How to own Digg in 20 easy steps

How to own Digg in 20 easy steps

Most of the stories published on Digg.com, the big content aggregator, never reach any exposure and usually don’t get more than one Digg (from the submitter). Why? Because it’s not that simple to get your story popular, regardless of the quality of the submitted content.

I had previous experiences with Digg, had a pretty good account… until i got banned. Now, i though I’ll put together a list of the things you should and most important, SHOUDLN’T do, in order to build a powerful Digg user and be able to get Digg Home page stories regularly. It’s kind of a thorough guide, so enjoy:

1. Create a Digg Account

It’s not that simple as you think. You have to go to Digg.com and create an account. But, there are a couple of things you should take into consideration when choosing your Digg User name, as it will be your own Brand for the site. So, make your username memorable. Think of something interesting, that will catch other people attention.

Also, i would recommend choosing an username starting with "a". Why? Because usernames are arranged by default in alphabetical order. So, let’s say you add a friend (more about this on chapter 5) who already has hundreds of friends himself. He will check the list of people who befriended him, and since your user will be one of the first, he might spot you, as long as you have a memorable name and Avatar. It seems things have changed since i haven’t used Digg and users are no longer sorted alphabetically but by the time they were last active. So, choosing an username starting with "a" is no longer needed.

2. Set up the Avatar and your profile

After you’ve created and confirmed you Digg account, you have to set up your profile. Click the My profile Button on top of the page. There are two things you should take care of:

• The avatar - Press the Change Icon link in the right top corner and now you can upload your avatar. It has to be something sparkling, memorable, something that will make other users click on it. Also, remember, it will be part of your Digg brand name, so has to be related with your username somehow
• Bio and Links - right bellow the avatar icon you’ll find the Set up Bio & Links button. Here you can write a couple of things about yourself, add links, instant messaging contacts, etc. I recommend completing them, with a special attention given to the About me box.
3. Don’t just start submitting things from the first day, Build up your account first.

One of the biggest mistakes any rookie Digger makes is submitting tons of stories right from the beginning. No dudes, a Digg account is just a like a baby. You have to take care of it, grow it, and then expect some results. The 6 most important factors for a successful Digg profile are:

• Popularity Ratio - the percentage of your submitted stories which became popular.
• Number of stories which became popular
• Number of stories submitted
• The number of stories you dugg
• The number of distinct people who viewed your profile.
• Number of friends (more about this on chapter 5)
4. Be active, digg and comment

Now that you’ve joined Digg and you know you must grow your account, it’s time for the first steps. Be an active digger: Digg the stories you find interesting and comment on them if you have something to say. This will get other people attention on you, and since you have an eye catching username and avatar, they might check out your account and even make you their friend if they like what they found. (That’s why the About me page is so important).

5. Try to comment first on stories you think will hit the front page

This is just a tip. In order to get more exposure, try to make relevant comments to the stories in the Upcoming list, that will have a great chance of reaching the home page. That story will be seen by thousands of diggers on home page, so if you post a good comment, a good amount of this diggers might end up on your profile page. And since we’re talking about good comments, Diggers don’t like ambiguous and elaborate responses. No, being short and funny is the receipt for a successful comment here.

6. Build the friends network

One of the most important criteria in becoming a power user is the friends network. There a couple of things you should know about friends on Digg. Having too many or too few hurts your chances of scoring a home page. I would recommend a total of 50-100 friends (users you add as friends). On the other side, you should have as many fans (people that added you as a friend without you adding them back) as possible. Also, your Digg friends should be persons with similar interests, people who are most likely to vote your story when they see it. You too have to vote their stories daily.

It is known that a vote from a poweruser (user with many friends that has submitted lots of pages that become popular in time) is more powerful than a vote from a small unimportant user. On the other side, a vote from a poweruser who is your friend is less important than a vote from one who isn’t. And also, since powerusers already have lots of people befriending them, it will be difficult to make them notice you…

That’s why I look for users meeting the following rules to make them my Digg friends:

• people who are active several times a day
• medium users with decent number of friends (up to 100)
• people with a good popularity ratio, that don’t spam Digg with their own links and stuff like that
• people with a habit of digging the same categories as i do (similar interests)
• people with a habbit of digging their friends’ stories

So, be careful who you add as a friend, as they might spam you with hundreds of submitted stories everyday and even worse, spam you with Digg’s Shout feature. In the end, if you build up your friends network properly, every GOOD story you submit should be able to get like 20-30 diggs in the first hours from them alone.

7. Understand the audience and research what are the hot topics on Digg

In order to be successful on Digg, you have to understand the way it works. It’s known most Digg users like superficial stories. So, if you’re blogging about the latest physics research you’ve done in your basement, perhaps you should point your attention to Reddit or Slashdot.

As a Digg poweruser wannabe, you have to permanently research and keep track of what are the hot topics of the month. Submitting stories related with things people are looking for can increase the chances of reaching home page.

8. Know what do diggers like

In the process of understanding the Digg user, there are a couple of types of articles I’ve noticed to get along just great with this social networking service. How to’s, Guides, breaking news and controversial stories have always been successful on Digg. Corroborate them with subjects like Ubuntu, FireFox and Apple, and you might strike a gold mine

9. Have a pool of constant quality materials

When you think it’s about time to start submitting stories on Digg, be sure you have a decent list of sites in your RSS reader, a pool of constant quality materials where you can find digg worthy material daily. I have the big SEO, SEM, cars and gadget blogs in this list.

10. Start submitting materials

It’s now time to start submitting your own materials. Start with stories from places like reddit & stumbleupon to get an idea of how many initial diggs you are going to get. If you don’t manage to get at least 20 in the first 2 hours, that means you’re not ready yet and should take more time on digging, commenting and building the friends network.

11. Don’t submit stories written in French

It not that i have something with the French (:P), but you have to know Digg.com is an English-content site only. So, what good will it take to submit stories in French, Russian or Chinese since nobody won’t understand them and they are going to get deleted too. Not to mention that your account might get suspended or banned too. So, just stick to English!

12. Choose the subject carefully.

Are you really sure that the story you are going to submit is worthy? Cause unless your really think it’s so important as it could reach digg’s home page, don’t submit it. Every story you submit without becoming popular hurts your account more than it helps. So, choose really really carefully the stories you are going to submit

13. Plan the title and description carefully

It is said that a story’s title and description is even more important than its content. That’s why you have to give special atention to the Titles and Descriptions of your stories.

Nobody Diggs lame titles. Here’s a good article on to how to make the proper Digg titles for your stories. Even if the story does not seem too apealing, perhaps you could give it a push by throwing in some "Cool, Top, The Best, Awesome" words in front, to make it sound more intriguing. And this way, you might catch a little more of those so needed early Diggs to get your story launched. Because by the way the story reaches the upcoming section, the importance of the title diminishes somehow.

As for the description, you have to be concise, resuming the main idea of the story in a short paragraph. It’s not that easy as you think..

Also, remember, don’t stuff keywords in Titles and Descs, don’t use all capital letters. Just make the texts catchy and natural.

14. Share the stories

You might give a little boost to your stories by sharing them with your friends. You could Shout them to your network of friends on Digg, email to any other friends (but they will still need a Digg account for the vote) or even Blog about the subject on your own site. Just don’t abuse these features, especially the Shout one, as people might tag you as a spammer… And we all hate spammers!!!

15. Don’t create multiple Digg accounts to vote your stories from

Your stories are not getting enough votes? Hmmm, you think you’re smart and you can beat Digg by creating multiple accounts and vote for your stories? Well, just don’t bother. Even if you use proxies or different computers, you’re still going to get caught (speaking from experience here :d ) and all your accounts will get banned. Also, you can’t be sure your story will get popular anyway, since a bunch of Diggs from new users counts way less than a couple of votes from already established Diggers.

16. Don’t use methods for promoting your story that contravene the Digg’s TOS

Yeah, it’s against Digg’s TOS to request Digg exchanges. Although, there are a bunch of big sites and even bigger forums where people do that, but they do it on their own risk. Digg already banned most of the users requesting Digg’s on DigitalPoints a couple of months ago. And even though it’s all cool for now, you’ll never know when they’ll strike again.

17. Don’t use Digg as a self promoting platform

The purpose of Digg is not to be your self promoting platform, but to promote quality material. I’m not saying you should not promote your own posts from time to time if you have worthy content, but just don’t abuse it. I’d recommend submitting one of your own pages for every 20 other quality stories you submit. This might mean only 5 of your stories a month, but remember, if the content is good enough, it might get Digged by others too

18. If you promote your story, be prepared for the Digg effect

 Well, most of the hosting providers out there (and all the cheap ones) can’t face the Digg effect. A massive burst of visitors lurking towards your site in just hours (up to 10.000 in the first hours or even more) that is. So, before you try to get your story on home page, be sure you’re prepared. This site for example, is not, as it has witnessed Digg effect before and failed heroically. Even though i use a caching system, which is a must for every Digg home page wannabe story, the site froze each time i was at least near Digg perhaps i should get a better hosting than Dreamhost…

On the other side, prepare  yourself for some annoying comments on the posts, as Digg users are known for being some of the meanest out there and there’s no greater pleasure for them than to ravage stories and blog owners

19. Use Digg tools on your page.

Most of the sites out there have a social bookmarking toolbar. I too have one at the bottom of the post so don’t hesitate to use it if you want to (:d). There are some bigger badges than can be placed in the post (usually right at the end or at the beginning), like those provided by Digg, Reddit or Sphin. What’s the catch in using them? The avalanche effect. Hitting home page on Digg will cause hordes of readers coming to your site, and they are most likely to vote your article on Sphin, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc if those tools are right before their eyes.

20. It is definitely possible to hit home page if the content your submitting is really really good. Besides that, there’s no clear guide for reaching Digg’s home page. So, Happy Digging. 

Category: Social networking
Tags: digg, network, Reddit, social, Stumbleupon