Hello again, my social networking friend!

I really feel like the morons of the world are gaining territory. They are winning. If you have an IQ above a mosquito, there is no hope for you and you should just abandon all thought and leave now. It’s time to give up the good fight and move on.

I say this because I have just been subjected to a round of reality shows, due to the fact that I was stuck in bed sick with the flu and this was the only thing on TV. I have some form of mutant cable that only seems to give me the stupid channels and I was happy to numb the pain by giving these shows a chance.

The intro was a typical celeb love-in where the hosts were gushing on about some celebrity something or other. Do we REALLY need celebrities flaunting their riches and affluence at a time when people are stealing groceries to survive????

Then came Paris Hilton in some show with a group of fame whores all vying to be her fake friend. Do these people honestly think they’ll end up on her speed dial after the cameras stop rolling?? Of course, Ms. Hilton is the biggest fame whore of them all, so it came as no surprise when I noticed in the closing credits that she herself created the show.

Next came the Hey Paula show with Ms. Abdul and her wonderfully flaky persona. People seem to think she is a lush or on some sort of drug binge, but it’s clear the woman just needs to SLEEP, dammit! She’s a workaholic insomniac. NOT a good combination of maladies.

I finally ended the night with the girl next door fantasy time with Hugh and his babes. Of course, for him it really IS reality TV, but for every other guy on the planet it’s still just one of those fantasies that will never come true. There’s only so much silly-con and bubbery that I can take, so I shut it off and drifted away to my own la-la land.

If you haven’t seen the movie Idiocracy, then I suggest you watch it soon, because that’s where our future is headed. We are becoming massively dumber and the idiots are taking over. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

So, you’re travelling along the countryside, killing a monster here and there, and you meet a few friendly folk along the way, which eventually leads to forming a guild of like-minded souls. Now, what’s a good Warcraft leader to do when it comes to organizing this motley crew of WOW addicts? Well, I’d suggest you get serious and get yourself some good guild website hosting.

Not only will that give you the power and speed you need to make quick changes and then get back in the game, but you can also get amazing WOW guild templates that would bring an orc to it’s knees! Plus, they offer forums, raid progression tracking, unlimited DKP pools, control over members, one easy login and much more! You can get all that at a cheap price even a troll could love! Only $4.95 a month, or less if paid by the 6 or 12 month plans.

Time for me to go kick some monster butt! Later!

Many people hope that after starting their website off it will eventually sell itself. This is possible, but can be a bit difficult for webmasters to grasp. Then, even after the concept is grasped the goal is still pretty hard to achieve. This method will involve a lot of skills when it comes to social networking, and social marketing. So without delving into an elaborate guide without any prior knowledge of social networking, check out these great guides from some of my favorite sites.

1. It Takes a Gathering to Build a Crowd | ProBlogger
   Learn how to get a following on social networking sites like digg.
2. Relationships and Online Social Networks | DoshDosh
   Learn about getting to know your contacts on social networking sites like Twitter and Plurk.
3. These guides don’t cover everything there is to know about social networking, but if you’d like to learn more then you’re only a google search away. Try “how to market using social networking“.

The theory is, that if you have quite a few followers on quite a few social networking websites, and you can figure out how to interlink them all together then you’ll have a self marketing site. Articles will get to the front page of multiple social networking sites, and you will only need to submit to one of them in order to do that. For Example: If you were to submit to Digg, your activity would be updated on your Jaiku profile, and you would get visitors from there as well. A marketing guru I know is putting this theory to the test, and trying to maximize on its effect with his new site Badoozie. With his viral content, and loads of much-needed experience in marketing I’m sure that this site will be successful.

The same goes with your blog posts, you can set things up so whenever you post it automatically notifies social networking sites you are a member of. Sites like Technorati, and other pinging sites are the most basic of information sharing websites. The biggest difference between Technorati and Digg is that Technorati is a search engine for blog posts, where Digg is a place in which the most popular article succeeds (with the right push).

This is the subscribe box at badoozie, optimized so that readers who use social networking sites realize it is easy to submit his articles. One flaw I see is the text Subscribe, which many people still associate with paying for a membership. According to CopyBlogger, you can increase your subscription rate by quite a bit just by altering that text. Try changing the text from Subscribe to something like “Get News from Us By Email“.

The key to social marketing is how you use your words. If you were to do everything in uniform and never do anything new, or say anything new, then what reason would someone have for reading your blog. Even more important, why would they want to share your content with their friends?

A blog without viral content, or proper grammar and punctuation is more than likely never going to get popular. Also, a blog without any content at all is obviously not going to be a good product to market. Wait till you get at least 20-30 posts or so before you start marketing your website. If your first article gets to the front page of digg, most users will think of your site as a probable one-hit-wonder and not subscribe to your RSS.

Once you’ve set your site up to market itself and developed a stable following of loyal readers you won’t need to submit your own articles any more. Your own readers, and friends from the social networking sites your blog is pinging will submit the articles for you. Plus, since you’re automatically pinging sites with the new content on your blogs, you’ll notice a fluctuation of traffic every time you publish a new post.

If you examine some of the sites that are constantly on the front page of digg, and other social networking sites, you’ll see that they’ve put this method to work. Then, you can decide whether or not that type of marketing is write for you and figure out how to do it for your own website!

There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, or Pownce.  The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time?  Of course the biggest sites are your most valuable assets, but there are a few smaller sites that could be useful to you.  Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that I use and why.  Keep in mind that my views, are my views, and merely suggestions.  If I leave out some social media site that you use, it just means that I don’t use it, and has nothing to do with how great that particular site may be.

• Digg:
  Of course, Digg, the most popular social networking site on the Internet makes this list.  It can be utilized to spread important news to people around the world, bring huge traffic boosts to websites, and meet people with similar interests to yours.  Of course there is much to learn before you can change the world with your submissions, as you can see here.  Aside from my business, and news-sharing reasons for using Digg, I find it one of the most-fun places on the Internet.  Just seeing what people have to say on popular submissions makes me laugh, cry, and wonder about the fate of humanity.

  Level of Social Media Necessity: 10/10 (If you’re going to network socially at one place, and only one place, then do it on Digg)

  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Digg:
    • Reddit:  Instead of researching, I’m going to guess that Reddit came out before Digg.  Or maybe they were both created at the same time, but that doesn’t change the fact that many articles on the front page of digg, are articles from Reddit submitted a little bit later.  Numerous people have pointed this out to me, but since I don’t use Reddit myself, I wouldn’t really know.  I’m assuming that Reddit will always be #2 to the ever-popular Digg, but they both have loyal users, and similar functions.  If I were to use Reddit, I would use it for the exact same reasons that I use Digg.Level of Social Media Necessity: 9.5/10 (Second choice, if Digg were to blow up for some reason I’d use Reddit)
    • Mixx:  Mixx is one of the newer social media sites, that is obviously inspired by the Godzilla of Social Media (Digg).  Most of the functions, and features are similar, but I prefer Digg.  Despite Mixx being much more feature-rich than Digg, I love the simplicity of Digg’s system.  Or else I’m just to lazy to learn more about Mixx.Level of Social Media Necessity: 6/10 for the average Joe
• Sphinn: Sphinn is basically a Digg for webmasters, so in other words, “this could’ve gone under ‘Byproducts‘ but it’s just so unique”.  So since my site is about social media, marketing, Seo and such, I should probably be using Sphinn to my advantage.  A very wise friend told me about this website, and so I’m going to pretend I’m wise and suggest that you (if you’re a webmaster) use this site to promote your product.  After all, it’s like a Digg where people don’t get mad if you submit your own crappy articles on Black-hat link building tactics. I’ve taken the step of adding a little Sphinn button to each of my posts, but unfortunately the problem remains that I am too lazy to learn more about this website.  In time I will metaphorically have to “Get off of my lazy ass” and start doing some extensive research, but until that time comes I will continue to produce self-mocking post masterpieces.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (If you’re a webmaster) 2/10 (If you just want to Read stuff that probably shouldn’t concern you?)
• Twitter:  Twitter is a bit of fun, great for updating your followers on what your doing.  The problem with twitter is how hard it is to get followers/friends.  Here’s one of MakiMaki’s posts explaining possible ways to get more twitter followers.  I suppose if you were using twitter the way it’s meant to be used then nobody would be struggling to get thousands of followers.  As far as I’m concerned, Twitter is a dumb way to advertise your site, but a rather good way to update readers on topics like “what the next post will be about” and etc…  I use Twitter, basically because I know a lot of cool people who use it as well, though I’ve found no logical reason to tell people when I’m going to the bathroom like the Twitter Whore.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (It’s pretty cool…)
  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Twitter:
    • Pownce:  A feature rich Twitter ‘almost’ clone made by Digg’s own Kevin Rose.  This time I’d actually consider Pownce the more mature micro-blogging tool.  Luckily, Pownce was able to add a bunch of extra features, and without losing any of Twitter’s simplicity.  Though I don’t use Pownce as much as Twitter because, well… Twitter came first.Level of Social Media Necessity: 8/10 (better than the original?!)
    • Plurk:  There was a huge buzz for Plurk not too long ago, and when I could see right when I joined that it could be fun.  Is it a useful tool for webmasters?  Absolutely not, but it’s definitely the most fun you could have micro-blogging.  The layout, and visuals on the site are what really get you sucked in.  Everything just seems to fit into place, and you definitely don’t need guides to figure out how to use it.Level of Social Media Necessity: 1/10 (yea it’s pretty much useless)
      Who do you Turn to When you want to have fun Writing (wtf)?: Plurk

After finally writing all of that down I can officially say I’m sick of writing for the night.  It took me a couple of hours just to write down some of my feelings on a few popular social media site that I (have) used.  That means I really need sleep, or some other activity to help me unwind :O.  Remember, just before I publish this article… If I didn’t list the social bookmarking site you use, it sucks (jk ).

After sifting through all of the comments on my recent article “Inconvenient Truths of the Digg Front Page” I realized that many digg users had already noticed the digg’s problems, and were already looking for solutions.  Though looking wouldn’t be the best way to put it, since most of the ideas thought up were ill conceived, and probably thought up on the spot.  Some of the suggestions could work, but I doubt Digg would change it’s infrastructure after being so successful, for so long.  It seems that the fear of change is still present, even in the internet generation where we should be thriving on change by now.

Some Facts:

• Despite users constantly gaming the system “so to speak”, most of the articles that make it to the front page are quite interesting.  Though there are some/many that would disagree, you have to consider the fact that Digg’ers don’t have to Digg their friends articles.  Even though some people feel a certain obligation to digg shit stories just because their friends (people who they don’t even know) shared it with them.  The fact is, you Do Not Have to Digg Your Friend’s Articles, and chances are… they won’t even notice you didn’t, so No Hard Feelings.
• Some people ridiculously want to remove shouts and friends, while this may seem like a good idea at first, it really isn’t.  If shouting wasn’t allowed, then there would be almost no articles that ended up on the homepage.  Digg would be in a state of constant Upcoming, because there was no push for any certain articles.  Then, the only articles that did get to the front page, would be the sites that had the most readers to begin with.  That means the only stuff you’d ever see would be from sites like Crack, break, xkcd bleh (always forget the order/letters), huffington, and etc…  One could narrow that list down to the sites who have digg buttons next to their posts, because people don’t want to go out of their way to digg articles.
• My stance on Duplicates:  Say, you were to submit an article that you thought was really interesting, and it ended up getting 2 diggs.  One from you, and one from some random guy who happened to look at the first page of upcoming at the right time.  Three days later, someone else diggs that same article (from a different url mind you) and it get’s to the front page.  You have absolutely no reason to believe that person ripped it from you, and if he/she did then so what?  The content you originally wanted people to see has now been seen, you’re just not credited for getting it seen.  That’s why we have users like MrBabyMan, Zaibatsu, Badwithcomputer, MakiMaki, and etc…  They understand how digg works, and how to get articles popular.
• Digg is a huge website, with an almost uncountable amount of users.  With however many articles there are being submitted each day, not using some sort of digg boosting tactic means your article won’t be seen.  It’s plain and simple, though some people argue that they’re able to get to the front page without a single friend, and without ever shouting.  I highly doubt that these words are verifiable, unless spoken of in a long ago sort of past tense.

In Direct Response Too (Some of the Comments on Digg):

• Amazing. It honestly feels like yesterday when you can submit a story and it’d be on the first page of “Upcoming” for atleast 20 minutes.-deltron It wasn’t
• I honestly think the best way to do away with it is get rid of friends and shouts, I really don’t see a point other than shameless self promotion, if you want friends go to facebook or a bar or something, I just don’t think it has much of a place on digg other than to create the atmosphere we are all complaining about. -kawaiirobo Solution: eliminate “friends” on digg. bxblox
  
  Which articles would end up on the front page then?  None, or the ones from sites with big digg buttons on their posts, and lot’s of readers.
• I dunno, it’s very early in the process to say it with certainty, but I think this recommendation engine might change all that. For a while perhaps, anyhow. I don’t think I’ve dugg a MrBabyMan article since the change. The only politcal article on the front page right now is from the Onion and it’s about Bush. Weirdness. That’s not to say that suddenly there’s great content filling up the front page, but it looks like there’s been an impact. -MrTito
  
  With everyone complaining about how Digg is going downhill, I don’t really think there is much of an argument here.  Not saying anyone is trying to argue, but I haven’t seen much of a difference made by the new “Recommended” system, nor do I think Digg is going downhill.  It’s supposed to give you/me the articles that we would deem as most interesting, yet the average digg user (I’m assuming) diggs a wide range of articles, along with most of the front page articles, so it’s impossible to know what I’m really interested it.  Or in other words, I digg interesting things, and interesting isn’t really a category, so how can they suggest it to me?
• If people only submitted articles that they honestly thought were good then there wouldn’t be thousands of articles in upcoming. It would be much easier for people to browse upcoming and chose the really good ones from the few and have an extremely quality website. Instead people submit every website they see in the hopes of getting to the frontpage or to get traffic to their site or a billion other reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not the content is actually good. In most cases the content isn’t good. -Mononuclear This comment truly Miffs me, partially because I know it to be true, and partially because I’m trying to figure out how it’s false.  When i don’t understand things, I start to feel like everyone should act exactly like I do, and that’s definitely not how it works.  So like Mononuclear goes on to say, stop digging crap that not even you find interesting, because nobody else is going to find it interesting either.  For those of you who submit articles from your own website (like me), shouldn’t you at least make sure what you’re submitting is remotely intriguing?  Try to pick only a select few stories of the utmost quality, and maybe digg would be a better place.  You don’t see people like MakiMaki submitting every (let alone any) articles from his website DoshDosh, because he knows they’re not relevant to the general interests of most digg users.
• My question is this: WHAT IS SO AWESOME ABOUT HAVING A STORY YOU SUBMIT HIT THE FRONT PAGE? More specifically, what is so awesome about it that one would, as the link suggests, “try to get over 100 diggs before 24 hours is spent” or spend time building a sizable network of “friends”? Is there a cash prize? Is it just sort of a for-the-hell-of-it game with a validating win?- thekassette Sometimes it’s for sad and lonely reasons. Hence people who want to get articles on the frontpage of digg. Makes them feel special when in reality it’s a worthless accomplishment that nobody gives a fuck about. thedogfatherx (a reply, a good one)
  
  For many people, there is a cash prize, though they are just the recluse internet marketers who you will never have heard about.  For the others, it’s the recognition you get,  popularity, and feeling of signifigance/dominance over others who are incapable of doing what you do.  Also, if you want someone to read something in order to understand the subject, and it doesn’t get to the front page, nobody will read it, and nobody will care.
• Also, this guy’s writing style is really annoying. The little “oh, look how I am self-analyzing my own writing in the middle of my article” thing got old quick. -Neo829
  
  
  PFFFT… Well I do see your point.
• Is the writer of this article a non-English speaker, or just a complete moron? Really, putting an apostrophe in “gets”? Buried due to unbelievable idiocy, which is the more likely explanation, because, well, it’s the internet (and the simpleton’s About page is still the default Wordpress template.) -fonograph Thanks for helping me to better myself
• get a job, or get married, or make the world a better place, or have some kids, or get a hobby, or go volunteer; it’s not that serious.…Nobody said it was
• Fucking digg comment box, bouncing up and down like some shit. Can’t hit the save comment button. arjie
  
  Goodnight

Earlier today i went on digg and clicked on upcoming to use the recommendation engine for the first time.  I was surprised to see that the top 4 results for upcoming with the “most diggs”.  I do happen to digg most of the articles that get to the front page, and MakiMaki does happen to get quite a few articles to the front… so this makes a bit of sense.  Not to mention, his webmaster blog DoshDosh is one of my favorite sites for learning about social media and blogging, but how did digg know this?

Just an interesting bit of data on digg’s new recommendation engine captured in a screenshot.

Why this is titled “Inconvenient Truths of the Digg Front Page”. People don’t want to believe the truth when it comes to social networking sites. There are two ways to get an article to the front of digg. The article must either be from a website that has a well established reputation with Digg users, or the submitter must have a profile lavished with friends and be In the Know of the Digg systematics (if that’s a word).  One more simple truth, only jerks with a heightened sense of self importance, and a feeling that they must shield digg users from the truth bury useful content because it is about getting to the front page of digg.

For the past month or so I have been testing out different ways to get to the front page of digg. None of the articles I’ve submitted have made it to the front page, but I consider this a (somewhat) fortunate learning experience. I now know plenty of information on what not to do in order to get a popular article on digg, and I’ve got lots to write about. There are plenty of obstacles you need to figure out how to jump over, and duck under in order to get your article recognized by other digg users.

Each time I failed at making an article popular I discovered one new thing that stopped me from doing so. So in a sense it’s like driving through a narrow maze in a car with no brakes. If you make one mistake you crash into a dead end, but if you memorize the bad steps you’ve taken and make sure not to do the same thing again, you’ll come out the maze without a scratch on your car. Lucky for me, the metaphorical car was free, and I never lost anything but a non-existent point off of my reputation.

First I’ll give you some plain facts, Digg’s attempt at getting the coolest articles to the front page has almost completely failed. Getting an article from your site to achieve popularity requires a viral article and lot’s of skills with social networking. Unfortunately for most digg users, they don’t realize that their presence will never be noticed without an aggressive strategy for success.

Why should you care about getting an article popular on digg? Well, if you can’t think of any reason why you’d really like to have a popular article on digg then you don’t deserve one. Whether your reason be because you want the fame, the traffic it brings, or for the warm feeling you get inside because you think people actually (is that mean? contemplating taking that word out) like you. If you’ve got a good reason to get to the front page, then you do deserve it.

Now, let’s get you geared for social networking so the next thing you submit to digg has a better chance of reaching front page. Then again, even if you don’t get to the front page following this advice, you’ll be headed in the right direction, and it will be easy for you to get past 100 diggs on something you submit. In fact, being able to get past 100 diggs is something I can guarantee, or your money back! (Face-palm for cliche marketing statement).

Use the Guidelines Below in Order to Make Sure Your Article Get’s some Diggs:

1. Build a Popular Profile on Digg
   If you have no friends on Digg then you’ve got no one to share your articles with. Unless you’re really lucky and someone clicks on ‘Upcoming‘ at the right time, nobody will ever see your submission. So go to the front page of digg, and click on one of the users with a front page article. You’ll notice that this person has about 700 friends you can steal, and each one would gladly be robbed in broad daylight. When you add a friend on digg they have the chance to add you back, or leave you as a fan. As long as the person has any friend space left they’ll usually add you back as a mutual friend.

   Mutual Friend: you can shout your diggs to them, and they can shout their diggs to you.
   If You’re Their Fan: They can shout things to you, and you can follow up on the things they submit, but not the other way around.
   If they’re a Fan of Yours: They will receive your shouts and get updates on your activity, but you won’t get their shouts or activity.

   So, go down popular digg users’ lists of friends and add them to your own arsenal. People are happy to have more friends as it helps them out as well. If they don’t add you back in a couple of days, then just remove them from your buddy list and get some new people. Also, make sure you only add active people, not people who haven’t been on digg for over 10 days.

   These mutual friends will help your digg count grow exponentially, and the more diggs your submission gets, the more visible it is to the rest of the community. That means you’ll start getting fans of your own in no time.

2. Your/The Website
   Never submit an article from a website that doesn’t look good, or have any other good content. You may think it’s sad that I say this, but a crappy site doesn’t belong on the front page of digg. Make sure the site with the article you’d like to submit has a decent design, and plenty of other content to keep readers interested. We don’t like the artists one-hit-wonders as a general rule.
3. Multiple Accounts:
   There are certain users on digg that use multiple accounts in order to digg and share their own articles. This method might work a little bit, but it’s against Digg’s terms of service, your accounts will be banned, and there are better ways to make your articles popular. One of those ways being the ability to send shouts to the massive amounts of friends you recently added.
4. Link Bait: (other reference)
   Your ability to effectively title your posts and articles is arguably one of the most important factors in getting to the front page of digg. Any article you’ve submitted that’s titled in a way that makes the contents sound obvious and drab is going to be tossed aside like dry playdo. There I go with the… similes and metaphors, or maybe it’s an analogy. Keep your titles short, make people curious as to what it’s about. If you can’t do that, then you better submit a pretty damn good article, because more than half the people on digg base their vote on nothing more than the title and the small summary underneath.
   
   
5. Lists, Guides, Digg, and Firefox
   I’ve heard numerous things about lists and guides being the two types of digg submissions to get to the front page the most often. With my own experimentation I found this to be quite true. my top submission is currently a list of the top 10 Firefox plugins of our time. Of course I didn’t use link-bait in my title, so I didn’t make it to the front page. Also, digg prefers hearing news about itself and firefox more than anything. So if you write anything about Digg or Firefox, chances are it will do better than a post about how ‘red heads have more freckles than the average brown haired person‘ or anything else less unusual.
6. Oh No, Someone Buried My Article
   Getting buried is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen to your article. For every person that buries your article, the likeliness that your article will hit the Front Page gets a little less likelier (LOLZ?). People happen to love controversial articles, but people on either side of the controversial argument have an opportunity to bury the article because they don’t like it, or they think it’s untrue. Try to keep your articles completely user friendly, and don’t give anyone the reason to bury it. People whose sole mission is to bury all the articles they can should skip over your article because they think it’s so wholesome.
7. Time Threshold
   Nothing more to say than, just try to get over 100 diggs before 24 hours is spent. As long as you can do this you should be well on your way to hitting the digg front page. All the rest depends on how much people enjoy your article.

After realizing these inconvenient truths and utilizing them, you may easily attain a position on the front page of digg, or atleast get over 100 diggs on your submission.