Social Voting Sites: Should You Really Become A Power User?
By Matt Jones on Mar 16, 2008 in Blog Marketing
There is no doubt that taking advantage of social voting sites such as Digg and Sphinn is a vital part of your successful blogging strategy. However, does this mean you have to become a ‘power user’ on a site to be truly taking full advantage of it?
I know a lot of bloggers who say, “I know… sigh, I should be making more submissions to a social voting site”, but generally they are too lazy or don’t get round to it. They end up submitting perhaps 1 or less URLs each week to that site and have a very weak presence.
This way of doing business seems stupid to me. Either becoming a power user is a part of your strategy and is a necessity, or it isn’t. If it isn’t you shouldn’t be wasting any time making occasional submissions. If you don’t need to become a power user on that site, drop the site.
Social Voting Site Benefits:
Does making sporadic contributions help increase any of these benefits?
- Brand and reputation strength increased
- Traffic to your own articles hitting page 1
- Networking tool to meet other bloggers in the same niche
- Networking/social climbing tool to trade favours on (at your own risk)
These benefits increase with the amount of time and effort you put into contributing to that site. Reaching the stage where most of your submissions hit page 1 takes by far the most time but once a threshold is reached your reputation on that site starts increasing exponentially. Momentum builds up. Sporadic submissions are pointless because you are not taking advantage of how each submission builds upon the last. You are letting your power blow away in the wind. Networking with power users instead might get you a free ride.
All bloggers have different strengths, weaknesses and resources. It may have been beneficial for certain individuals to become power users, but for you it may not be worth it.
If you have been half-heartedly taking part in a social voting site, I recommend thinking if it is really worth it. You may never cross the power user threshold and you would be just as well off if you didn’t make any submissions at all.
I am trying to encourage commitment and clarity in planning. Drop the baggage, do what is needed. My philosophy is that if you can’t become a power user, network with them.
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This is great advice! I was actually just casually submitting to social engines, but after looking at my feedburner stats and realizing nearly 60% of my traffic was from stumbleupon, I think I’ll follow your advice and become a power user.
Thanks for the tips!
Glad to hear it Douglas, let me know how it goes.
I think StumbleUpon is one of the few social bookmark/news sites where you don’t need a power account to be successful. Just make sure you correctly tag your content and if it’s good it will reach the the buzz page.
Most of the other big sites you need to spend time working on your account, so only concentrate on those sites that are really necessary. But the article is right, if you feel like you need to make a power account on a certain site then do it.
[…] Fingers has shared a very good piece of advice on how to use social voting sites: either be an active user, either stop bothering. Stopping by once a week isn’t enough to get […]
I kinda hate social network voting sites. To me, they often have too many questions to vote on and not enough respondents in general for their outcomes to be of any significance.