As if we could stop you.

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