The story appeared on an authoritative news site, went popular on Digg and several other social media sites, and was even picked up by one of the major television news networks! Needless to say, the linkbait attempt was incredibly successful.

However, the tactic Lyndoman used was met with mixed reactions in the SEO community many of whom thought the method was immoral and gave the community a bad name.

Personally, I am of the feeling that the piece achieved its goal (of attracting a massive number of links) and that is the only moral issue involved. If people (especially the news agencies) don’t bother to do some fact checking, I don’t see how that’s any concern of the marketer. Also, I don’t see how publishing a fabricated story is any different than staging photo opps or orchestrating events to create a desired effect. For example, if Lyndoman had in fact paid a 13 year old to steal his father’s credit card and hire the working girls would the story be somehow more valid?

What do you think? Would you knowingly publish a fabricated story to generate links? Do you think someone hired for the purpose of creating linkbait should worry about the moral implications of the story or are results the only thing that matters? Let your opinion be heard by weighing in through the comment section below!

The first thing I noticed when looking at Stumpedia was the simplicity of the site. Similar to another famous search engine, there’s the name of the site, and the search bar. A section underneath the search bar gives you the latest activity on the site and also highlights different user profiles.  While I like the simplicity of the design, I think it could use just a splash of color somewhere to accent things a bit. Maybe something as simple as using a larger version of the favicon as a logo or something. Simplicity is good, but there’s also a fine line between it and boring.

The functionality of the site is actually pretty cool. According to the home page, Stumpedia is a “social search engine that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web.” That’s a more detailed way to say the site is basically Google, mixed with Wikipedia, mixed with Digg. Searchers type in the term they’re looking for, hit enter, and up pops the results that users have submitted and voted up or down. The more votes a result gets, the higher up it ranks.

As I said, the idea behind the site is very cool. However, I’m afraid it might not be practical. First of all, there’s already a pretty popular search engine around. To be a success, Stumpedia needs to be the people’s first option when they try to find something on the web. If they are going to rely on the fact that their site is user generated content, there’s already Wikipedia for that. I just don’t see a lot of people abandoning either one to use Stumpedia.

Also, whenever a site relies on human signals to determine search relevancy, the first thing that springs to mind is spam. If Stumpedia manages to attract some decent traffic, the very next thing to follow will be people trying to exploit the site. Look at the lengths some people go to try and game Digg’s voting system. If Stumpedia were able to deliver a good amount of traffic to sites that are listed in it’s index, what would keep a site from hiring people to vote it up for all sorts of irrelevant but possibly profitable terms?

With all that being said, I’m sure people thought the same thing when Google and Wikipedia were being started. They certainly both had issues and I think we would all agree they’ve done alright for themselves. So, is Stumpedia the next big thing? In the online world we live in, you never know. Go check it out and decide for yourself. Also, if you have any other feedback on what you like or don’t like about the site, feel free to drop that input in a comment below.

Update: I’ll go ahead and embed the video as well. I included the time tags so you can just scroll directly to the questions if you’d like. Enjoy!

7.5 minutes in and we get our first question. Jay says they absolutely do not have moderators. They have one “site admin” on shift at a time and they just deal with stuff that breaks the terms of service. The “auto-bury” function is simply code targeting spam. I guess the different definitions of spam is where we run into the issue. I’m sorry but I simply don’t accept the claim that sites like Copyblogger, JohnChow, and others are “spam.”

13 minutes – The new buzz word “diverse” makes its first appearance of the night. Kevin and Jay both mention that if you have the same group of users digging your content all the time those diggs don’t count as much and it will take a higher number of diggs for your story to hit the front page. Now correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the point of a “social” site to connect people? In fact, they encourage us to find other people that often submit stories we like. However, if you make that next logical step of following that person and digging a lot of their stories, well sorry but your vote won’t count as much. More on this later…

17 minutes – Search and dupe detection gets some much deserved attention. They realize there are issues and they are working on fixing it. While that’s great, Digg doesn’t have the best track record on timely releases or fixes. If you get frustrated when people say it’s being looked at or worked on just stop reading now. Trust me, it’s for the better.

19.5 minutes – Super user Mr. Baby Man asks for a Digg forum. They say yes, but you guessed it, they’re working on it. Maybe I’m just cynical but is this beginning to sound like the MLB Congressional hearings for any other baseball fans? Jay goes on to say that there will be different forums for different things such as development, help and trouble shooting, etc.

21 minutes – A question asked by yours truly is tap-toed around. The question was pretty broad ranging but the main point was about the high threshold for stories to hit the front page. Diversity makes another appearance and Jay assures me that it’s not just based on the topics etc. They also point to stories that hit the front page with as few as 40 diggs to show that the new algo doesn’t penalize anyone. I’m beginning to wonder if they have some drinking game with the digg staffers involving the word diversity.

24:50 minutes in – The infamous bury brigade makes its first appearance on the show. The question asks for transparent buries and Jay basically says that while they’re still open to the idea, they aren’t going to do it just yet. In fact, Jay asks for more buries. Kevin says that he didn’t want it to get into a back and forth, tit-for-tat type thing. They ARE going to show the number of thumbs up and thumbs down on comments as a test. To me that’s huge news. I personally would love to see the buries be transparent and that sounds like a reasonable step in that direction.

The recorded version breaks into a second video right at the 27 minute mark.

2:15 in to the second video – New comment system coming in April. Thank GOODNESS! As if that weren’t enough, you’ll be able to delete your old comments! Awesome. This will fix what has been a fairly big annoyance and it’s nice to see it addressed.

5:30 – Is Digg up for sale? No comment. They explain how often they get asked that question but come on guys, if it were that big of a deal, why not just answer it once and be done with it. I think this a lot like pleading the 5th, you only do it if you have something to hide, so my guess is yes, Digg is up for sale.

7 min in – Bugs in profile activity is asked about. Apparently there was a fix pushed out within the past few days, although I hadn’t been encountering the issue so I can’t really speak to this one.

8:50 – A delete all shouts option is requested and once again I couldn’t agree more. Once again, “over time” they consider requests like this. Dear GAWD man how many people have to request this before it’s just done? I’m sorry but if you don’t have the manpower just hire more programmers. Didn’t you guys get millions in funding etc?

10:45 – Spam shouts are brought up and basically Jay and Kevin say that if you’re being spammed with shouts, you should have fewer friends. Gee thanks guys, I wouldn’t want to mistake Digg for a social site. A private messaging system is requested and.. say it with me this time… they’re “working on it.” No wonder they have so few programmers, they work them like slave drivers! In all seriousness, I think a PM system would be much better than the current shouting but also has a huge potential for abuse as well.

13:15 – Super users resubmitting stories is called a “annoying problem” and Jay assures us that technologies are being developed that detect it, and take you to the original story. Kevin explains that they are trying to develop duplicate content detection that happens when you submit the URL rather than relying on the title and description of the story. That would be pretty cool but only if it works better than the current dupe detection system.

16:25 – My second question of the night, although really they already addressed the issue. I asked about moderators and Jay assures us once again that there are no moderators. Kevin then goes into this long diatribe about an example of spam. I’m not sure why but between this show and the drill down episode a couple of weeks back, it seems like Digg thinks we don’t understand that people spam the site.

22 minutes in – Jay looks longingly at Kevin. I realize they are sitting there talking to each other and a camera but I half expected him to profess his undying love of the Rose lol. Seriously though the question asked was about the podcast section and basically they say it will definitely be addressed but by integrating them into the video section.

24:15 – Sorting through your old comments with the context is apparently part of the new comment system. Everything else asked for is already available (and I’m actually quite fond of being able to see how many thumbs up your comments get without having to go to the actual thread).

27 – After a few duplicate questions that had already been addressed, stale front page content is brought up again. Kevin says that the new recommendation engine should help with getting us more stories quicker. Jay explains that as Digg grows they are probably going to move towards more personalized or even localized “front pages.” To be honest, I really hope they don’t go down this route. I think part of the beauty of Digg is that it broadens your horizons and exposes you to so much content you normally wouldn’t have encountered.

28:50 – Random or recommended stories features are suggested. Kevin pretty much already talked about that and stated again that they will be releasing a recommendation engine “very soon” and he even has prototypes. I’ve now lost count of the number of things they are working on and will be released “soon.”

31:30 – Diversity is asked about yet again. The question is understandably danced around but Jay says that it isn’t based on topic, but rather “who.. and sort of where” and then suggests that your “history interacting with the content” might also play into it similar to how Google does things. This could probably be a whole post on it’s own but I’m just going to skip boring you with yet another anti Google rant.

33:45 – Why are legitimate bloggers considered spam? Because some bloggers are spammers. Also, when stories from blogs or sites go popular on a regular basis, they get flagged as spam by users. Jay then makes the outlandish claim that Digg contacts all the sites they ban and that they get MULTIPLE chances. Give me a break guys, you’re telling me that John Chow and Copyblogger et all have all been contacted by you guys and yet still write posts like this one? Please. I’m not one to call someone an out and out liar but I’d say that whether they didn’t understand this question or they just didn’t want to answer it, this answer is BS.

38:20 – Subvert and Profit and buying of diggs is brought up and in a very Google-esque response, they say that they can detect that sort of thing, but no they won’t explain how other than it’s “pretty cool.” I’ve heard about new sites that sell social votes (including diggs) popping up more and more so I’m willing to bet it still works. That might make for an interesting piece of linkbait for anyone that wants to give it a shot.

Ok, hopefully that gives you the basics of what was covered without making you watch the entire 75 minute show. All in all I’d say this was a step in the right direction but there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Digg users, did this address the concerns you might have had? Did any answers stick out as particularly useful or revealing? Chime in using the comment form below!

While surfing around a few Digg profiles, I noticed something really strange. At the bottom of the page where shouts normally appear I saw this:

Notice the “Sorry! Ben has decided to keep his shouts private” massage? Did you also notice the “View All Shouts” link in the upper right hand corner? I wasn’t all that concerned until I glanced up and realized that I wasn’t logged in to my account! For reference, this is how the profile should have looked:

As you can see, the View All Shouts link is missing from this profile and there’s no way for me to see those shouts. It appeared that something was wrong with my account.

I quickly logged in to make sure I hadn’t accidentally changed my settings and was very surprised to see that in fact I hadn’t.

To make sure I wasn’t crazy, I contacted a few friends and asked whether their shouts were set to private. Several of them responded that they were but sure enough, I could see all their shouts, no matter what their settings were at.

It does appear that the option is working for at least some accounts. For example, the screen shot from 1KrazyKorean’s account shows that those shouts are being kept private, however, those seem to be few and far between.

Needless to say, if you think your shouts are currently set to private, you might want to check again.

Hat tip to Tamar of Techipedia for helping me investigate this one. She’s also covering the problem in her post Digg, Your Privacy is an Illusion.

Update: Not surprisingly, this post was submitted to Digg and in fact, the CEO left a comment. Jay Adelson says “Ok, message received. We have a team looking into it now. It’s a very, very good team, too. ” I’d expect the issue to be fixed shortly.

Update II: As you can see from Jay’s comment below, shouts are now truly private. Thanks for the quick response on this one!

Feeding the Trolls

We’ve all heard about how harsh Digg users can be when it comes to submissions. Even stories that hit the front page get comments like “what a horrible story” or “I can’t believe this made it to the front page!” While other social media sites have a less prickly reputation, you’ll see this on just about any site you visit. With a crowd as diverse as social media users you’re not ever going to please everyone. If you jump into an argument guns blazing at the first hint of a negative comment, you’ll not only be in for a long day, but you’ll also probably be killing off your story’s chances as well.

Spelling Errors

Look, no one is ever going to spell everything correctly 100% of the time. However, take the extra minute to double check the spelling of the title and description that you’re submitting to the social media site. You’ll also want to check the title of the story on your page but the submission is especially important. I’ve seen several great stories go up in flames because all the voters focused on was the typo in the submission headline.

Fake Comments

It’s always nice to hear or read compliments but social media sites are not the place to go for help with your self esteem issues. Don’t have all your friends comment about what a great site you have, or how amazing your content is. If you’ve done a good job, there will be others to sing your praises. If not, no amount of fake comments is going to help. Users will see right through it and your story will suffer the consequences.

Misleading Title or Description

Just about every article you read about how to hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. focuses on having an appealing title. The fact is, that advice is 100% accurate, but there is a very fine line between writing a compelling title and description for your submission, and becoming too sensationalist or misleading readers. If your submission says you found a way to cure cancer, you’d better make damn well sure you’ve got the cure for cancer in that article. If you disappoint readers, not only will they not vote for your story, but they’ll probably vote it down and leave a comment warning other potential readers.

Ad Focused

This might sound a bit hypocritical coming from a blog that not only has ads on it but is all about making money. However, the fact is no matter how much work or planning you put into creating content that performs well socially, it won’t matter if visitors have to dig through 15 ad blocks to get to your content. Seriously, you could be the next Shakespeare and you’ll never stand a chance if your site has 3 Adsense units before you get to the content. Besides, you’re not going to make much off social media traffic anyway, the bulk of them have ad-blocking plugins and the rest are too savvy to click your ads.

There are definitely more mistakes that could go on this list but these are the ones I see most often. I’m also probably not the first to write these things but either people don’t listen or they don’t think these things apply to them because this still happens A LOT. I know you think you’re helping your story along but the truth is, you’re sabotaging your story, your site, and ultimately your own success.

Welcome Digg Users! You may also be interested in our latest post, Are You Sabotaging Your Social Stories?

Just about every blogger around knows how powerful hitting the front page of Digg.com can be. We’ve all heard the stories about the massive horde of visitors swarming over a site in just a few short hours. However, few people talk about the amount of traffic a front page Digg story leaves in it’s wake. Many SEO sites have written about the influx of links that often follow a popular story, but I’d always read about it as one component of an overall link building or SEO campaign. I hadn’t ever heard about a site that relied solely upon one Digg story for it’s promotion and traffic. So, I decided to make one.

The Idea

About 6 months ago an idea for a great article sprang to mind after a discussion with a co-worker. Originally I had planned to publish the article as a post on one of my existing blogs, but after a bit of thought decided to wrap an entire site around the article. I jumped online, was pleasantly surprised that my first choice of domain names was available, registered said domain, installed WordPress, and quickly typed out the post. After installing a new theme and cranking out an about page, HilariousNames.com was ready to roll.

The Digg

At that time I was very active on Digg and had been on a good run of submissions becoming popular. Since the site was brand new and no one knew it existed, much less that it was my own site, I decided I’d be ok to submit my own work. Obviously this is something normally frowned upon by the Digg community but occasionally you can get away with it. This was one of those occasions. The submission took off very quickly and became popular within a matter of hours. The traffic poured in at such a frantic pace that my host thought it was a DDOS attack and shut down the site. After two hours of panicked support tickets, the site came back up and the traffic resumed. In fact my follow up post (describing my dealings with my hosting provider) very nearly went popular on Digg as well. After all was said and done, the site had seen about 20,000 visitors over the course of a few hours.

The Lasting Effects

After a couple of days the blog was shelved for a different project I was working on (this very site in fact) and I decided to just let it sit to see what would happen. I hadn’t promoted the site anywhere else other than Digg and I hadn’t done any SEO work on it. The popular post did get picked up by several other social sites and the traffic over the next week or so remained fairly high for a brand new site (around 1,000 visitors a day). After that, traffic began to trail off and eventually dropped down to under 10 per day. I figured the site had probably run its course but left it up to age just in case I ever decided to come back around to it. I recently decided to check my stats for all of my sites and was surprised to see the blog is now averaging nearly 40 visitors a day! 75% of the traffic is coming from search engines with another 19% clicking over from the Digg submission. Apparently the site ranks first in Google and Yahoo for the term “hilarious names” and also appears on the first page for other searches such as “worst names”, and “worst names ever”, etc.

While 40-50 visitors a day certainly won’t raise many eyebrows, keep in mind that this is entirely the result of a single popular story on Digg. Any and all links, rankings, and traffic the site has is due to the long term effects of that single post. I mean shoot, the last update was hours after the article hit the front page. No this level of traffic won’t shut your server down or spike your Alexa rankings. But these are the results I’ve seen without doing ANYTHING else with the site. Imagine the kind of growth and popularity that could be achieved if you leveraged the initial traffic into readers.

Imagine how many more links and how much more traffic your site would receive if you were able to make it to the front page of a popular social site multiple times. Hell, imagine how much better the results would be if you simple wrote posts regularly after becoming popular. This is the lasting Digg effect, and it might just be more powerful than the tsunami of traffic Digg is famous for.

Blogging means different things to different people. For some it is is merely for entertainment, for others it is purely a business venture, but for most people (including me) blogging is about sharing your ‘expertise’ with others, meeting new people, and building relationships. With that in mind, here are what you will find to be quite straightforward steps you can follow to strike a conversation today and build a relationship tomorrow.

1. The Gift of Linking

The easiest way to get someone’s attention is to send them a link. A link to someone else’s content right away signals not only that you are paying attention to what they have to say but also that you respect their opinion enough to either respond to it (doesn’t matter if your response is positive or negative) or incorporate it into your content as evidence or background information.

Furthermore, whenever someone links to you, make it a point to acknowledge the link, thank the person, and keep in touch.

2. Joining the Discussion

Want to make yourself known and your presence felt? Why not participate in the discussions started by others that you are interested in (i.e. topics that are relevant to you/your niche)? Go to the sites you enjoy and have your say. Don’t forget to enter your site’s url in the comment information field so when people want to know who you are, they can head on over to your site and thank you or reciprocate.

Whenever someone comments on your content, respond the that person on the blog but also try to communicate off the blog (via email or instant messaging).

3. Get in Touch

We are all mortals and we all have to start somewhere. So what if Darren Rowse has 50,000 rss subscribers and you just have 50? Send him an email, talk to him, show your interest and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

4. Go Visiting

Don’t limit yourself to reading and writing, or even linking and commenting. Make the extra effort and offer to guest write on other blogs. Bloggers are always looking for fresh insight and new opinions, without which even the best blogs can become stale.

5. Welcome Guests

Just as important as offering to write on other people’s sites is inviting them to write on yours. Not only will your readers appreciate the change but the guest writers will appreciate the opportunity to connect with your audience.

6. Offer a Helping Hand

The easiest way to build a rapport with someone? Offer a helping hand. This can be in the form of any of the things mentioned above or something else that you’re good at. For me, it was often helping people reach the social media audience with their content.

There you have it. If you’re still wondering how Ben and I got to know each other and how I ended up writing for this and other blogs. Read the steps again and you’ll find that I just followed the steps you’ve just read.

As he mentioned, Muhammad Saleem has written for several high profile blogs and is, in my opinion, an authority on guest blogging and networking. He and also maintains his own blog, muhammadsaleem.com, which is a fast growing authority on social media. Make sure you’re subscribed.

Are Digg and the popularity sites doing more harm than good? Do they make a cheap headline worth more than real analysis?

I’ll admit, being a fairly avid user of social media sites such as Digg, my first reaction was an indignant “Of course not!” However, as I began to think more and more about the subject, the question became a much more legitimate and difficult question to answer. When I announced that I’d be offering comprehensive SEO site reviews as one of the advertising options on this site, I asked for your opinions on whether or not I had abandoned my goal of documenting this experiment and making it something that could be replicated. Fiar left a comment saying I shouldn’t “set the definition of “anyone” to the lowest common denominator.” As I went back to reconsider the questions posed by Mr. Asay, that comment sprang to mind and I realized that in some sense, that’s exactly what Digg and the other “popularity sites” are doing. By requiring a certain number of votes on an article or submission before it is promoted for the masses to consume, aren’t these sites just rewarding the content that appeals to the widest segment of readers? When so many people with so many different ideas, beliefs, and opinions all congregate in one place, won’t popularity be limited to in essence the lowest common denominator?

As I mentioned earlier, a group of bloggers and I had actually been discussing a similar topic earlier this week. One person mentioned that at times it seems like the pieces of content that we spend the most time on and put the most effort into are NOT in fact the ones that see the most success on social media sites. During the discussion, the idea was floated out there that perhaps some of the more time consuming articles or pieces were in fact too advanced for the hoard that frequents the social sites. My problem with that suggestion is that the crowds of people that use social media sites are not stupid. Granted many of the comments left on submissions are far from what I would call sophisticated but there’s no denying the intelligence level. However, when you incorporate the idea that perhaps these sites cater to the topics and submissions that the majority of the users will agree on, the theory that the more advanced submissions don’t do as well suddenly becomes not only plausible but possibly explainable as well.

So, now I’m putting the questions to you. What do you think? Are social media sites like Digg and others simply catering to the lowest common denominator? Like Mr. Asay asked, are they doing more harm than good?  Are they placing more value on a great headline rather than substantive content? If so, is there any way around it? Weigh in with your thoughts and opinions on this week’s Reader Discussion in the comments below. Also, if you missed last week’s it’s not too late to jump in, the more opinions and ideas, the better.

I created this site so that I can earn some money to donate to a charity (Modest Needs), to pay for college, and to re-launch another venture that didn’t succeed in the past because of my limited resources. I admire such web ventures as Alex Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage but I wanted to create something more, something that is not only interesting but valuable to the everyday web surfer.

To become a member of Goldigg.com it will cost $100. Once you are a member you can quickly gain that back by placing ads in your story submissions, by charging to submit someone’s story, having others pay you to vote, or by selling your account. Almost anything is possible to generate income for yourself.

Once 5,000 members is reached no more will be accepted. A limited user base will create more demand for you, adding more money to your pocket.

Alex emailed me and asked me to check the site out and even gave me a free membership. He certainly knows how to grease the wheels a bit! So, what do I think of Goldigg?  I’m glad you asked.

First of all, I love the idea. One of the things I love most about the internet is that original and outside the box ideas like this can turn into the next rags to riches story. While Andrew no doubt based his idea on the milliondollarhomepage (MDHP), he modified it and made it into something all his own. The value of the site, and by extension, the memberships, is going to depend almost solely on the size of the audience Andrew is able to generate. Much like the MDHP and the million dollar wiki (MDW), the more popular the site gets, the more valuable membership becomes. Alex doesn’t go into much detail about the things he has in mind to help generate that buzz, but contacting bloggers certainly seemed to work well for (MDW). Also, Andrew has vowed to donate half the proceeds to charity. While the more skeptical people out there will suspect no charity will ever see a dime from this project, I think stating it publicly and putting the promise in writing on his website certainly adds to the pressure to deliver. If the site begins to get any kind of media attention, you can believe someone will be checking up to make sure he makes good.

So, overall, I like the idea. I do have a few suggestions and recommendations for the site as well as promotion of it. First of all Andrew, while I’m flattered that I was the first member, you really should contact some of the big dogs and work a deal with them in exchange for promoting your site. You could contact John Chow and give him a cut of all memberships you sell as a result of his coverage. You could do the same thing for numerous other bloggers. You could offer an affiliate program that members could join to help give them further incentive to spread the word about the site.

Also, the site design leaves a bit to be desired. You have a lot of empty space at the top of the page that’s just taken up by stripes. Also, a memorable logo would definitely help you brand the site and make it more memorable. There are thousands of Pligg based sites out there, you need to make yours exceptional. The navigation on interior pages is pretty rough and I think on one page the only way I could get back to the main site was the back button.

So there you have it. I think with a lot of promotional effort and some design work, the idea will be able to shine through. As it stands now, I believe those two issues are holding it back a bit. However, the site’s also only been live for days at this point and it can be a HUGE task getting Pligg to work the way you want it to (I’ve know, I’ve tried). But what do you think of the site, BloggingExperiment readers? Does Andrew have the next big idea on his hands or is he going to have to chalk this one up to experience? Do you have any ideas or suggestions for the site? Let us know in the comments below.

Let’s start of with the same question I asked Muhammad yesterday, what do you think of the recent changes on Digg? Do you think the changes to the profile system are having any effect on which stories are made popular or how they are promoted?

It seems to me Digg is trying to capitalize on the recent trend that Facebook has been enjoying lately, the whole making social connections movement. Ultimately it might be one of their goals, have Digg users interact a lot more thanks to new shout feature and probably a much better messaging system in near future.

This new change also stripped the users’ ability to digg their friends’ stories within the profile page. [Editor's note: To me, this is the most frustrating and annoying change they made. Anyway...] I believe Digg wanted to get rid of this “Digg gaming” feature for the longest time. It is a lot harder to digg your friends’ stories now, thanks to the new update you must now click on the story and hopefully read the content before you can digg it.

Are you an avid user of any other social media sites?

As far as social bookmarking, I only use Digg because I’ve been a member since almost day one and haven’t really found a good alternative yet. Most of the content is recycled among these types of websites, so it doesn’t really matter where you find it. The only other social media site I’m really active on is Flickr. Since photography is one of my hobbies, I really enjoy sharing my photos there and see what my contacts post there.

A lot of bloggers seem to put a lot of effort into appearing on Digg but most don’t ever succeed. What advice would you give to those of us looking to attract some attention from social media users?

One of the main things a lot of bloggers/writers don’t understand about Digg users is that people who use the site have a really short attention span. So you can’t submit huge essays length stories and expect them to be popular. All the user really wants to read is the main details about certain technology story, world event, product, movie, video, picture and etc. The content you are covering must be new or at least relatively new, something that has been in the news recently. Have a catchy title and interesting description, many of the Digg users might vote on your story just for the title alone.

Ok, but once we have that type of content, what then? I asked Muhammad about whether it was ok to try and contact a top user to submit the content. He was of the feeling that if the content was high quality and something Digg users would enjoy, he didn’t mind. Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot and if so, what is your opinion of it?

I get a lot of emails and IMs with links from people who want their content promoted on Digg. I really don’t mind submitting stories for websites that don’t get a lot of exposure because I feel like I’m helping small guys get recognized for the hard work they put in their sites.

So in the event that a blogger does end up getting their content on the front page of Digg, what then? How can we best capitalize on that wave of traffic and attention?

I think just continuing posting great new content on consistent basis. The top diggers have a habit of adding noticing sites like that and adding them to their RSS feed readers because they know stories coming from that say have a good chance of hitting homepage once again.

Alright, Karim, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. Now Bob from ChristianPF.com wrote in yesterday asking about StumbleUpon. Since Karim hasn’t used the site before, I figured I’d field this one. Bob writes, “I have been toying with Stumbleupon trying to figure out more about their algorithm – I have gathered that the amount of Stumble traffic you get is based on # of thumbs ups, how active you are in the Stumble community, and (hurts traffic) the amount of self promotion you do – Do you have any other ideas, thoughts, or facts about how it works?”

There are a few other factors that play into your success or failure. The first is making it to the buzz page. This is sort of the equivalent to hitting the front page of Digg only on a slightly smaller scale. The second factor that can really help your submissions is the number of reviews it gets. The little speech bubble on the SU toolbar is a link to review the page you’re on. The more reviews you get, the better your story will do.

I also seem to remember seeing a collection of posts about SU around earlier this week. I’ll see if I can’t find that and post a link as well. That’s it for now though. Thanks again to Karim for taking the time to answer my questions. For the rest of you, I hope this provided some more insight into how you might be able to leverage Digg and other social media sites to your blog’s benefit.