Terry Howard

The Digg Effect, Getting Dugg, Diggination. No other news article discovery service to date has quite had the strong broad appeal of Digg. People have coined specific phrases to characterize the impact it can have on getting noticed.. or wreaking havoc on servers. What the web has done for getting content published, sites like Digg have done for getting published works read en masse.

The short answer for how Digg works is a short description and title are submitted for an article, along with a link to the original work. This submission appears in a list of recent items and site visitors will vote them up or down according to their tastes. The more positive “Diggs” an article gets, the higher and longer the item stays on the list. This makes momentum the biggest factor for success in utilizing Digg and similar sites to generate mass exposure for your content. Think of it like a kite. When you get started just you and those immediately around you can see it, but the more wind you get under the kite, the higher it rises and the more people can see it. Before long you get a whole neighborhood stopping to look and point. Okay, silly analogy but accurate enough.

So how do you get people to Digg your article? The main key to getting that momentum going is to write an article that offers something unique and noteworthy. A totally unique and original topic is best, but even an already popular topic can get you viewers if you have a unique take. The key is to offer something “viral” that makes others want to get behind it and vote. Look to YouTube for that kind of inspiration. Another video of Tom Cruise trying to choke Oprah, ho hum… But throw some quick iMovie lightning effects in and overdub the scene where Chancellor Palpatine kills Samuel Jackson, and you get a million pageviews. The lesson here is remix it if you have to, but make it fresh, and original. Funny never hurts either.

The second part to look at is your hook, the title and description for your submission. This is the interesting part, because a good portion of those who might Digg your article may never actually read it. But if your title and description are interesting enough to spur conversation or debate you’ll going to have a lively discussion thread born which will generate some Diggs on its own. That’s a nice bit of icing to go with those who actually read the article and vote on its actual merits. This is how most political based articles get legs on Digg, Diggers love to argue politics and they’ll do it for days in the discussion born from your article. Technology slants and humor are also good fodder for starting lively exchanges. Just write your title and description almost like an ad for your description, playing on your audiences emotions or interests and you’ll attract more interested readers who are more inclined to discuss and vote your article.

Timing is another big factor. Not only is it important to post while your topic is, well topical, but also when others are not. A slow news day is the best time to get your stuff up. I fell victim to trying to post my well crafted Digg attempt about an hour before the whole recent DVD encryption code fiasco went down, burying my submission almost immediately with hundreds of new articles. I learned the hard way that timing means not only when your topic is hot, but when others are cold. Posting right before lunch time or right after five in the afternoon is not a bad strategy either. Don’t let your submission get slowly buried while people are at work or asleep.

So what are some tricks to get your kite off the ground a little quicker, giving you a little bit of an edge over the casual submitter? Word of mouth, plain and simple. Leverage your social networks to the hilt. Post a bulletin on MySpace, inform your Flickr and YouTube buddies, and Facebook friends. Post a message in all the message boards you are active in and maybe some on topic ones you just Googled and found. Hit up your AIM buddy list and email address book. Post a message to Twitter and all your blogs. If you wrote a creative and entertaining article that will appeal to people, your immediate contacts should be more than happy to give it a read and give you some well deserved Diggs. Since they’ll come relatively close together you’ll get a nice starting boost that hopefully will catch wind and get you airborne.

And don’t just stop at Digg. There are some niche Digg-like sites out there to take advantage of too. Slashdot is a good tech oriented news voting site, Sphinn is a new one for marketing and web development news, and Netscape and MySpace both have put their hats into the ring with their own versions of the Digg style news site. Also, don’t forget to put those “Digg This” and other badges at the bottom of your article wherever it lives. You can pick up Diggs that way regardless of how people reach your content.

Good luck with your own content and please don’t forget to Digg and Sphinn this article!