Before we get into details, here’s a quick note for beginners who don’t know what Digg is. For those who already familiar with digg, you can skip this section.
What is Digg ?
Digg is a free “social media” website where the news on its pages is controlled by the community of users (over 500,000+ at this point of time). There is no central governing body that decides which news to report and which news makes it to the front page. The community of users submit the sotries and “vote” on them by clicking the “digg this” icons besides each story listed on its pages. Digg was originally for geeks only and had mostly technology related articles but has since grown to include a whole range of categories that cover almost any topic.
If you are a blogger or a site that writes news stuff and is looking for extra traffic, you can possibly look at Digg to get this for you. It is difficult - and eventually only stories that are unique get large number of “votes” or “diggs” from the community of users and make it to the front page.
If your blog post or story is unqiue and good enough, and the community picks it up and begins digging it - you can rest be assured that once you get to the front page you will get over 10,000 unique visitors to your site in one day… and that gradually tapers off in a few days. This is known as the “digg effect” and achieving this should be one of your goals.
There are a few handfull of ways to get on to the front page of Digg. These are power methods for power users” and I will discuss them below. I won’t go into the how to use Digg.com in detail. You can get that on the help area and FAQ area of the website… see the footer/bottom of the website, under the heading “all about digg”.
Other Digg Clones Before I begin, Digg has 2 main global competitors who have the same model - the all new “Yahoo Buzz“, “Propeller” (previously known as Netscape) and Mixx. There are also countless numbers of digg type niche sites that focus on specific topics only - like Sphinn that is a very popular digg clone for the online marketing community.
So, if you have content that appeals to a niche audience hunt for the niche digg clone sites. You should also expand to replicate your successfull strategy on Yahoo Buzz, Propeller and Mixx.
Making your strategy on Digg
If you are new to Dig, then hang out around the site, for about a week and read and see how people are commenting and what kind of stories are getting popular. Participate in threaded comments and discussions.
. . . “Just Make New Friends!”
This is the key. You need to connect ot other users and thus have many friends on Digg. Why? Because, when you submit a story - you can invite your friends to Digg it. You can even legally setup a reciprocal digg exchange… “you digg my story, i digg your story”. You can do this by sending a private message, known as a “shout” to your friends. Just digg their story first and then tell them - I dugg you, please digg my story now … and include the link of your story that is on the digg site (not the offsite link that is on your website or blog).
Another way you can invite them to digg, instead of shouting (private messaging) them - is by directly clicking o nthe “share this news” with all my friends link that appears under the story post on digg. This is quick but not as effective as a personal shout. Use it once you have over, say 200 friends on digg….
Yes, you heard that right. 200 friends. That should be your target. Why? Simple - because you can invite them to digg your story. The more friends, the more diggs.
Now, for the secret…
There is a tool available, that can automatically keep adding random friends to your digg network. Its called Digg Friend Adding Automator. Its simple to use. All you need to configure is one file, with your username and password on Digg. Then run it the software (no install needed - jsut a simple double click). Then take your shoes off and sit back - while it adds friends to your profile at the rate of one every 5 seconds.
There is a precaution here. Do not add more than around 20 friends in one shot. This may alert the digg admins and you can get banned permanently. Add 20 friends… then shut down the software for about 15 minutes or so.. and then re-run it for another 20 friends and so on. Dont add more than around 50 per day, and stop at around 200 to 250 for about a week. Then rinse and repeat.
If you cant get hold of this great tool - you can still quickly randomly add friends on digg by simply clicking on the “add as friend” link besides their names, next to articles they have submitted.
Now, when you have soooo many friends, you can invite them to come vote on your story. Ofcourse the key here is to firstly make sure that your story is unique and will arise the interest of over around 70% of readers. That should be enough. Once you invite them and share your story with your friends, after a day - start contacting friends who have sent your shouts (private messages) to digg their story -and start digging their story and in return ask thme to digg yours.
It is extremely important that your story gets popular (large number of diggs) at a fast rate - and before a lot of time passes by (probably around 10 to 20 days) . Why? Because, by then it could become stale news! Also, dont submit irrelevant and boring news, or stuff thats already been submitted. It will only be “burried” out by the community.
Commenting on Digg for traffic
Another easier way to get traffic (although in much lower numbers and probably a very very low fractional amount) is by posting comments on popular stories with high diggs. Just make sure what you write is relevant to the story and then leave a catchy phrase and link (signature) at the end of your comment.
The Onsite “Digg This” Button
If you have a fairly large number of readers to your blog, you can submit your blog posts to Digg and then insert a “digg this” button in near your blog post … as an onsite “digg this” link. This way visitors or readers of your blog can vote your story up the Digg ranks. This works only on blogs that have a large number of readers and visitors - so its only powerfull then.
So, to round up…
1. You need friends!! (hint: get them fast with the Digg friends adder tool)2. Submit and promote (share) your best (most unique) blog posts to the Digg community. Aim to have around 5 to 10 good stories beign promoted at any given time on Digg.
3. Do one-to-one Digg exchanges with friends using the shout box area. Also, use mass sharing link under each story you submit.
4. Comment on other popular stories, adding your catchy link at the end of each comment. Try to comment on around 15 to 20 popular stories every day (fast rising, going to be popular and already popular stories)
5. Another sneaky trick is to connect up with “power diggers”. People who have been using digg for a long time and have a large number of friends. This will allow you to influence the influencers! As a word of caution, don’t connect to them and start spamming them with stories to digg. This will put them off. Make freinds with them first, and digg their stories without asking for anything in return. After about a couple of weeks, you can request diggs. If they digg your story, rest be assured that their friends will follow… giving your story a huge viral boost!
Note: currently, it is easier to get on the front page of Yahoo Buzz, Propeller and Mixx - as these sites have lesser competition… so don’t leave these out from your strategy!
10 Very Handy Tools for Power Diggers1. Digg Alerter - very handy application tool to track the status of your own stories. Shows you live dig numbers and where they are. Keep it running all day long to monitor your stories.
2. Digg This (a FireFox extension) - allows you to simply highlight text on any web page that you are on, then right click and directly submit that URL to digg, without having to fill up a large part of the digg submission form.
3. Smart Digg (a FireFox extension) - allows you to see if the web page that you are browsing on is already submitted to Digg, and if it is, how many Diggs it has received. Very handy tool if you are constantly researching for stories to submit to Digg.
4. Digg Button Animation Enabler - Excellent way to let you digg a friends story when you read it on his site, and if it has a Digg badge, without requiring you to visit Digg.com website to digg it… thus allowing remote diggs.
5. Google Reader Digg News - Excellent way to display Digg buttons, and Digg badge in your own news feedreader, so that you dont have to visit digg each time you digg a story within your feedreader.
6. Feedit - Great way to display digg stories that hit the front page. Its better than the digg feed because it has links to the full story, comments and submitter.
7. TINC - Who’s digging you? - A great tool to find out who is digging your stories and provides links to their submissions and user profile in case you want to reciprocate.
8. Digg Comment Viewer - An excellent tool for people who comment frequently. I suggest you download this. Its a far cleaner, better and more efficient way to see who is leaving what comments on your submissions and the posts ratings. You can easily click around to not only see your friends’ comments but also what friends they have as well.
9. Social Blade Frontpage Data - Allows you to monitor the front page of Digg. It gives you the insight as to when a story reaches the tipping point, beyond which it quickly becomes popular. This information is priceless! It records the exact number of diggs when the story went popular as well as the percentage of your friends that dugg the story, along with the category and other elements.
10. Update Scanner - Lets you monitor when any page on the Internet has been updated. Specially useful for sites and pages that do not have RSS feeds. Monitoring a page, that regularly publishes good content, but that does nto have an RSS reader, will allow you to get to the story before other Diggers do!
I’ve spent 15 years in online Internet marketing. During this period i’ve read and learnt a lot from others - professionals and amatures. I’ve also devised many of my own ideas and experimentations. I’ve spent plenty of money purchasing and downloading ebooks that teach you specific techniques relating to making money online.By Salman Mansoor
Research & Development Department
Neon Solutions.net
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