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Digg, Social News, and Social Authority Building

By Jack Humphrey

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 15Apr2008
Word count: 625
Viewed: 269 time(s)

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What is Digg?

Digg ( http://www.digg.com ) is a news-oriented, or "social news" website, where the majority of its content is submitted by its users. Digg's users also rate the site's content, determining what's important enough to go on the front page, and what should be removed. After signing up for a free account, Digg's users can submit, review, vote on, and comment on news stories and other content they find on the Internet.

The idea is that instead of searching the web for useful content, people can just make one stop at Digg and see the latest current events, feature stories, videos, podcasts, and other content ' selected and rated by users instead of by an editor.

Digg is an important tool in building your online presence.

If a link to your content is submitted to Digg and receives a lot of positive votes and comments, your website can receive hundreds or even thousands of visitors within a short period of time. There is a great deal of the traffic that will probably quickly read the article or post and leave but, there's a good chance that the more targeted visitors will browse your site and sign up for your newsletter and/or RSS feed which will also help you to receive incoming links, trackbacks, and social bookmarks.

You may receive comments, earn extra income, have your rss feeds picked up, and many other possibilities may come from having your content submitted. How does Digg work? In order to make your comment live, Digg requires you to enter your name and email address, and then use a password and confirmation link they email you.

How do links get on Digg's front Page?

All new content starts out on Digg's Upcoming Page. Digg's ranking system for each piece of content submitted is based on an algorithm (yes there is an actual algorithm to compute a story's importance and popularity on Digg!) that considers things like the category the link was submitted to, how many diggs and buries the link has received, how quickly they've occurred, how valid they are, and the identity and IP addresses of the people voting on the link.

When a link receives enough diggs, it gets moved to the home page of its category. If it then makes the "Top 10" articles for its category, it receives a lot more exposure. However, if the link doesn't receive enough diggs within 12 to 24 hours, it's removed from the Upcoming Page to make room for new content.

There is another way to make your submissions more visible, and that is by you genuinely participating in the Digg community (submitting, digging and commenting on other people's content), the more your profile and content will be noticed by other Digg members. That increases the number of people interested in submitting, digging, and commenting on your content. We call this "Social Authority" building.

What Kind of Content is Successful on Digg?

Digg moves content in and out quickly, with thousands of other story links competing for attention and votes, so although content that is considered "linkbait" on a blog may be successful, it may or may not be as successful on Digg.

That means your Digg content has to grab people's attention fast. You may need to change the angle of your content slightly, or give it a catchier headline and description to make people stop and look at it as they scan quickly down the Digg content links.

Unlike a regular blog entry or website article that's posted more or less permanently online for people to read and comment on, content has a short lifespan on Digg. On Digg, it's all about what attracts people in a fast-moving environment with lots of competing links.

Jack Humphrey is a Social Marketing Expert who teaches website owners how to dominate on the social scene as well as in the search engines at Social Power Linking.

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