Obsessed With Social Bookmarking Sites
8 Aug
From time to time, my brain stops working and I can’t think of what to blog about. Its not exactly writer’s block. I try to think of something unique to write about. Well I was thinking (for a change) and I realized something important. Its about social bookmarking sites and how obsessed I was with it.
I tried so hard to get on Digg‘s front page, but I failed. I don’t know what’s wrong. I tried my best. I guess Digg hates me or something. I got around 250 diggs on a few submissions too. Its not like I got the basics wrong or something. I’m just not lucky enough.
I submitted my second last post to Digg and someone else made a submission about the same topic. It was about all the CAPTCHAs on Digg. Well the other guy was a power digger and his submission made it to the front. Mine didn’t, of course. I was really pissed off.
Now just a few minutes ago I was thinking of trying to game Digg. No more being a nice guy. Thinking of gaming Digg, SU, etc and grabing some traffic that way. But, then I asked myself what the fuck am I doing? Why am I so fucking hooked on traffic from social bookmarking sites? It was completely messed up.
I forgot that I can get traffic from search engines, backlinks, etc. There are other ways to promote my blog. I can comment on other blogs, talk about it in forums, promote it on micro-blogging sites like Plurk, etc, etc. I was obsessed. Obsessed with the traffic from social bookmarking sites. It was like everything to me. It was as if my blog’s success depended on that traffic. But, the good thing is that I snapped out of it.
I’m hoping that I could help a few people snap out of this obsession. Open your eyes and think about it. Don’t go crazy for the traffic from social bookmarking sites. If you don’t go popular there then its not the end of the world. Build a great site, have quality content, and be optimistic.
Before you get me wrong, let me tell you that I’m not saying that you should stop using social bookmarking sites or anything. Think of the traffic from social bookmarking sites as a gift. Don’t fight for the gift. You’ll get it if you’ve done a good job.
I just went away for a few days, and returned to an inbox laden with paraphernalia from Digg. Tons of it. I simply can’t be bothered.
I think people will submit your content to sites like Digg if they like it. It’s entirely possible to get on the holy front page without doing a single thing on Digg yourself. That’ll allow you to spend more time making nicer content.
Yeah I agree with you, Josh. People will digg and stumble your content if they like it. But, its not wrong if you sometimes submit it yourself. Just don’t submit every single one of them. Only a handful of masterpieces.
I agree with all of you… It must to subscribe an article first of all of yours to test how much diggs can obtain, of course must be a good one, or at least you can guess if you like it
… I diggs a lot, because all what I dugg goes to my feed, in that way I promote others content, but also I bring good articles to my readers 
Like most anything else the trick is to do some stuff, then evaluate. Then do more of what is working, less of what isn’t working and a bit of something new to evaluate.
Somewhere in there you have to realize that if you are like most bloggers / small web site masters, there are only so many hours in the day and unless you are going to hire a staff, you’ll have to let go of some options to pursue others that make more sense in your particular case.
Many stories I Digg are not written by me and this really helps to get my material noticed as well because people like diverse content. It is the rare blogger or entrepreneur who produces enough diversified content to maintain interest on Digg. As in so many areas of life, diversification and promoting other people’s work works best and…besides…it feels good too.
Although I am also at digg and submitted quite a few, I never made it to the front page either. The best diggs I got so far is just short of 100. However I get a lot of traffic from other sources too. See this article to get some ideas http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Get-Traffic-From-Non-English-Domains
Regards
social bookmarking sites are killing my love life. my fiance can’t stop looking at them.
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?