- As we know social bookmarking is all about being social. Even if you have the best story in the world you will have a tough time making the front page of digg if you don't have any digg friends. An average story submitted by a someone with lots of friends on Digg has a much better chance of making the front page. The key to becoming succesful on Digg is to make friends with people you know outside of Digg as well as inside, make friends with people that submit stories that interest you and vote for the stuff they submit. People do notice you have voted for them and in return in most cases they will vote for yours too and might even befriend you.
- Search for people who are submitting stories in categories same as you or in those categories that you like and add them as friends as well as vote for their stories. This way you will build a good network of friends. Remember its not just about voting for their stories once but being consistent, go back the next day and see if another stories has been submitted by your new friend and if you like it vote for it, in other words give them first preference over others.
- Take some time out and browse to your friends profile for their email or website address. Try to establish a conversation with that person, it could be anything such as leaving a comment on their website or asking a question relating to their website interest. You want to try and gain that persons respect and in return they will gain yours.
- For simplicity a lot of people tend to use the same profile name on various sites, so try to think of a name that sounds friendly and sociable. Don’t use branded profile names that match your domain names for instance. This will just put the user off and give them the impression you are out to just market your site.
- Use avatars as this will give you an identity and try to choose one that shows your personality.
Here are some things you should not do
- Create different login accounts. It requires a lot of work to keep them looking "natural" and Digg are banning users that do this. It's not worth the risk.
- Create a friend voting list. Digg can track who is voting and any dodgy voting patterns. If the same people vote for your stories all the time then Digg will find out easily and you risk being banned. A story that gets 15-30 votes in a short period of time immediately after you have submitted your story is going to look suspicious.
- Send an email out to all your friends each time you submit a story and want people to vote.
Final word, Don’t be desperate and become a digg spammer. Enjoy it and be patient. Don’t expect 100's votes if you’re a new member, eventually you will become popular and if you’re lucky your story will hit the frontpage.
