LooseSuits

When it works: it gets you a large peak in users who are in and out again before you can say "". They might read what you say on that page but they very rarely read around the rest of the site and even rarer still, click your adverts or subscribe to your RSS for more than a minute.

When it doesn't work: you start to feel a sense of "people hate me", you get +10-to-20 visits a day (depending how fast you fly off the first page of upcoming). After that you get disillusioned with the whole social thing, sign up for notes and try another sort of submission tactic like 9rules =)

But that large peak in users is purely for the benefit of the statistics, does it really benefit the site at all?

I think it does but negligably so, it's a rare occurance for Digg readers (or even rarer, StumbleUpon) to actually hang around.

I think the best form of promoting your site is to comment on the sites of others. Make well thought out comments and generally people will look into what else you have to say.

Well the people still read things. Some of them (albeit a lower percentage) click adverts.

More traffic is always a good thing (to the point where you're using too much bandwidth)

Honestly, I'm sick of Digg and seeing "Digg this" links on half of the blog posts that I come across. If the post were actually good and I thought could be impactful on a large community, then I would go to Digg and post it myself.

I think of traffic as coming in two flavors: chunks and tails. The long tail is your source of consistent traffic building loyal visitors. Chunks add huge traffic spikes, but they are gone almost as quickly as the come. I see my traffic building as trying to encourage chunks of traffic with the hopes that after a few they will start to add to the long tail.

I suppose today's society is filled with aspirations of "quick wins", I imagine Digg as being the Microwave meal for the blogging community - quick and satisfying but very little longterm application.

It can work fine, but only as a "get the word out."

You still have to have content that keeps people coming back. There is no shortcut or easy way out for this.

I tried the dig links and del.icio.us links for a while. I got rid of them. I don't see the point. If people want to bookmark a post, they will. I don't care or even want anyone to digg me, I don't see the point really. I don't need a huge inflow of traffic for a day, or even want it. If people are going to come to my site, then they have an interest in what I have to say on things, and will come back now and then if they remember to.

Hits are meaningless, readers matter.

Good points Ozone.

If you have a blog to get "phat stats" you're in it for the wrong reasons. I'd rather have one intelligent comment on an article than 300 hits from Digg and no comments.

Just to change the direction of what I'm saying slightly: if you have something with a certain flavour of genius to it, Digg can be a great way to spread the world and get hundreds/thousands of opinions back very fast, as you know, Steve, from when I launched the first KittenAuth article. The same sort of thing went for the "What Slows Windows Down" because it (and its successor) had broad appeal to not just one type of geek.

And you can probably find that you can write follow-up articles (as I did *guilty blush*) and get redugg on the original concept.

But if you're trying to promote your mainstay work (that being the stuff you and I write on a regular basis -- commentary type things) the fame is very short-lived, as we both know. It's even a lot harder to get them dugg in the first place unless you can lead out with some sensationalist comment like "ALL MACS WILL EXPLODE ON 02FEB2222".

That does not mean that if you get dugg for something like that, the traffic is bad. If you can position things like feeds in the forefront of your design, you should be able to attract new users.

And to the people saying that writing just for statistics (in terms of reads etc) are "in it for the wrong reasons": I think you're slightly naive of the process on the whole. 300 hits from digg is another 300 people that might read what you write. 300 people that (regardless of their feedback to you) you might have had the chance to influence. It makes you feel appreciated -- especially if you're new without much regular readership -- and appreciation is worth a lot. Conversely, as I was saying before, if you play the game of self-submission, you risk not getting dugg on things you think are good and feeling unappreciated or cheated.

Traffic isn't everything but is is damned nice.

I completely agree with Ozone. When I first started using web stats, it was fun to see spikes in traffic here and there, but if they don't stick around and become readers, then they are meaningless to me.

I've found much more value commenting on other blogs and such, and I've noticed that people that come from other blogs were the ones that stuck around. I'm not totally against Digg in any way, but I am not going to try and submit every single thing I write just because for self promotion. I will do it because maybe others could find value from a particular article that I write.

I like commenting on blogs as a way to build name branding as well. That way when people see my name they may be more apt to read what I wrote and maybe click on my name to see if I wrote anything new on my blog.

A perfect example of that Justin is the fact that you commented on my blog about a month ago and because of that I visited yours and now you're in my bookmarks.

As they say in the Lion King "IT'S THE CIRCLE OF LIIIIIIFFFFFEEEE"

Hey, relatively new here.

I agree with the majority of the people here. Social sites such as digg can get you a spike of traffic but if your content isn't all that worthwhile, there's a good chance you'll hardly retain any of your new visitors. I've been struggling with this issue for a bit since I wasn't too sure how to reach a broader audience. I found commenting on other people's blog help more in the long term than having my site submitted to digg.

Okay here's my view on self promotion. It does work if you want the numbers but the real question is are you happy? I know we could totally go into philosophy but is having a super ultra popular blog the most important thing in life?

I like to blog but I also like to maintain the other factors in my life: friendship, grades, financial security. Blogging should be a supplement to your life.

Sweet Alday, thanks! Although now I'm going to have that damn Lion King song stuck in my head all day...

I'm the opposite of you. I could care less if I am on Digg, /., etc. I literally could care less. My goal is different.

Those sites give you quick hit traffic. They come, glance, leave, and go back to Digg. That's where the loyalty is.

My ego will not allow me to ask for a Digg. I must get there because someone else did it but then again my content is not really Digg material.

My focus is on building trust and interacting with my community on my site. I'm starting to comment on other blogs more but I wish every blog had a email comment something or other because I forget to go back. I'm not trying to get traffic though - I'm a girl...I like to talk (so says Scrivs). :)

I can't use digg, because technically my site isn't about news. And when I tried the new anime tutorial on Alvin's Art! No one actually dugg...

Seriously I've given up on promotion. 90% of my people come from google search anyway, because my site always appears on the first page :D (6% comes from my service provider homepage, and 3.5% comes from promotion, 0.5% comes from shameless promotion)

Promoting One Self in not shameless atall, how worth while is another question. Jumping on the Digg wagon or submitting your own stories on different sites is least helpful. But none the less I would never recommend to stop doing it.

Fame only comes when people start promoting you or talking about you, lets call that Viral Marketing. And getting famous in Digg means writing Hypnotic headlines. That is what one reads before digging you and the only thing that one reads, before moving to your article.

Alvinz you can use Digg. They have a design section that I'm sure some of your bits and bobs would do well on.

I think shameless self-promotion only applies if you actually want to be noticed. Then it's a positive thing, otherwise, it's a waste of time. If you do want to be noticed, then it's called Marketing and if you're running a business, a necessity.

I'd shamelessly self-promote my blog if I thought it would truly help bring in more business for me but Digg isn't the place that's gonna bring me business so I shamelessly self-promote other places.

Well, to me, i think self-promotion isn't too wrong, as long as you are providing a constructive contribution to the issue at hand. I mean, if you are just making spam and then simply post an entry of your post on someone's blog, then it is somewhat wrong.

However, I believe in networking and the likes, and that is how i got many of my recent viewers. Yes, some of them are rush visitors, but there are people who are actively waiting for my entry at the places that I post the link every week. To me, that is already a big success.

I don't look at my stats that often so none of that matters really.

I have bookmarking on my sidebar if people want to book mark but I never do it. I don't use Digg myself so I assume people who read me regularly don't either, so there would be no point.

Most of my readers come through fun networking or google searches.

I agree that great comments lead to better traffic, or at least, better conversion in terms of repeat visitors divided by visitors.

I don't think self promotion through digg or any other social device is a bad thing. If you have something meaningful to offer, why not promote yourself or your article? What does submission take 30 seconds at most? That spike in traffic is mostly meaningless, but a few people will probably stick around, read some more of your content and subscribe to your blog or enewsletter. I've found many of the sites I consistently read through Digg.

From what I've found, the best way to gain loyal readers is by commenting on other's sites. 99% of the time the site owner will check out your site (I know I do), and then the readers of their site will also come check you out. It may only be an additional 5-10 hits but most likely one of those hits is now a permanent reader.

As far as traffic spikes, Digg doesn't do too well in longevity. After 24 hours of being on the front page your traffic will pretty much be back to normal. However, if you manage to get on the front page often, I've found certain people will remember you from last time and then check out your site again. They will occasionally become a long time reader.

The biggest help Digg can be is with your Technorati ranking. Often when you reach the front page other sites post about it, and you get more links to your site. Your ranking usually goes up a lot after a Digg.

Finally, the site which has helped me the most is StumpleUpon. I still have no clue how the hell the site works, all I know is I get a good 25 hits a day from them. All the traffic is to the same few posts, so it seems if you get get ranked high on there, your traffic will be consistent.

For blogs, I'm not a fan of Digg for that reason. The reason blogs are so great is because they fit into the niche market. Digg is back to being for the masses. I think when people get Dugg, it's as you say, you have a huge flood of visitors, and then...well, nothing much after that, unless the rest of your site's content is similar to what was Dugg in the first place (most of the time it isn't).

Sometimes I find neat stuff on Digg, but otherwise I feel like I'm actually missing out on good content, simply because "it's not popular." If you could see my eyes roll...

I think "shameless self-promotion" works better in other areas. Just for example: when I'm in forums, I usually create a very random or funny (sometimes risque) signature that links to my website, and then I just use the forum as I would anything else. This turned out really well for my website, and I actually did get dedicated readers quite often, as that user who clicked over likely had the same sense of humour that I do.

Nothing wrong with self-promotion, even in the oddest of ways, like what I mentioned, but if you aren't getting good users from the work, what's the point?

On side note, I'd like to say I sometimes get great users from StumbleUpon, because it can be such a "niche-browsing tool" if you make it to be.

There should be a self-promotion vs real content ratio to be used by all legit bloggers as a standard!

I recently made digg's front page and it was an article I submitted myself. It was a mixed blessing, but overall I was quite happy that it happened. You work hard on an article and it's nice to see it get some appreciation. The downside was that it took my site down for about 10 hours, but the upswing was I received over 35,000 visitors over the course of 4 days, and I continue to get above average traffic.

I personally think that any kind of exposure you can get is good exposure. The Internet is all about the masses and how much traffic you can get. Whether your looking for loyal traffic or not we all would prefer to have more visitors than less.

That being said, I think it depends on the article that gets dugg. If you write something that someone will read once and move on from, then don't expect repeat traffic (like my top 5 article that got dugg last week). If you want repeat traffic, it has to be something people are going to want to come back and see, whether it's one part of a series of articles, a resource with many items that can't possibly be digested in one sitting, or you follow up with articles that are just as good and in the same vein.

Smashing magazine has seemed to perfect this, like with their
50 top css designs article that I would bet still gets great traffic to this day (and still going strong at 3000+ diggs).

Ozone and others, I think you're missing the point of the digg button being added to articles. People who submit to digg typically want to do it quickly so that their submission won't end up being a dupe.

By adding the digg button, it means people can submit hot stories that much faster, so I really think there's quite a bit of utility there. It's not about begging for diggs, it's about making it easier for people to submit your articles. Nothin wrong with that.

Hmmm - each to their own?

Personally I blog to satisfy an internal desire that I have, when I get noticed it feels good, but for the rest of the time I am happy to be doing something that I really like.

I guess I would ever be comfortable going up to someone and saying "Can I be your friend?" so I tend to leave things to pan out as they will.

Personally I blog to satisfy an internal desire that I have... to get noticed.

My blog only has 400 visitors a day, but I'm really satisfied.
When I started it I had max 50 visits a day, so I started digging my own stories and the blog now has a stable 400 to 500 visitors without digging anymore (or rarely).
It's not shameless, how will people know your blog "exists" if you don't give it chances to be known? This technique for me is the best way to make people discover your blog..

I agree that self promotion has its place and can work if done properly. As a mater of fact I wrote a post about just this subject, Self Promotion over on JohnCow. Now if you click on the link and read my post, will you think less of me since I directed you to it or will you see it as probably the only way you would have ever read something I posted or heard about that blog? If I hadn't posted the link and done a bit of self promotion, you might never have done either. As it is you have a choice, click on the link or not. Without it you would have had no choice. Ok this is becoming a bit esoteric for me. Let's just say I believe that self promotion can help when done in the proper context and with the proper intention.

Everytime you post a comment on another blog, put up a post as a guest blogger, participate in a group writing project or just about anything else you are self promoting.

I will sometimes shamelessly promote myself but only if I manage to make myself laugh. Today was one of those days.

Not to over simplify the discussion, but considering Digg is just another form of promotion, who else do you expect to promote you? It's the way the world works, no CEO will be waking up at Coca-Cola tomorrow and saying "Gee, I hope someone gets the word out at Pepsi that we make drinks too!"

You were narcissistic enough to start the blog...

If you don't blow your own trumpet! Who is going to blow it for you.

1.) Every successful person is backed by a story of personal promotion to the tenth degree.

Have a B L O G G I N G good day!
Patrick Ryall - Self Promotion -