Digg is by far one of the largest social networks. If you fit into its strict category structure and structure your content well you can see literally tens of thousands of visitors, from one post getting onto the front page.

How Digg works

Digg works on the principal of digging (voting up) and burying (voting down) certain posts that are submitted. You can also comment and submit content easily.

It is a very large network that is the focus of many SMO (social media optimization) agencies. People structure their content around Digg to get votes in the slim hopes that MAYBE they will get onto the frontpage of Digg.

That being said, I find dig to be a cold uninviting network that is full of spam, so I stay away from it more than other networks. It also doesn’t do that well for the type of content I publish on my blog. That being said, I have used Digg to my advantage quite a few times and I will continue to do so. What I want to share with you are a few of the simple tactics I used to get my digs up there…

The Tactics

Well, the first tactic is a recurring theme with all my posts, reciprocal friends! Add friends on Digg and give them a shout once and a while. In return Digg their stuff back. This being said, due to the size of the network, reciprocating on Digg is a lot harder than on other networks simply due to the giant volume of shouts/Diggs that gets sent to you on a constant basis from the people you follow. If you don’t have time slotted out for reciprocal Digging you can find it can waste a lot of time. So the moral here is add smart friends that WILL reciprocate and reciprocate for them as well as often as you can.

Secondly, we have the method of getting your article to go hot. No one knows how Diggs Algorithm works (except the people that designed it), and as a result this is all theoretical. I have found in my experience if you Digg a post then get about 10 Diggs spaced out over the next hour and a half your post has a decent chance of getting into the upcoming section.

After you get here, the real battle starts. You want to get HOT, so to do so you need a lot more votes. You get these votes by asking friends, shouting to your network, and hoping people like your content.

By doing these things you can maybe squeeze a post onto to the frontpage if you really work at it. That being said, the reward is well worth the effort. A good Digg frontpage can get you tens of thousands of visitors to your website in just 24 hours.

Everyone shoots for the Digg frontpage but not everyone can hit it. In my research I’ve found a few kinds of content that Digg users like (and as a result is more likely to hit the frontpage). Digg users are egotistic. As a result they love anything about them (Digg), or Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg). These posts usually get mass votes for the merit of just being about your voter. The second major type of post I’ve seen that gets a lot of traction is lists. The top X of anything does really well on Digg. I can’t explain why because I don’t know why, that’s just what I’ve seen.

Wrap-up

So, in conclusion, Digg is a beast that takes careful study to do well with. You can’t just go in there guns ablaze and hope for the best. You have to strategically plan your friends and content and hope for the best. If you decide to give Digg a try or have any strategies you personally use that I haven’t shared here please feel free to drop a comment and let me know!