Top 10 Digg Tactics
Social content sites like Digg are the catalyst of viral marketing. If you write a blog or operate a website and your content makes the front page of Digg, you can expect lots of good things to happen: about 60,000 unique visitors in the first 24 hours, a hefty amount of referral traffic from secondary websites, and a large number of high quality editorial links that will boost your search rankings.
In a perfect world, interesting content would be all that it takes to become popular on Digg. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. Unless you operate a large site with tons of traffic or your blog already has a loyal base of readers, you need to understand how to give your submission the right kind of nudge. You have to become familiar with the unwritten protocols and practices of Digg.
Since CreateDebate launched into public beta, we have been doing our best to execute a viral marketing plan. Our goal is to introduce new people to our site via relevant & interesting content. In the last 30 days, various content from our blog has landed on the front page of of Digg, reddit, delicious, Mixx, ShoutWire and StumbleUpon.
One of the things that we have learned is that when it comes to generating explosive traffic, Digg reigns king (at least until Yahoo!Buzz begins accepting content from new, smaller publishers). If your content becomes popular on Digg, it will almost assuredly become popular on several other social content sites. It doesn’t always work the other way around.
Digg is an ecosystem and in order to get something from it (traffic), you’ll need give something to it (interesting content, not advertisements). For all of the Digg noobs and budding social marketers out there, we thought it was time to share a few insights from our playbook. Here you go, the top 10 Digg tactics:
10. Join Digg - Yes, you should sign up for an account. To really join Digg, though, you need to read and participate on a daily basis. You should begin to track the popular content, especially in the topics where your content will compete. You may find the Digg RSS feeds to be helpful.
9. Monitor the Comments - Understanding the Digg culture is paramount. You should make it a habit to always read the first few comments every article that you check out. A well-planted, snarky comment can go a long way when you are trying to solicit diggs.
8. Learn How a Story Becomes Popular - The Digg upcoming section may seem daunting but understanding how it works is essential. In the base case, it takes about 24 hours for a submission to become popular. During that period, the submission will have the opportunity to achieve a number of milestones (i.e. becoming Hot in Topic). Each milestone will put the link in front of more people, thereby increasing its chance to be dugg.
7. Track Power Users - The power users, the people who use Digg the most, are the influencers. They aren’t hard to find, go to the front page and start checking out some profiles. On the bottom-right, you can see their stats. Find people have made at least 50 stories popular. Bookmark their profiles and check back frequently. Do your best to befriend them.
6. Become a Fan - Add friends, hundreds of them. Don’t do it all in one sitting, remember: Rome wasn’t built in a day. You should get in the habit of adding at least 20 new friends per week. Start by adding some power users, then add their friends and so on.
5. Build Your Buddy List - A lot of digg soliciting goes on behind the scenes, especially via IM. Coincidentally enough, many diggers list their IM information in the About blurb on their profile. Parse through a bunch of profiles and compile a list of screen names. Don’t just bombard these folks with digg requests though. Take the time to cultivate mutually beneficial relationships.
4. Build Your Profile - If you want to become a Digg power user, you need to look like one. Your profile should show lots of fans, friends & diggs. When people ask you to digg one of their submissions and it turns out to be interesting, take it a step further and make that story one of your favorites.
3. Submit Smart - Choose the topic that you will submit to wisely. Some topics are much more competitive than others. Of course, you need to make sure that you are submitting to an appropriate topic or casual web surfers may not have a chance to find your submission on their own. Analysis has also shown that when you submit also plays a key role.
2. Send Shouts - Digg shouts are the single best way to solicit diggs. Of course, you can’t just send shouts to anybody, that’s why you need to add friends to bolster your network. When you send shouts, remember, its a two-way street. If you expect others to digg your content, you’ll need to regularly check your shouts and digg the stories that you find interesting. Don’t be afraid to remind others that you have dugg their stories. Most importantly, don’t keep sending repetitive shouts. Nobody likes a pest.
1. Submit Interesting Content - All of the Digg tactics in the world won’t help you unless you have some worthwhile content to submit. At the end of the day, every digg that your submission receives will be from a intelligent, free-thinking individual. Nobody like to see crap hit the front page.
On a final, unrelated note, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to sarahintampa who maintains an interesting tech blog and wrote a great review of CreateDebate 2 weeks ago. If you haven’t already checked out CreateDebate, please do so. We are a new site, built from scratch on the ideals of collaboration and democracy, and our community is growing quickly!
Thanks for boiling it down. I’ve read this type of article before but its usually long winded.
TommyTuffNuts
3 Jun 08 at 1:14 pm
Good tips. Thanks!
Tyler
3 Jun 08 at 4:01 pm
“You have to become familiar with the unwritten protocols and practices of Digg.”
Funny, that sounds very similar to an article I recently wrote about developing tactical knowledge on social media websites
Maki
3 Jun 08 at 4:31 pm
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! I have to admit that I read DoshDosh all the time. IMHO your blog is the authority on social marketing, keep up the great work.
Loudacris
3 Jun 08 at 4:51 pm
also, don’t submit anything that is anti-obama, pro-hillary or pro-mccain. seriously. no matter how interesting or factual, it will never make it to the front page. damn the media bias.
Ron
3 Jun 08 at 7:07 pm
Actually, once you become a Digg power user you can easily generate what I like to call “haters”. They begin to track your diggs, track what you submit, wait until it is about to become popular and then do their best to bury it. This happened with our submissions. It was incredibly annoying. Any suggestions on how to thwart that??
Thanks.
Brown Bear
Brown Bear
3 Jun 08 at 7:14 pm
Digg Rules! So does REddit for that matter.
JC
http://www.FireMe.to/Udi
JC Wilson
3 Jun 08 at 7:27 pm
Nice story. Are you a power digger?
Giridhar
3 Jun 08 at 7:32 pm
Wow, I have never thought to get their IM accounts. Thats a great tip.
I think I really need to start taking the time to get some friends on my digg account.
The only thing that bothers me about the friends however is that most of them do submit horrible articles in my shout section and I have to end up removing them. Do you filter out the good from the bad in your friends list? Do you remove the shouts if they are bad? Do you remove the shouts in general once you have dugg them?
KrAzE
3 Jun 08 at 8:02 pm
You’re describing a lot of work over a long time. How’s the return on investment working out? Are enough of the visitors you’re attracting clicking on your ads?
Allan Gardyne
3 Jun 08 at 8:07 pm
Pretty decent article. What frustrates me is when I constantly Digg shouts from power users who I have added to my friend list, but since they never reciprocate the add, I can never shout to them.
Project Swole - Diet and Fitness
3 Jun 08 at 9:43 pm
Top x ways to do something.
1. Make a list.
2. Check it twice.
3. Yay.
But, seriously, the advice you give is good. The thing about friends that kind of bothers me is that it is so not personal. People spam friend requests just to get people to look at them. It’s a little sad…
Mageling
3 Jun 08 at 11:28 pm
This is very interesting. I’ve found what I think is and interesting article and will see if this new found knowledge works.
tekgeek
4 Jun 08 at 8:12 am
[…] debate your topic. If you need help learning how to make stories popular on Digg, check out this article loaded with great advice.Use these tips and you’ll be well on your way to getting a debate […]
Top 10 Tips for Creating a Great Debate at The CreateDebate Blog
4 Jun 08 at 10:37 pm
[…] Article Author […]
Top 10 Tactics to Become Popular on Digg | Learn Some Shit
4 Jun 08 at 10:45 pm
http://owenbyrne.com/2008/06/05/yet-another-random-digg-list/
…interesting.
Owen Byrne
5 Jun 08 at 9:55 am
I’ve discovered a pretty obvious way to increase your chances on my blog:
http://owenbyrne.com/2008/06/05/yet-another-random-digg-list/
Owen Byrne
5 Jun 08 at 9:56 am
You really are driving some good nails here. We can
hang meat on tips like that. Be Blessed always…Peace. God Is Love, God Is Good, God Is One!
A Best Kept Secret - Understanding the Digg Protocal.
Jim Legington
6 Jun 08 at 5:31 pm
Excellent .. I will try promoting my blog on digg this evening
Stephen
18 Jun 08 at 7:14 am
excellent tips and very easy to understand logic, hopefully we all benefit from it.
Hair Treatment
24 Sep 08 at 3:32 am
[…] Top 10 Digg Tactics 15 Ways to become a Digg Power user in only 48 hours How to get a front page Digg? How to Get Popular on Digg: Comment Case-Study […]
Top Five Social News Sites & Understanding Their Methodology
12 Nov 08 at 1:24 pm
Great tips
Thanks
Handsome
8 Jan 09 at 2:39 am
A few months later and so much has changed… I think that Digg is no longer the place to go to promote your content… I recommend going to the front page of Digg right now and you will see only big brand media… huffingtonpost…macworld.com etc…. Not only is Digg doing this because they are red and need advertisers, but Digg is trying to avoid spammers… plus, this content is safe for them. I much prefer the community and organic growth on Stumbleupon… and similar steps above can be utilized on Stumble… always join the community first and build up your network. it takes time, but is so worth it. Thanks for sharing your info!
AlexandraF
23 Mar 09 at 11:19 pm