Whiteboard: What I’ve Learned About Social Media Success
A few days ago you might have noticed that Skelliewag.org’s uptime was a little patchy. This was because a post I wrote — 110+ Resources for Creative Minds — appeared on the front page of Digg and became popular on del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.
I created the post specifically with social media in mind, primarily as an experiment. I wanted to see if it would be possible for me to reach the front page of Digg with a resource post — something anyone with a bit of spare time can create.
If that was the case, I could return to you and outline a model of social media success. The experiment worked, and the above diagram is an attempt to communicate the results.
Keep reading for an analysis of what I’ve learned about social media success.
Time & Effort
The process for creating the post was time-consuming. It took a few hours to gather the links, a few hours to construct the post, and a little longer to make the thumbnail images. I could have taken less time, but I set myself the target of gathering 110+ resources — mainly to see if I could do it!
One thing you might have noticed if you use Digg regularly is that not every resource post that becomes popular needs to contain so many resources. I’ve seen posts with 37 resources reach the front page, and so on. Higher numbers maximize your chances, but you don’t need to go all out.
The key ingredient in a resource post is time. If you don’t have a big chunk of time, you can set aside a few minutes each day to work on your magnum opus.
Networking
From what I’ve observed, who you know is somewhat more important than the content you create when it comes to making the Digg front page.
Unless you have a huge readership, it takes a lot of luck to achieve success on Digg without 1) success on other social bookmarking sites or 2) a network of friends who will give your article a leg-up.
I can confidently say that my article would never have made the front page of Digg without support from my StumbleUpon friends and Skelliewag readers over at Digg.
The first lesson I’ve learned from this is that “you only get out what you put in.” Taking the time to build a network of friends on the social media service you’re targeting — even if it’s only modest — will drastically increase the momentum behind your content.
The second lesson I’ve learned is that, unless you have a large readership, you will need to do much of the beginning leg-work yourself. Send the article to friends, send shouts across Digg, StumbleUpon messages and so on. Once enough people get behind your article things can begin to happen of their own accord.
Category
Unlike StumbleUpon, where content can be democratically recategorized and reviewed as users vote it up, you only get one chance with Digg. Duplicate content is not allowed, so once your article is submitted, that’s it.
If you can, get someone to submit your article who you trust will give it a good headline and description, in addition to submitting in the best-match category (though this is often hard with Digg).
Bad categorizing can hurt your chances of success with a particular piece of content. Returning to StumbleUpon, if I write an article on personal finance and it’s submitted under ‘blogs’ (as is often the case), I will get badly targeted traffic. If someone diggs your personal finance article by submitting it in ‘Video’ it will probably get buried.
What you can do
1. Get active on the social media service you’d like to experience success with. Make friends, share articles, submit good content, and so on.
2. Create a resource post, or other linkbait that relates broadly to the topic of your site.
3. Call in a favor from social media friends and ask them to vote if they like what you’ve created.
4. Before things start heating up, make sure to shore up your site against bursts of traffic. I learned this the hard way. If you can’t afford a good host, WP-Cache is a great alternative. I’ve not had a chance to use it, as it was installed after the rush of traffic, but many people swear by it.
Great Job on this article. Networking should still be a large practice in internet business’s. Unfortunately some don’t take the time to do it right. You hit it right on on the post. Thumbs up
http://www.PassportMentors.com
Great post. I agree with proper tags in the beginning will definitely help and wrong tags will kill potential traffic before it can gain momentum. Cheers!
Skellie,
I completely agree with you on the social networking sites. It does take time to gain some momentum with them, but once you do, it can pay rewards. I’m glad that I found your site, as I find it really useful and rewarding. The articles you write are well thought and insightful for someone newer to blogging and for veterans alike.
As for the WP-Cache, it is helping on my site. I would highly recommend it to everyone. It is one of the best ways to prepare your blog for growth.
Best wishes!
Interesting… And congratulations on the Digg frontpage, Del.icio.us popular etc.! It takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes a little luck. This will most likely be a great resource in the future before you try to pull of a “social-media stunt”. Thanks Skellie.
Digg is one of those sites that gives me mixed feelings. The hostility is offputting. I had a look at your story and was surprised at the number of thumbs down. Well not surprised I guess as that’s the problem with the hostility of Digg.
I’m curious - what does it mean when you see +4 digs, -2 digs etc in the comment section? Does it mean that that particular Digg user has more ‘weight’ to their votes?
Also Skellie, sorry being nosey here but looking at your profile I was really surprised that you have a lot of friends and yet you seem to have actually used Digg relatively little with very few Diggs and submissions. How has that worked out for you?
Congrats on your success, Skellie.
Category is really a not a big issue IMO, it shouldn’t be the third circle alongside networking + effort, the two of which should be enough for success.
It’s not correct to say you only have one chance with Digg. If your bait get poorly submitted by the user (with bad titles/category), simply change the post slug/permalink and 301 the old URL to the new one.
Resubmit it again through another user. While duplicate content is not recommended, intentional duping is done ALL THE TIME, so that’s no biggie really.
@Caroline
The numbers you see in the comment section are votes or buries on each user’s comments. It’s similar to what Sphinn currently has. It’s just aesthetics.
Apart from the strategy of hiding hostile comments (by burying it) and pushing up favorable comments (by voting it up), there’s no other purpose to it.
[...] What I’ve Learned About Social Media Success from Skelliewag. Skellie explains what she learned from creating an article that made the front page of Digg and did well on del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. [...]
[...] want to thank five bloggers who inspired me to do this post the Smashing Magazine, Vandelay Design, Skellie, Social Networking Articles and this SEO blogger. These icons link to social bookmarking sites [...]
@ Caroline: My friend count is mainly people I’ve added, and not all of them have reciprocated. They can’t really choose who their ‘fans’ are.
Some of those who are mutual friends probably recognize my name and are happy to make a slightly influential (I guess any blogger is) friend who they can send shouts too ;). Most, though, are people I’ve been in contact with either on StumbleUpon or through the blog, so we have a previously formed relationship. In other words, I have a head start over most people, by virtue of the blog. I’ve only started submitting stuff in the last few days, really.
@ Maki: I didn’t know you could resubmit content — that’s a useful tip, cheers.
@Maki, thanks for the clarification, I didn’t realise it pertained to the comment itself, that makes more sense than what I was thinking :-)
@Skellie, I started poking around Digg after reading this post and I was quite surprised to find quite a few familiar faces from Sphinn on there so I feel more at home now heh :)
Interesting article there Skellie…Thanks.
Stumbled :D
Skelli,
Great info. I am very new at all of this and a recent Stumble Upon user. I had been stumbling without any social interaction for quite some time, but I am starting to see the benefit of joining a social community. I have added you to my google reader and look forward to learning more from you.
This is oh so true..^^..Great post. Thanks a bunch for sharing..^^;
[...] Whiteboard: What I’ve Learned About Social Media Success [...]
Hi skellie,
Congrats on your success - I have definitely noticed your work in recent weeks.
Your excellent piece on Copyblogger as well as the numerous social media mentions (digg/SU) have placed you smack bang on the blogosphere radar!
It’s a bit silly, but I love it when a fellow Aussie goes ‘big’ in the online world. Keep it up!
Thanks for introducing me to the ilovetypography site too ;)
Hey Skellie,
Glad I found this blog, it’s very informative and thanks Maki for the tip on resubmitting to Digg.
Great post and comments from big name bloggers. I was never success on digg. Got some great traffic from StumbleUpOn though.
Thank you!
[...] to connect and engage come from sincere folks who actually want to know you for sharing and networking. Others, some of whom are even shrewdly concocted fake avatars, size you up as worthy prey and [...]
[...] Skelliewag totally thinks you should “call in a favor from social media friends and ask them to vote if they like what you’ve created.” [...]
Man. I agree so much! Thank you for sharing…
[...] What I’ve learned about social media success (by Skellie) [...]
[...] 18. Get Dugg. Going popular on Digg will generally result in dozens of new links. Once again, the most effective methods are the trickiest, but you might find these posts useful: Why You’ve Got to Dig Digg to Get Dugg, What I’ve Learned About Social Media Success. [...]