Do You Need a Social Media Power Account?
Front page Diggs, Stumble traffic, and so on is not just a blogger obsession any longer but big business. If you are selling product online then you need search rankings, and to get those rankings you need links. Right now, everyone is getting into link bait.
Conventional wisdom is to build up a power account to submit your stories, but is that really the answer?
The idea of course is that your story will gain more attention and therefore traction. This part I do not question, being submitted by a skilled and popular social media user is not just a good idea but probably essential.
Does that social media user need to be you though?
I’m thinking no.
There is enough to keep a blogger or business operator busy without having to spend the time creating powerful social media accounts, especially when you consider there are a growing number of mainstream and niche social bookmarking venues.
By all means you should have accounts, and you should especially take part only when you have time.
What I do not see the return from is stressing out over making your account have the kind of influence that is required to fire a story right to the homepage. If top users like MrBabyMan and MSaleem need hundreds of hours of quality concentrated Digg time, how on earth are you, starting from square one, going to get anything else done?
My advice is to make friends. Lots of friends. Find and make contact with as many people in your niche as possible.
Just to clarify, I am not talking about making fake friendships for the sake of improving your social media standing, “friends” are what Digg calls your contacts. This is about networking and mutual benefit but with giving first before you even think of getting in return.
Don’t hassle the very top guys unless you can do them valuable favors in return, you can be sure they get enough hassle already. Instead find the consistent performers that match your own topic and get talking to them. See if they need a hand with anything, get talking on email and IM.
Most of us are not going to get to the powerful status of the top Diggers, but neither do we need to. Take part on Social Media but don’t fret about dominating it. Focus instead on creating the content for others to Digg.
Posted on April 11th, 2008 by Chris Garrett in Productivity
the article is good, though I’d suggest that the one tactic you might have missed is the organic relationship between power users and high-quality content producers. The big diggers have been known to WANT good content.
Good point, there is almost a symbiotic relationship between submitters and content producers isn’t there?
I’ve been thinking this same thing for a long time.
Why spend time outside your core business development (your skills and your execution) when you don’t have to?
I’ve put in the time on Digg, have over 100 friends and still don’t see any success with getting anywhere near the front page. And it’s not like I’ve submitted crappy articles, either. Sure, I’ll get like 10-30 diggs each time and it’s good for a bump in traffic, but Digg traffic doesnt really convert (least not for me) so I’m not sure it’s worth it spend time on Digg, friend people, digg stories and then try to write a linkbait article, when I’m not seeing results. Any advice?
@Dave - Yes, it would be a shame to take your attention away from what can really help and what YOU need to be doing.
@Sundress - It depends on your niche and how well tuned your content is, but in general the homepage is where the action is
If I might suggest, there might be a few exceptions. Maki is a superb Digg user (40% success rate), and we all know how good his blog is. I guess some people just have that nick to understand digg-worthy stories, thereby spending less time on digg without being less successful, and running a good blog at the same time.
Finally someone is advocating what I’ve been telling (my clients anyway).
It’s the content stupid!!!!
CREATE CREATE CREATE.
Keep up the great work Chris.
I agree with you. I don’t think it is necessary to develop power accounts on social bookmarking site.
Focus on producing the best quality content that you are able to, and other people will gladly promote it.
Hey Chris,
Great advice. I have a question, though. What is the most reliable source for determining consistent and power users for social media sites?
Thanks,
Sara
If I might suggest, there might be a few exceptions. Maki is a superb Digg user (40% success rate), and we all know how good his blog is. I guess some people just have that nick to understand digg-worthy stories, thereby spending less time on digg without being less successful, and running a good blog at the same time
Hi Chris,
I try to get a balance, but Digg is extremely frustrating these days. They’ve changed the algo, and they seem to be severely clamping down on certain patterns. I had a post receive over 140 diggs recently, and still didn’t make the FP, and I know people who have had over 260, and no FP. Something is up, and it’s rather annoying!
Writing compelling, original content in order to attract the big players, is the best way forward.
hi chris…thank you for sending me the video of Liz s. at that conference…I completely missed that. I agree with you completely, although I am still somewhat surprised at what gets picked up by digg, stumbleupon, etc. I most definitely DO NOT write for them, probably to my detriment. I find when I ‘try’ to do something which is not familiar or easy, it just doesn’t work anyway.
keep up the good work.
best, gl
Great article.
What further supports your arguments is that even the power social media users (particularly on digg) are finding it tougher and tougher to get content to the front page.
One of the areas that didn’t see anyone comment on is building traffic from Digg and other Web 2.0 sources using outsourcing. There are several good service providers that do nothing but help Bloggers and others with traffic generation. Jeff Mills has used resources like that (outsourcers) for the past couple years. I have some video of Jeff doing a workshop on outsourcing on my blog.
http://www.whoishenry.com
Thanks for the info here.
Henry Griner
Chris,
I think this is a great point to make. We needn’t be all things ourselves. A huge part of achieving success in business is learning to leverage the abilities of others. Find people with a skill in a certain area and use that to your advantage.
So it is with social media - if you can find a power user to submit your content, you’re much better off than wasting hours building your own power account.
I know a very respected SEO firm that employs top Diggers on a consultant basis to review content they author for their clients and make suggestions on how it can be altered to succeed in Digg.
They technically don’t pay the individuals to digg their stories, but I’m guessing that the power users feel a certain connection to pieces they’ve helped shape.
I agree: the power user doesn’t have to be you. There simply isn’t enough time in the day/ week to do all the tasks necessary to build a power account AND blog regularly.