Social Bookmarking – An Often Overlooked Strategy

Every conference I’ve attended over the past year related to Social Media discusses either Twitter, Facebook, blogging, YouTube, FourSquare, mobile, LinkedIn, or a combination of some.  There’s no arguing that these all play an integral role in any Social Media campaign. However, I am surprised by how often Social Bookmarking never makes it’s way into a discussion.  Sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon can refer over 100,000 unique visitors to your website in a 24 hour period.  If you have a content-fueled website, Social Bookmarking should represent a decent amount of your Social Media marketing efforts.

What’s important to note, however, is that achieving success on these websites isn’t as simple as submitting content to Digg.  You could create the best piece of content in the world, but chances are if you sign up for Digg and submit it to the website it will not go anywhere.  To really achieve success on Digg, Reddit, and other Social Bookmarking websites you have to work hard at it..EVERY DAY.  It might sound overwhelming, and it can be at times, but if you work your way up to a power user the benefits are well worth the effort.

In fact, we launched a content website last month that received over 15,000 unique visitors in its first week because of Social Bookmarking alone.  Essentially, we were able to take a website that nobody had ever heard of and drive over 15,000 people to it during its first week because of sites like Digg, Reddit, etc.  Some people would pay thousands for that type of exposure.

While Prime Visibility is actively involved in most Social Bookmarking websites, two of the main ones we regularly participate on is Reddit and Digg. Listed below is some advice on how to work your way up to “power user” status on Digg and Reddit and ultimately drive traffic to your website.

Digg

• Submit other content besides your own.  If the Digg community notices that day in and day out you are submitting content from the same website they will associate you as a spammer and you will lose all credibility. Even worse, Digg can ban your site permanently from ever being submitted by anyone on the site.
• Include a relevant, but enticing title and description. Make users want to click on your link, but do not mislead them into doing so. Remember to also submit your content to the appropriate category.
• Identify power users within your respective category. Does your website mostly discuss business-related content?  View content submitted to this Digg category and locate the users who are frequently getting their content to the front page of Digg.
• Interact with the power users you identified earlier. Digg their stories, comment on their submissions,  and Digg their comments.  Most will reciprocate the favor if they see you doing this frequently.
• Treat Digg like a community NOT a marketing website.  Work on building relationships on Digg by interacting with power users and other users regularly.  Try and have as many two-way discussions as possible.  As with most other Social Media marketing strategies, to achieve success you need to work on building relationships. This is one of the most important parts of being a successful Digg user.
• Friend relevant users.  Don’t go “friend crazy” and start friending random Digg users. Add users as friends who have been digging and commenting on your submissions and are also power users you are trying to target.  Additionally, when a user becomes a “fan” of yours on Digg, you should friend them back.
• Participate on Digg daily.  Look at the top 100 users on Digg and you’ll see that they are on the site daily.  Participating once a week (or even less) will have very little impact.

Reddit

• Work on your comment karma more than your link karma. There are two types of karma on Reddit, “link karma”, and “comment karma”.  When somebody upvotes your comment or submission it will increase your karma and will decrease karma with a downvote.  A high comment karma shows Reddit users that you treat the website like a community, not a marketing portal. This is essential in establishing your credibility.
• Make your comment meaningful. Don’t comment for the sake of commenting.  Read the submission before you comment and make sure what you have to say relates to the story. Writing something bland and generic like “good story” will only decrease your comment karma. Reddit is a very opinionated community so don’t be afraid to be upfront and honest with your comment.
• Submit other content besides your own. This might be even more important on Reddit than it is on Digg. As a general rule, you should mix your submissions between 20% self-promotional and 80% other content (if not less on the self-promotional side).
• Participate regularly. The “power user” effect isn’t nearly as much on Reddit as it is on Digg, but it still is important to regularly participate in order to establish your credibility.
• Submit to the appropriate “Reddit”. On Reddit, categories are called “Reddits”.  Any user can create a “Reddit” which means that you can submit content to thousands of different categories.  It takes a little while to get used to with where you should submit your content, but always make sure you choose a Reddit with at least a few thousand subscribers.
• Comment on new submissions. By the time a submission reaches the front page of Reddit, there are usually hundreds (if not thousands) of comments already. If you just focus on commenting on the front page, your comment will get lost in the clutter. By focusing on new Reddit submissions (located here: http://www.reddit.com/new) you will be one of the first people to comment on a submission. If that submission reaches the front page, it can significantly help with your comment karma.

With any Social Bookmarking website, your account should reflect YOU, the individual, not the company. Communities like to participate with a human, which means your profile should reflect who you are.  Also, it is highly recommended that you carefully observe the conversations / submission on Digg, Reddit, and other Social Bookmarking websites before you jump in.  It will allow you to better understand these communities.