Digg. How to Get The Most Out Of Your Diggs

So now the shout system is gone, how can you get the most out of Digg for website exposure and traffic

In the past, when you submitted a story to Digg and wanted your friends to Digg to see it, all you needed to do was send a shout. Your friends got an email notification and..instant traffic. It really was as easy as that. And if they liked your story then they in turn Dugg it and, if it's really good sent a shout to their friends. And before you knew it you had a ton of traffic hitting your website or blog

Then one grey day, Digg decide to abolish the shout system. And I understand why....

....Spam. That ugly word. There were so many shouts on a daily basis and a lot of them were tagged with 'please Digg' or ' Digg this and I'll Digg yours' messages.

But then again there were shouts that I was interested in. Shouts that brought to my attention useful or quirky stories that I may not have otherwise come across.

Anyway, now the shouts system has gone, how can you get the most out of Digg. Here we are talking about maximizing exposure on Digg for your stories and getting some click throughs.

Friends

The number of friends and the quality of friends you ave is the backbone of any social networking campaign you run. Digg is no different. You need a solid base of quality, mutual friends. Friends that you have cultivated a relationship with, that are genuinely interested in your content, that Digg stories that you are interested in as well. Active friends. Before making a fan of yours a mutual friend, just take a look at the stories he has Dugg. The guy who only Diggs his own submits is not worth your time. Same goes for the guy who looks like he will Digg anything. You want people who when they Digg your submits, other people take notice. People whose Diggs are consistent.Whose followers in turn Digg their Diggs

Twitter

Add your twitter profile to your Digg profile. Diggers do interact outside of Digg and since the shout system went down I am amazed at the number of people from Digg making connections on twitter

Stories you submit to Digg

Source

You must vary the source of your submits. You can not exclusively submit your own material from your blog or websites.

Well you can but it will do nothing for your street cred on Digg. Blatant self promotion is just not attractive. So submit your blog posts and website articles, but also submit other people's content like stories in the media, other people's blog posts that you have found useful [could win you a mutual friend], articles form article directories, forum posts, you tube videos that are interesting. The trick is to digg other peoples' content that are not indirect competition with you [Obviously!]

Title and Description

This cannot be over-emphasized, YOUR TITLE AND DESCRIPTION MUST CAPTURE THEIR IMAGINATION. Give them an idea of what your story is about, whet their appetite, but don't give too much away.

Formulaic titles like '7 crucial tips for whatever' just do not have the pull they once had. So think out of the box. Be inventive without misleading. Or just tell them what they will gain by reading your story.

Again in your description you are trying to get them to want to read the entire story. There are so many Diggs that I have come across where the description gives away the entire story. "What's the point in clicking to the website if there isn't more to be had?" And we all know that our monetization is on our sites, not on Digg

Categories

Choose your category carefully. You want to make sure that your Digg is submitted to the relevant category but at the same time choose a category that does not have too much activity.

Take the news category for example. A submit in this category will last only a few minutes on the news upcoming front page. Because so many stories are submitted to this category. So you want to choose another relevant category that your Digg has a chance of being in front of the upcoming page for ... a little longer than a few minutes.

Comments

Crucial! Your comments will increase your reputation on Digg of used properly. I recently posted a comment on someone else's Digg. My comment got 135 diggs at the last count. That's a lot of diggs for one comment. [Shame I didn't have a link to my site or blog in that particular comment. Hmmm!]

You can also use comments to bring an old submit of yours back into play. For example say you submitted a story on a topic a while ago and the topic becomes conversational again, or things have moved on a bit and there is more current information on that topic. You could add a comment to your old Digg with the new information. Kind of like bumping a forum post but done ethically. Only do this if it is genuinely relevant

Digg Button

Last but not least, add the Digg button to your websites and blogs that you want to get traffic to from Digg. Another obvious one, but one that is so often forgotten

So the shouts system may be gone but there is still a lot of potential in Digg