The social bookmarking system (Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, etc.) is broken, and it has become so top heavy that “gaming” the system and unfair advantages given to “power users” have become the only real way to achieve success, a.k.a. a lot of traffic to your website.
For my regular Today is that Day readers, this post is not going to be about personal development or self improvement. However, it IS going to be about achieving success via your website, so if that is of interest to you, then please keep reading.
A quick Primer on Social Bookmarking
For anyone who doesn’t understand why people are spelling “Digg” like that, or anyone who doesn’t understand why Stumbling is a good thing, this section is for you. 🙂
In short, social bookmarking is a system where you find a blog post or a web page that you like, and you cast a “vote” on sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, etc., which lets other people know that you think they should also check it out.
If someone else likes that content, then they also vote on it, someone else joins in and does the same, yet another person casts a vote, and the process continues like that over and over again. The more “votes” that page gets, the more traffic that it gets as a result.
Traffic is the key to success on the Internet. There are other factors, to be sure, but even if you have the best website in the world, if no one ever finds it, you are just spinning your wheels.
So, the general idea is that by voting for content, you help the creator of that content to get more traffic to their website. In return, often the creator of that content will vote for your content as well, and a nice reciprocal stream of traffic is created. That stream of traffic grows larger and larger the more times that people vote for your content.
Sounds great, right? So what’s the problem?
1) There is too much voting going on
People have a tendency to think that if something is good, then MORE of it must be better. Sometimes that is the case, but often it is not. When it comes to social bookmarking, more is NOT better, and in fact, the entire process can backfire on you.
Social bookmarking sites are looking for extraordinary content, not just run of the mill stuff. It doesn’t matter how great of a writer you are, every single thing that ends up on your blog or your web page is not “vote-worthy”. Social bookmarking has become so competitive that people are asking for votes for every single thing that they put up on the Internet, which entirely defeats the purpose of the entire social bookmarking industry.
How you can fix it:
Only vote for content that is TRULY outstanding or useful, and only ASK FOR votes on content that is truly outstanding or useful. Just because you have a fleet of “voting buddies” doesn’t mean that every single thing that any of you write is worth sharing with the world at large.
Yes, put up all of the content that you want on your blog or your website, but don’t clog up the social bookmarking system by voting for everything that comes your way, or asking for votes on every single thing that you write.
p.s. – Practice what you preach in this regard. Don’t sweep other people’s content under the rug while only being partial to your own.
2) There are too many social bookmarking sites
Digg is the most heavily-trafficked social bookmarking site (at the moment), followed closely by Stumbeupon. Both of those sites have a lot to offer, yet both also have short-comings. I won’t get into the details of that since that is a discussion all by itself.
The same “more is better” mentality that I mentioned above has permeated the social bookmarking website creation sector. Although there are several large(ish) sites such as Reddit, Del.icio.us., and Propeller (to name a few), there are dozens of smaller sites that have popped up as well.
Since most people with websites or blogs want as much traffic as possible, everyone is scattering to get votes at as many of these sites as possible. Again, that seems logical, but it’s really not.
Each of these sites has their own unique communities and ways of doing business, and it is simply not possible to be an active member in twelve different social bookmarking communities – not if you have a job and/or a life, that is.
People who are trying to become popular on all of these different websites are just compounding the problem by once again “clogging up” the social bookmarking system, not to mention annoying their social bookmarking friends by asking for votes on so many different websites all the time.
How you can fix it:
Stick to a small number of websites where you are building up your community involvement, and ONLY interact on those websites (for the record, check out the Digg, Stumbleupon, and Mixx buttons below to see me practicing what I preach).
Become an active member in those communities by providing OUTSTANDING content for those communities to vote on, and also vote on other OUTSTANDING stories that you find there. Keep your chosen communities “clean” by not muddying the waters by voting for a bunch of crap content that no one really cares about, and certainly don’t provide that type of content yourself.
If you really want to try out more than just 3 or 4 social bookmarking sites, then simply build up your presence in one community, and then move on to other communities later.
3) The contact systems for these websites are broken
Most Digg users have hundreds (if not thousands) of “friends” on Digg, yet the Digg system will only let you send “shouts” out to 15 people at a time letting them know about the content that you want them to check out.
Stumbleupon will only let you send a message to ONE person at a time.
Some of the other sites don’t have a messaging system at all.
The entire idea behind social bookmarking is to share outstanding content, yet these websites make it very difficult for you to do that. The reasoning behind that is probably so that hundreds (or thousands) of people don’t start spamming each other every day.
The solution to sharing content with people who may be interested enough in your content to vote for it is to make sure that they are interested to begin with!
Adding friends on social bookmarking sites is nothing more than a “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” arrangement, and often that leads to seriously one-sided efforts. One person votes for their “friend’s” content all the time, while those alleged friends rarely return the favor.
How you can fix it:Â
Get involved in social bookmarking groups where all members agree to give due diligence to each other’s vote requests, and then manage the entire process via email. Using email requires each person to actually make an effort (what a concept!), rather than just blindly using some broken contact system that includes zero accountability on either end of the equation.
Yes, I can hear you now: I already get too much email!
I am involved with several of these email-only groups right now, and with the exception of Digg (where until today I was using their broken “shout” system) I spend approximately 1 hour per day reading and voting on my friend’s requests. When I send emails to those same people asking them to check out my stories, it results in an absolute flood of traffic, because my email partners reciprocate my efforts by voting for my content that is worth voting for.
If you aren’t willing to take the time to open a
n email, click a link, and then cast a vote once you get to the site, then you aren’t going to have time to do the same thing using any of the site-specific content sharing functionalities, either.
By doing the entire process via email, you can ensure that your social bookmarking partners are reciprocating your efforts, because it is easy to keep track of who is active and who is not. Even if you have an extremely active email network of social bookmarking partners, it is not difficult to keep track of who is voting for your content.
WHAT TO DO NEXT:
If you want more information about this entire process, or if you already understand and want to start getting the best possible return on your time investment when it comes to social bookmarking, then do the following:
1) Join my personal social bookmarking network. My email address is aaron@TodayIsThatDay.com. Send me an email and let me know that you want to exchange content for social bookmarking purposes, and I’ll add you to my distribution list. In return, I will look at every piece of content that you send me, and any content worth sharing will get voted on.
2) Instead of (or in addition to) joining my personal network, start one of your own. Contact other bloggers or website owners and tell them that you want to exchange social bookmarking efforts. Most will be more than happy to. Social bookmarking is a free and easy way to get loads of traffic to your website.
3) Take the information from this post back to Digg, Stumbleupon, or any of the other sites, and use it to be a better community member. Vote for outstanding content, share outstanding content, and leave the crap content behind.
p.s. – To my present social bookmarking partners: I WILL NOT BE USING any of the shout/share/messaging features on any of the social bookmarking sites anymore. If you want to share your content for vote consideration, send me an email and I WILL check it out, and vote for it if it provides value!
You raise some very important points Aaron! Thanks for this article.
Glad to clear up some of the confusion, Zoe! Social bookmarking rocks, so I’m just doing my part to make it an effort worth taking part in!
Great article, I’ve recently joined Digg, I’ve been a member of stumbleupon for a year or two. This is great advice and I think the real key is, as you said, providing OUTSTANDING content. When you do that, your content should naturally find it’s way to the top.
By the way, I’m a friend of yours on digg, same handle, Jonathan Mead. If all your articles are this good, I’ll digg your stories anytime. =)
Great article Aaron. Question: How do you reconcile #1 with #3? If you’re saying that there’s too much voting going on – which I agree with – and at the same time suggesting that people create formal or informal voting networks how do those two concepts coexist?
Outstanding article Aaron. I am just getting into using Social Marketing and learned a great deal from you. Keep up the good work.
Aaron,
Excellent points. If we Digg and Stumble everything, how do you know what’s good and what sucks?
Probably a follow-up post or question is: How do you determine if something is Digg or Stumble worthy?
I’m sure everyone has different criteria.
Walt
Jonathan,
Much obliged for the positive feedback, and here’s to continuing to create content that is actually WORTH voting for!
I’ll keep doing my best to get that type of content out there, and feel free to send your stuff my way anytime as well. 🙂
Hey, Ed! Thanks for asking such a great question for explaining how this all works.
The idea with keeping your voting habits to only content that is worth sharing via (formal or informal) voting groups is based on the very real fact that the type of people who are just voting on everything under the sun are NOT the type of people who will make the effort to get involved in a bookmarking group.
In addition, even if they did, and they start sending their requests via email, it will quickly become apparent whether or not what they are sharing is consistently worth voting for.
If it’s not, then simply don’t vote for it. If they are in turn not voting for the requests that you send out, then just take them out of your bookmarking group.
It’s basically a case of only allowing group members who are adding value to the group. If not, then they gotta go! 😉
Hey, Wanda!
Glad that this post helped to clear things up for you. Feel free to give me a shout if you need more info on any of the specifics. I’d be glad to help you out. 🙂
Walt,
That’s a great question, and one that I have struggled with in the past. As you indicated, everyone will have their own criteria. However, I have a baseline minimum that a post has to offer before I will vote for it.
In short, it has to have SOME sort of value. It doesn’t have to be “mind-blowing” type of stuff, and it doesn’t even have to be something particularly useful, but it does at least have to offer something other than merely someone’s opinion. In short, I look for the post to have any of these characteristics:
– Entertaining
– Informative
– Empowering
– Educational
– Industry-specific news
I’m sure there are other criteria that other people would use, but those are the biggest things that come to my mind. In addition, even if someone always writes content that falls into any of those categories, they should still save their BEST stuff for the social bookmarking circles.
I’ll be joining your network Aaron. Sorry, I am guilty of giving thumbs up to some content that might not have deserved it. I don’t give a thumbs up to everything however, porn and vulgarity usually are ignored. But I rarely give a thumbs down.
Adam,
Awesome! You have already voted for some good content here, and I definitely want to reciprocate that effort.
You can send vote requests over anytime, Adam, and I’d be happy to take a look at them! 🙂
great post….though we do not have the traffic of digg or stumbleupon (yet), i believe our new social bookmarking site, MindBodyGreen.com, which is focused entirely on better, healthier, greener living, can provide a solution for like-minded bloggers…
Jason,
Coming up with a niche-related social bookmarking site is a step in the right direction. Again, more is not better when it comes to social bookmarking sites, but at least a niche-site cuts out some of the “noise” because it’s not a free for all where everyone wants to submit every type of content.
– Aaron
Thank you Aaron,
I have just come back from a week away to find my Social Marketing Centre and digg requests out of control.My inclination is to take a deep breathm selct all and delete and start again.
You make some great points
I remember Jack Humphreys with his web2 submitter saying to submit your best article weekly.
I also find for me that the post must resonate with me
Suzie
Great article Aaron! I agree with many of your points. One of the things that I decided to do at the beginning of January was embark upon a 3 month test period in which I would budget more time than usual (about 2 hours) each day to the social media sites – submitting content, reading articles, voting, making comments and networking.
My goal in this 3 month period is to narrow the field, so to speak. It is not physically possible to invest time and energy into all of these sites on a sustainable basis, as you mentioned.
Ultimately, like you, my plan is to have 3-4 sites that I utilize consistently, and then only budget a shorter period of time per day to them. When you think about operating your sites as a business, there are many important things to do, like creating great content, researching, reading related RSS feeds, responding to comments on your site and social media stuff.
Great post!
Suzie,
Absolutely! We should all get our awesome content out there and even market it very aggressively. However, not EVERYTHING needs that much of our attention.
And yes, I’m with you on the “delete all”! That is why I switched over to asking for and sending out vote requests via email. Only people who are serious about exchanging vote considerations will consistently take the time to send and receive email messages.
Jeremy,
Thanks a bunch for contributing to the conversation, and I would definitely be interested in hearing the results of your experiment. As more and more social media sites come out, it will become increasingly important to know which sites are worth our time.
I totally agree with what you said about operating our websites like a business. That is exactly what we need to do, and in a business environment, you spend time on activities that work towards the business goals, and leave the non-productive activities behind.
I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Every great site on the net has a social part because everybody realizes how important it is for the future of the web. However, I totally agree that the buddy fleet is more important then content to gain traffic to your site from sites like Digg. I can see that there are huge differences between quality traffic (targeted) vs. quantity traffic (huge numbers but might not be targeted). Depending on the purpose of your site, one or the other will be more useful for you.
Hey, Karl!
Thanks for being a reader for so long – I appreciate that!
You make a great point about getting quality traffic vs. just regular traffic. Non-targeted traffic does not help the website, nor the visitor. Getting people to come to any given site who are actually interested in that content is a necessary part of the process.
Thanks a bunch for sharing your thoughts, Karl!
I think one could consider me to be “power digger,” although… I don’t think of myself that way. But I have your site on my RSS feed, and while I was browsing thru, I saw this article.
I couldn’t agree more. I have found that there are so many people voting for stories, just in hopes of getting a vote back. Thats not how I digg or Stumble. I ONLY vote on what I think is a QUALITY submit.
But. I also find and submit what I think are QUALITY articles. Like this one… it’s too bad that this has already been submitted, cuz I know I could’ve taken this to the front page.
Anyways. I just wanted to say that I love your work. I love your blog. And I couldn’t agree more with you.
Great Post!
Jeff,
Thank you so much for adding to the conversation from the point of view of someone who understands how the system works, and also does their best to use that system for what it was originally intended for.
I appreciate your comments on my writing, as well as your subscription to this blog. Although it is challenging to make every single post worthy of worldwide recognition, I do my best to make the time that people spend here worthy of that time.
Thanks again, Jeff!
I think there are two sides of this coin.
Yes. There are people who knowingly game the system. But I also think that there are some who just genuinely want to promote good stuff that they find online.
But. I think that with anything in life, you are never going to get rid of the selfish people who think only of themselves. Great Post!
Thanks, Herb!
Yes, there are plenty of people who are trying to use the social bookmarking sites for what they are supposed to be used for, which is what I do, and why I prefer to use email to exchange votes.
The type of people who are just sending junk aren’t the type of people who will make an effort to be part of a group who are going to work the system the right way.
Thanks for your comments, Herb!
I agree with many of your key points. You need to build a community of “mutual” friends on the top networks to effectively use them. Digg is a prime example, If you want any chances to reach the high-traffic pages of the website you need to create a large friend network. You must actively digg your shouts, share friends stories, and develop relationships in the community. In my opinion, if your not going to devote the time to interact with the community, your just wasting your time. Just dropping a story into digg and going on your way will give you back exactly what you put into it, nothing. Very nice article.