Its about that time we talk a little about using Social Media to our benefit, not with help from somebody else but with our own efforts. In this series I will as usual talk about the 3 major social media contenders : Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. I would love to talk about Mixx as well but as of this point Mixx just doesn’t convert the time and effort into meaningful results. However, follow some of the tips that you will find here and integrate it with Mixx and I am sure it will work.

The approach to building a social media profile is pretty much the same, its just a different platform and different way of handling what comes your way. I have been using the 3 top social media services for a while and am labeled as a “power user” on all of them.

Although I would like to share with you links to my profiles it certainly wouldn’t benefit me so we will keep it silent and in the dark for a while. Before we get started please keep in mind that the things suggested in these articles have worked for me and others but I can’t guarantee it will work for you. However, if you put in due time and effort I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t. But before we get started I want to quick share an image as to justify why I seem to talk about these three sites the most,

As you can see from the image above these three social media sites have the most active users. StumbleUpon seems to have gone down a little (most probably because of the recent changes) but I am sure they will pick right back up. And as you can see from the graph Reddit is picking up as well and Digg at this moment is still the undisputed king for being the “traffic blaster.”

As you can see from the title this is a Part - I of a three part series. This post will give you insight on how you can boost your Digg profile, next StumbleUpon, and Reddit will follow the week after. Let’s get started

Digg

1. Digg it like you are hooked : To create something effective and to gain results it takes time. Most users tend to think that content alone will do it when it comes to social media ( especially Digg ) which is far from true. We have heard the saying repeatedly “You have to digg to get dugg” and that’s the truth. If you want to be noticed you need to digg articles and get yourself out there and be noticed by the active community. However, I am not trying to imply that you should spend majority of your day sitting in front of the computer digging. I would suggest you follow some active diggers on digg and catch their submissions each day. I would say about an hour each day will work great. To follow some of the most active diggers please follow this link : Active Diggers I should follow. This link will show you diggers that have been active and are on top for the past 30 days. Follow them, not all of them but the one’s that seem to be on top. Add them as friends and start digging their submissions like you owe it to them. Trust me, the favor will be returned as these guys watch who is helping them out.
2. Scripts Vs. Blind Digging : Most of you probably already know about all the users that have been banned on digg. The main reason for “Digg’s closet cleaning” was simply due to the use of scripts. Users were using scripts to digg faster and follow everyone’s submissions and most of these scripts helped them do this automatically. Their friends would submit a content and the script would automatically digg it for them. Avoid using scripts at all cost, at least the ones that can send a red flag.

   (Forgot to white out the username on the address bar and the tab on the image below. The user has been banned by digg so I guess it doesn’t really matter. Was digging couple friends submissions in between so didn’t really want to take a new image. Yeah building a profile is that important….every second counts depending on how much time you spent. I spend about 2- hours a day and every bit of that time is important to keep the profile going strong. You slack for a week and you are back from the scratch, pretty much.)

   

   When it comes to blind digging though, everyone does it and I have yet to see anyone get banned for it. Users have the convenience of saying they digg it based on the title and their interest and then read it later. Sort of bookmarking for later read. So if you want to read and digg that’s fine but if you want to build your profile and be noticed that hour I talked about can be utilized massively by blind digging. However, don’t go digging 100 articles within 2 minutes. Do it in moderation. 5 diggs here, 5 diggs there can go a long way. The best way to do it is open your friends submissions on multiple tabs and digg them as you go. Digg 5 articles and wait for a minute or so and hit another 10. You will have a killer profile in now time.

   
   Warning : I personally digg my friends by opening their submissions on multiple tabs and going through them. I know most digg users either do this or subscribe to their RSS feeds. If you are planning on digging by opening multiple submissions on tabs please be warned that what might have worked for others might not work for you. Just do it in moderation and you should be ok.

   And one more thing I just noticed looking at the image. As you can see both submissions shown on the image are the same submitted by different users at different times. If you get a duplicate submission let digg support know…..makes you look like a dedicated user .

3. Digg first, submit later : This is one such critical aspect of using digg that most new active users don’t seem to understand. The key to building your profile is to get noticed. If anyone could grab great content and submit and hit the front page on digg, Digg wouldn’t be known as the “most gamed” social media on the web. The key is to be known, be noticed and then unleash your side so everyone can reciprocate. If you want your submissions to pop ( Digg term for hitting the Front page ) digg your friends submissions and then submit after a while.

   ( please click on the image to view )
   

   Personally, if you are a new user I would suggest that you do not submit anything for a month or so. Instead add as many active diggers onto your friends list and keep following their submissions each and every day for the next 30 months. Make sure to digg random stories as well from the frontpage and upcoming while you are doing this so you have some variety in your digging as well. This will certainly help lower any flags that digg algorithm might catch otherwise, which I doubt it will. If you think about it this is a no brainer. You join and start digging. For 30 days you do not submit anything but grab all your friends submissions each and every day. You are known but the users you have been digging have never had to take the trouble of digging you back since you haven’t submitted anything. And when you do, your submission is sure to “pop” simply because your mutual friends have been waiting to return the favor. That’s how it works and trust me it will work for you as well. This is how most banned users have been able to get their new accounts rock on digg with more than 50% popular ratio if not more.

4. Submit with caution. Do not wear out your mutuals : This is one of those things that I personally try to follow as much as I can. Although I am pretty active on digg I try not to submit more than 5 stories per day. As you already know, diggers follow each others submission. You submit something and your mutual friend will make sure to get it. But we do need to realize not everyone has time to sit in front of the computer making sure they get every one of your submission. Its better to submit 5 and get one to hit the frontpage rather than submit 30 stories in a day and have 3 stories hit the frontpage. Do not go and submit stories from sites that hit the Digg frontpage most of the time ( hint : Huffingtonpost, Cracked ), instead try and analyze what kind of stories are being dugg on each section. What are the users interested in? There are only so many of your friends that will digg just cause its your submission, rest will have to come naturally. So next time you think about submitting everything that you find interesting, think again. Limit yourself per day so your mutuals can digg all your submission which will increase the likelihood of your stories making to the frontpage.

   Take a look at this image below which is the submission page for one of my mutuals. There is no way I can digg all those submissions. Build a strategy and carry it along to build a powerful profile. The approach taken by the user shown below is just childish.
   
   And this image just shows a few. This particular user has almost 25 submissions within 24 hours.

5. Make use of Instant Messengers instead of “Shout” Feature : Some people have a very strong “shout network.” They shout a story and it instantly gets a bump which is anywhere between 10-30 diggs usually. However, just getting more diggs to your stories doesn’t necessarily mean that it will go to the frontpage. As far as I know, the more you shout the more diggs it requires to get to the frontpage. I have had stories that have gone to the frontpage with as little as 40 diggs just cause the diggs coming were diversified and not from friends. However, sometimes it becomes quite necessary to pull diggs when a story stops moving for a while. In this case use your IM buddies to pull diggs in. If you haven’t been using IM ( gtalk, AIM, Skype, etc ) you are missing out on a quite a bit. The benefit of this is that digg friends that you have on your IM don’t necessarily have to be your mutual friends on digg. This allows you to get diggs that are natural and diversified although they are your digg friends, digg’s algorithm doesn’t really know that. Please make sure to link your stories from the upcoming page or your profile page instead of the direct link. Take a look at the image below to see the difference of diggs needed to hit the frontpage when dugg by friends compared to the ones that have more natural diggs.

   ( F Diggs stands for “Friends Diggs )
   
   Obviously there are some exceptions but if you look at the image you can clearly see that the less diggs you get from your friends the easier it seems to get to the front page with less amount of diggs.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. Next week we will be back again with some naughty tips on building your StumbleUpon profile.

Note: The results from this tutorial cannot be guaranteed although this is something that most power users practice and something that has worked for many users. Also please note the fact that Digg is on a banning rampage lately so try to stay low and work your way up.

Tags: DIGG, SMO, Social media, social media optimization
Posted in Social media