Love And Hate Relationship With Digg & Reddit
Somehow I thought that a group writing project on social media would attract lots of attention and get many participants, but I was wrong. Even my part of the mega project, which was dedicated to Digg & Reddit, has managed to get less than ten submissions. I wonder what had happened?
Was it due to lack of promotion from my side? But then I haven’t really promoted much my two previous group writing projects, however they both did very well, getting 30+ entries.
Or was it due to lack of people’s experience with social media? But then I did specify in the project rules that one doesn’t need to be a guru with a particular social networking site, you could write what is it that confuses you, or what would you like to learn more about.
Or perhaps it was due to lack of time? I certainly had this problem, which prevented me from exploring other social networking sites and writing about them.
Any other reasons? What do you think?
Whichever reason prevented people from participating in this social media mega project, I hope you find the submitted entries useful. On Friday, I’ll publish the collaborative results from all other partnering blogs&hosts (Aaron, Ina, Brian, Isabella, Karen, Simonne, Dandellion, Pearl, JHS, Monica), today I’m featuring only the articles on Digg&Reddit.
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How To benefit from Digg by Tejvan Pettinger
Broken up in 13 easy-to-follow steps, Tejvan shares his observations on how to prepare your site for Digg and how to focus on the content of your articles, the look of your blog and build a genuine interest in social networks.
Afterwards he followed up this post with another article, which is questioning and reflecting on
Is it worth Trying to Get On Digg? -
How To Get Onto Digg’s Front Page in 8 steps by Jacob Cass
Ever wondered what are the sure-fire techniques on reaching that coveted #1 spot on Digg? Jacob will not only share the secrets he uncovered in his study of Digg, but also will make you laugh so hard you’ll never look at the Digg’s front page articles without finding them hilariously ridiculous ever again.
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Experience with Digg by Dexter
This is one of those no-luck-with-Digg-whatsoever articles which actually tell the truth about this social networking site.
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I’m Really Not a Digg Fan by Karen Zara
Now you too can join Digg’s NoFan Club, just head over to Karen’s post and share your reasons for not being Digg’s fan in the comments. You know how it is - it’s so much better to talk to a soul mate who can relate and understand what you’re going through.
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What is the best social media website and why? by Jacob Cass
Now, who could know that only two weeks after writing his humorous and unflattering post about Digg, Jacob, who desperately wanted to experience the Digg effect at least once, would finally write an article that received staggering 2985 diggs and 365 “loving” comments on Digg? See? It could happen to you too. So to prepare yourselves for reaching Digg’s frontpage, be sure to read Jacob’s analysis of the Digg’s aftermath.
And if you would like to read more comparative articles on various social media sites, you can also check out my own experience with reaching Digg’s and Reddit’s frontpages. -
Redditers – What They Tend to Do? by A u d e e
If you’re like me and still didn’t quite figure out how Reddit works and how to tackle that site, be sure to check Audee’s article, you will definitely learn more than a thing or two from there.
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Can You Dig Digg? by Vivien
This is where I contemplate about 8 things that I especially don’t understand about Digg and the obsession with it. If you have answers to my questions there, I would really appreciate to read them, otherwise please share what is it that you can’t quite get about Digg or what is it that annoys you about it, or on the contrary - makes your to be one of its loyal fans and power diggers?
Thanks to everyone who joined us in this small endeavour. Don’t miss my Friday post, where I’ll feature the submissions from my project colleagues, who received articles about 17 other social networking sites, as well as award the Top 5 bloggers-partners whose group writing projects were the most successful ones.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 1:31 am and is filed under contests, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Hey Vivien,
Not sure why either. This was a great project. But I do admit I barely got in with my del.icio.us post
I look forward to seeing the final results. Who knows, the combination might see some nice recognition for the participants.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:29 am
A bit of a dissapointment with the amount of entries however I did learn more about social media… probably wouldn’t have done so if you didn’t have the project so thanks
March 24th, 2008 at 4:20 am
I wonder how many total entries if you put all of the hosted blogs for this group writing project together with yours. Since this is so called mega project, maybe the participants need to choose only 2 or 3 social media websites that he/she experienced well or interested to explore for more..
and I’m looking forward for your Friday post 
so I guess the entries are kindda spread out to other hosted blogs..
I’m happy to be part of this social blogging activity
March 24th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
It’s a nice article and I did learn some new things about digg and reddit.
I have used both digg and reddit in the past but I found out that if you write outside the box of whats popular at the moment. You gain nothing from it.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I think Audee has the point. Without you hosting this project I might not have written the blogorati post. Though I don’t think people would be interested in what I wrote, but just to say thank you.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I think one thing that’s often overlooked with social media like Digg is how social they actually are. Anyone can win the traffic lottery, but to really increase your chances of Digg success you should have a group of Digg friends that can nudge your Digg counter high enough to get noticed by regular Diggers.
That said, you might not care. Digg traffic is cheap traffic where often the best value is having nice traffic graphs you can use to get into CPM advertising programs.
I think the social media mega project was a great experiment but it’s not over yet! The final roundup will have the most traffic potential. Every participant listed should Digg it, Stumble it, etc., and try to get others to do so as well.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:42 am
thanks to everyone for your encouraging comments - I really appreciate them a lot. I’m too disappointed a bit with the passive reaction to this mega project in the blogiverse, but I can’t blame anyone - everyone must have had their reasons for not participating. However, I and all other hosting bloggers are really grateful to those who did join in and shared their experience on Social Media sites with us. Thank you all!
Ronald, I too look forward to seeing all the results and putting the final list together.
Jacob, your recent involvement with Social Media is very impressive - really well done. I’m glad this mega project had something to do with your success
Audee, you’re right - that’s why we did spread out the project onto 11 blogs, and divided the social networks around, so that people get a chance to talk/write about their favourite or the most hated social media site
Damiende, there is a sour truth in what you say - however, we shouldn’t get too obsessed with getting it right on Social Media sites, but focus on what is important - our readers, our values.
Kriz, you’re very welcome. And thank you for participating in this project.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:45 am
oh, Jacob (J. Share), looks like we were writing the comment almost at the same time. Your comment sounded almost like a toast, a very encouraging one. Hopefully others will join and give some social love to everyone’s list of final entries.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Don’t just hope, ask for it Vivien! It just makes sense, everyone wins by doing it. There’s really no reason not to.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I’ve been thinking about different ways we could have organized the project. One option would have been to dedicate a week or two to each social media site. That way we all would have had one site in are targets instead of having to pick from a handful.
Participation could have even been required in order to be eligible to host a later project.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Jacob said: “I think the social media mega project was a great experiment but it’s not over yet! The final roundup will have the most traffic potential. Every participant listed should Digg it, Stumble it, etc., and try to get others to do so as well.”
Vivien, I must agree to Jacob. The final roundup on Friday will somehow give you a hint to evaluate and to organize better next group writing project. I’m being optimistic here
March 29th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Jacob, I finally posted the final results, and did ask for votes, so we’ll see how it works out
Aaron, certainly there are different things that we could’ve done differently. Hopefully, we all learned from this project and next time will host other ones more efficiently.
Thanks, Audee. The post is up now. Let me know what you think of it