Whilst it sounds like a cool song title, it isn’t. Are you risking a “google slap” for practicing bad social techniques?

Well, it must be Digg week! Imagine that. I logged in this morning and found this great Forum article on Social Authority Central by Chris Lang detailing an experiment he has been conducting with Digg. Full details of that article can be found here.

However, let me summarise what I can here.

On April 20, Chris posted an article titled How To Get More Diggs on his blog.

In this article, he details that you need approximately 20 to 30 mutual Digg friends and about 51 Diggs on article for it to appear on the homepage. Advise is also given that articles should be dugg in the early morning hours, Pacific Standard Time because more people will see it (information courtesy of Neil Pattel).

The one thing that all experts agree on, is NOT TO DIGG YOUR OWN ARTICLES. Let me say that again, DON’T DIGG YOUR OWN ARTICLES! You need one of the other Diggers to do it, preferably a power user.

However, Chris has found that his sites have been “buried by Google” today and are ranking very low for keywords they previously ranked well on. Chris is surmising that it is because of the Shouts he has been sending to his Digg friends. Although Chris has kept his shouts private, thinking that they aren’t visible to the world, he has since found out that they are and that this is where Google has canned him. I believe Chris is testing this premise.

So, where does this leave us Bloggers? We shouldn’t Digg our own posts and we really shouldn’t be self promoting them to our Digg friends.

Are you asking the same question I am? So how do Diggers know to Digg your posts? How do you benefit from the “goodness” that is Digg? Mmmmm, interesting questions.

Let’s start with the understanding that the reason we like Digg (and the other bookmarking sites) is because Google ranks links from these site highly in the search results. Having an article in the Digg links means that we have a higher likliehood to rank for our chosen keywords.

To have an article dugg generally means that at least one person has found that article interesting and informative.

Here’s what I think will help:

  1. Make sure your articles are interesting and informative (stating the obvious I know but….), don’t just regurgitate information. Develop a voice, be controversial if you must but DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
  2. Make sure you have syndication icons on your posts – see the bottom of this post? I have the SHARE THIS icon, which allows my readers to bookmark to several of their favourite sites, at a click. I also have links to Onlywire and Mixx links too.
  3. Offer a subscription service to your Blog, so that your readers receive automatic notification of new posts. I use Feedburner to do this using my RSS Feed (See the BIG ORANGE button on the right). You can subscribe to me feed by Clicking Here.
  4. Add syndication links in the footer of the RSS feed, if you can. Feedburner is great for the this
  5. Some autoresponders can also be configured to automatically notify your subscribers of your posts
  6. User twitterfeed to notify your Twitter followers of your posts.

However, the final decision on whether to Digg an article or not, lies with your Readers…..

I make it a policy that when I read someone elses blog and find their information interesting, I Digg, Mixx, Stumble and Tweet. I have the ShareThistoolbar, the Stumble toolbar and the Mixx link on my bookmarks menu to make this easy.

Other sites that could help the Blog reader is Social Poster, which allows you to sequentially work through your favourite social sites and post the article.

By being an active member of the Social community, you should also receive the same courtesy back.

However, in the long run, making your articles interesting, informative and different and making it easy to read them will go a very long way to getting “syndication”.

About the Author Charly Leetham

Charly Leetham has worked for over 20 years in the IT industry, specifically in the area of data communications and local area networking. Charly is a qualifed "tech", holding an Associate Diploma in Electronics Engineering. Her experience with Personal Computers ranges from building computers to providing 2nd level user support. Charly also holds a Masters of Business Admin (MBA), specialising in Internet Marketing. Visit her site at ArvoreenTreasures.com

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