Hello again, my social networking friend!

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.