Can you Digg it?
If you don’t know about Digg.com, you surely don’t spend enough time on the Internet. While I say that as if it’s a bad thing, I guess that’s really just more of a reason to read this blog. That said, by definition (per Wikipedia) Digg is a community-based popularity website combining social bookmarking, blogging and syndication in a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. Sounds boring, right? Actually, quite the contrary, as Digg is probably the best thing to happen to the Internet since Al Gore and Google. That might be a bit of an overstatement, as YouTube, pop-up ads and e-mail marketing communications from Nigeria are revolutionary achievements in their own rights. Nevertheless, Digg is extremely insightful and can do wonders for marketers and ad folks alike.
All moderately funny jokes aside, Digg is something everyone in the digital world needs to know about. There are a number of community-based popularity websites on the Internet, but Digg is unarguably the most popular. Why? Probably because Digg did it right from the beginning by enabling its users to pick what makes it on Digg’s front page. Sure, not everything on the front page of Digg is newsworthy, but you better believe that whatever article, picture or video makes it on the front page is going to be seen by tens of thousands of people. Take for example Apple’s iPhone-if the cell phone’s announcement wasn’t the second-highest “Dugg” item this year, would it have been such a big hit? I venture to say yes; nonetheless, with nearly 25,000 Diggs under its belt, I’m sure there was some impact.
So, I guess the question you need to ask yourself is -”how do I (you) get on the front page of Digg?” To tell you the truth, there isn’t a straight answer to that question, or fa magical ormula to get on Digg’s front page, but it can be done, either purposefully or by accident. For something to be truly Digg-worthy, it needs to be at least one of the following:
- Shocking - Which entails being funny, disgusting or just plain wrong; either way it needs to be something the reader feels like he/she needs to tell their friends, and possibly the world, about.
- Important - The definition of what is important is up for debate, but in order for someone to Digg your piece, it must be truly newsworthy. Beware, “Net Surfers” are savvy and if you try to trick them you might still make the front page of Digg, but in the inverse of what you were trying to do.
- Insightful - The item at large has to encompass applicable information, something new to the reader and be easy and fast to implement.
In the end, breaking into the Digg culture isn’t easy, but with some amount of effort, strategic thinking and a bit of luck, it can be done and the results can prove to be invaluable.
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