Why you’re not making it big on Social Media sites

Social Media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and hundreds of others are all very useful tools for bloggers because they are such large traffic sources. Everyone talks about how they want to get on the front page of Digg, or get a million stumbles, but not many people know how to achieve it. It turns out that just because you can write a really good, unique article and not make it big on the Social Media sites.

I have yet to really discover the power of Social Media, but I do know a thing or two on what needs to be done to make these sites work out for you.

Set your sights high on the following

The links below are probably the most well known Social Media sites, and you should pay the most attention to making it big on them.

• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Delicious
• Reddit
• Technorati

Most of the above websites have applications you can install onto your computer to use their service more effectively. You should check them out as they will really help you use the site to its fullest.

Your content is lacking the essentials needed to go to the top

People using Social Media sites are picky. They won’t read your submission if it’s been done a thousand times before (we’re sick of reading your 10 favorite WordPress plugins!). Articles like major news headlines, an amazing how-to, controversy or just an insight on something really weird are hot topics. It’s not going to be easy to get any of your posts to the top of any of these sites (or easy writing them). And we already established that being the first one to report a news headline is not easy.

So how can you make your posts a little more interesting?

1. See what others in your niche are talking about.
   Simple enough, subscribe to a few blogs in your niche and study them. See what they talk about, and avoid blogging about the same things they do. The more unique the content is on your end, the better your blog will look compared to the other guy.
2. Make your posts more appealing
   The first step to getting your post read is to have things like good post structure, a catchy title, and more. I have written a post in the past on creating more appealing posts in 4 simple steps. Definitely check that out.
3. Think of this post as “the perfect post”
   You should think highly of just about every post on your blog. If you talk about something other bloggers talk about a lot, then this should be the best post ever on that topic. Another article that has been written here called 7 Steps to perfect content writing may be something you want to check out.
4. Slap your opinion on every fact there is
   A post full of facts sucks, and people don’t go to your blog looking for all factual information. They want your opinion. It’s a blog, so there should be a ton of opinionated information on there already.
   • You post your opinion
   • It creates controversy (because not everyone will agree with you…hopefully)
   • Controversy = Discussion
   • Dicussion = Traffic!

In my opinion, it only takes one opinion to make your blog post awesome. It’s like a chain reaction:

I think I am going to write a post later on how your opinion can make your post better. Stick around for that, I’m already taking notes.

You want to get to the top before you’re ready

It’s common (and normal) to think that with really unique content comes a front page spot on Digg, a flood of retweeted URLs, etc. It may not necessarily be your website that is not ready, but your social media profile. You can’t expect to really make the best of these sites without a strong profile.

You can create a strong social media profile in a variety of ways. One thing to be especially aware of is making friends on these sites. Friends can help you get your site to the top if you play your cards right.

Besides friends, what else is there to do to create a strong social media profile?

Creating a good reputation

Going back to friends a little: to make friends, you need a good reputation. Besides reputation helping you make friends, it can get your submissions to be taken more seriously, and that’s yet another factor to making it big on these social media websites.

Other ways to build reputation:

• Don’t go submission crazy – Only submit articles if you think they’re going to work out on social media sites. Don’t submit posts with news on your blog, or apologizing for not posting in a while. People can see what kind of content you put on Digg, Mixx, Delicious, etc. and may see that what you have added is stupid stuff. That ties into your friend making abilities as well.
• Make friends through your blog – Use plugins like ShareThis or Sociable so that other people can submit content for you. You could befriend these kind of people easier, because it shows that they respect you when they add your content to other sites.
• Stay visible – What I mean by that is to always submit new stories, vote on current ones, create discussions. It’s an awesome way for your account to get noticed because of all this interesting stuff you’re adding (and the stuff you add doesn’t have to be from your blog).

So I hope this post has helped you understand the greatbness of social media, as well as what needs to be done to really use them effectively. If you have any questions, fire away in the comments and I will get back to you ASAP.