With all of the changes in social media news sites these days, including witch-hunts on Digg/Reddit, the banning of top users, and the increasing difficulty having your story seen above others , it has never been more important to have an account that is sustainable and that doesn’t rely on only one tactic for success. Those accounts that rely on only one approach for success on Social Media news sites are putting all of their eggs in one basket, and could be setting themselves up for future failures. To make sure your account will weather the bad (and the good), these are some steps to consider:
Do Not Break the Rules!
Those accounts that relied on scripts and other shortcuts to gain success on Digg.com were weeded out and banned. Following rules is a crucial step in the process. While these “banned substances” are a quick fix and give you short term success, you are begging to be caught and punished for your actions.
Sure, break all of the rules you want if you have sites and IPs to burn, but if you are looking for sustainable success for the long term, there is no magic banned potion that can give you instant success on Social Media news sites.
Do Not Stick Out: Join The Community!
So you started submitting to Reddit because you wanted to promote your own website: that doesn’t mean that you have to only submit stories from your site. Mix up your submissions with other content that the communities will enjoy. Finding and sharing good quality content is what makes these news sites flourish.
Do more than just submit stories. Regularly vote on other stories that you like on the site, and even interact with the community by leaving thoughtful comments and additional insight where you are able to. Even if not promoting a story, set aside a few minutes a day to be active on the site. Social media needs a 100% commitment to the community, and those who aren’t willing to put in the work will stick out.
All submissions are from the same site.
Do Not Promote Every Story!
This tip is a no-brainer. In today’s environment, Digg has a “shout” feature and it can help you get your submissions noticed. Suppose that you promote each submission by continually “shouting” each of your submissions to your friends. Using this methodology, you are able to have a good percentage of your submissions become successful.
But what will happen if next week this feature doesn’t exist any longer? Research other alternatives to gaining notoriety as the “shout” feature may disappear tomorrow when you wake up. Try finding quality content that you can submit to sites that do not need constant promotion to become popular. Relying solely on one method for success is a disaster waiting to happen. Here’s some additional reading about the different forms of Social Media News momentum.
Use Different Social Media Sites
The one variable in life that you can rely on is change. The current popular news site today might not exist in the same capacity in a year. These sites are “for-profit” and can change algorithms, ban users, kill different categories and do whatever they feel will help them the most.
So work on a few accounts as your main accounts, but create profiles on many different Social Media News & Bookmarking sites. Feel free to cross promote your different Social Media news sites; advertise your Mixx and Digg accounts in your StumbleUpon profile and vice versa.
Find Good Content!
This goes hand-in-hand with “Join The Community” and is one of the easiest ways to achieve success. While your goal is obviously to promote stories for you or a client, you should make sure that you go out of your way to find quality content that will make the community a better place.
Finding the hot story that becomes mega-popular on a site will gain you more followers/friends/karma which will, in turn, help your profile in the future. Good, unbiased content will also help your stability by keeping your profile “under-the-radar”. By submitting content from major news sources and popular sites on the web, you make your profile look like a much more “organic” account.
By adhering to these rules, users will set themselves up for long term, sustainable success … the best kind of success that there is!
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19 Comments
Great post, especially the point on using different sites. While many marketers would prefer that they did not have to constantly adjust their tactics, the most successful long term strategies involve constant adjustments to stay on top. Sites become hot and cold and the same with tactics used on those sites.
Some good tips there, most are common sense but it’s surprising how many people by-pass the use of common sense these days.
I’ll be back for more.
You might like this on some of the other benefits I believe social media holds.
It’s worthwhile to spend time building relationships with the people behind the accounts, not just using the social media sites to manage your “friendships.” Getting banned on a site shouldn’t impact the relationships you’ve built, unless you don’t have a way to contact those people other than through the site. Build up a list of AIMs, email addresses, skype names, etc of the people you network with. Getting another power user is then only a new IP address away.
[...] How To Prepare For Stability On Social Media News Sites, 10e20 Blog [...]
Great article mate – make sure Chris brings you to the IMNY events
@Jon Bishop – Thanks! Exactly .. the only constant in life is change.
@Don Draper – Right. I think that if you are a valuable contributor on a site, you should have the foresight to try and maintain it. But if you get banned, just keep those contacts close!
@AussieWebmaster – Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
First of all I love the graphics you used in your post, very clean and works great. Second of all nice summary of tips, very useful and provides the basics. nice
Great post… though The best way to track down all the big social media is befriend people who are active in most of the social networking site..and rest you will gain with experience.
[...] Finn wrote a nice piece of article on “How to prepare for stability on the Social Media sites” where he discusses tips on using the social media sites and making the best of them, while [...]
[...] Finn wrote a nice piece of article on “How to prepare for stability on the Social Media sites” where he discusses tips on using the social media sites and making the best of them, while [...]
Right on target with this article. The days of using automated tactics to take advantage of weak social media platforms is finally coming to an end. The sooner we smoke out the fakes and frauds on these sites the sooner we can all get back to actually providing a contribution to the effort and reaping the benefit of intelligent substance over tactics and other black hattery.
Marc King from Best Price SEO
Nice post Finn. You hit the high notes dead center. I find the title and positioning of the post be an inventive direction as well. It is basically a very well dressed smo 101 post that feels a lot deeper (nice going)
Honestly, I love the graphics. Can I get your gfx persons name?
Thanks Brett! There are a lot of small things that people can do to make sure they "hedge their bets" and don't set themselves up for complete failure. I think that having foresight and a plan goes along way … in both search and social.
Luckily I have Patrick on our team (http://www.10e20.com/blog/author/patrick/) and he is the genius behind all the designs!
That sounds quite easy. I do find that mixing up the submissions from other good sources is a good strategy.
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Changing promotional strategies continuously is a good tactics to get the maximum response ratio. Also, one strategy proved good for one site may not be as good for the other site. Thanks for sharing valuable tips.
I'm a member of a few social media sites, and I agree with you that mixing my submissions with other useful content from other sites the community might be interested in. Your tips have helped to reassure me that I'm on the right track.
Thanks for sharing the valuable tips. Getting involved with the community makes the member more reliable and visitors value his views more. Quality of the content must be fresh and original.
Thanks for sharing~