Social browsing sites, like Stumbleupon and Digg, have the potential to drive a bucketload of traffic to your site. So, I guess there are two options for making that happen, aren’t there?
1 – Wait for someone to submit one of your posts that they enjoyed
2 – Submit posts yourself that you think others will enjoy.
Clearly there’s nothing wrong with option 1, but what about option 2? Is it “bad form” to submit your own content? Opinion is divided, with some people saying that would amount to spamming the system, and others saying anything’s fair in the quest for readers.
Here’s my take on it: It’s OK, so long as you’re not submitting total garbage. Filling the system with complete drivel won’t win you many friends and, given the democratic nature of social browsing, will soon earn you a load of thumbs-down or bury requests. Your post will vanish from view and, potentially, your site will be auto-buried from then on. But if you have something that’s genuinely interesting, funny, creative or innovative, then why not? If people like it, more people will see it. If it turns out you misjudged and it was a pile of poo after all, people will soon bury it for you and no harm done.
The trick is to learn from your results. If you think you write great stuff but it always fails to make an impact on social sites, then you’re probably wrong. Analyse your results and work out why you’re not doing so well. Is it that you submitted something to the wrong category, or that your spelling and/or grammar is atrocious? (I’ll admit right now that my spelling and grammar can be more than dodgy at times!)
Just be sensible. There’s nothing wrong with telling people about something cool you’ve published and, who knows, maybe one of those posts will hit the big-time.
P.S. If you like this, why not stumble it? ;)
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{ 4 comments }
Noo, most people don't go out of their way to post rubbish to the internet, therefore they think that what they are posting is good content… By that rule of thumb everything should get posted to Digg/Stumble/Et al. My personal opinion is that Digg'ing is something that you do for others, not your own material.
Hi James. I agree that most people think everything they post is good and would add one point to what I said in the post: if you're going to self-submit, only submit the stuff you think is most worthy. Most of my stuff doesn't get submitted (by me), but if I think something is particularly interesting I'll send it in.
I have to admit I've flirted with submitting my own stuff occasionally, but they are not the posts that somehow seem to find a little bit of a life of their own.
It's still the quality of the content that will bring people back.
I'm tending to do it less and less, though.
J
That said… I am more likely to post a link on my own streams (twitter/tumblr/facebook maybe) than put it out to the likes of Stumble or Digg…
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