I wrote this article a while ago for someone that didn’t want it anymore, so I thought I’d give it some attention.

If you’re part of the web savvy audience, terms such as „diggin’” or „stumblin’” will be very familiar. These are some of the pieces that form one giant puzzle called social media marketing. As opposed to the classic link building strategies, social media optimization targets the readers, creating something new that will convince them to linking to the material.
This trend is constantly changing, websites optimizing their look and content to fit the puzzle. As usual, every community has its top players. If social media was a planet, then Digg and StumbleUpon would be the asteroids hovering around it. If you play it safe, you get, apart from traffic, constant readers, subscribers and backlinks. But which tops which? What should be the strategy to achieve success in both of these communities? Here is a breakdown of the two giants, with all their ups and downs:

In numbers:
DIGG: Alexa rank 166, Indexed pages 7,540,000, Incoming links 6,050,000
STUMBLE: Alexa rank 350, Indexed pages 13,500,000, Incoming links 16,400,000

DIGG
+ impressive traffic surge
+ front page insures subscribers, returning visitors
+ a large number of backlinks that will boost search engine rankings
- front page favors well-connected users, rather than good content // with the algorithm change, stories that hit the frontpage have to have diverse voting patterns
- submitting your own content is frowned upon
- users do not click ads and will often bury even a good story
- high bounce rate
- server killer
Tips

• a large number of diggs in a short amount of time (30 in an hour) will get you on the list for Top upcoming stories, a small step away from reaching first page
• friends that will digg the stories you shout them are a good way to make your content popular
• title is the most important part of the submission
• successful stories usually involve top 10 lists, how to tutorials, news about gaming, apple, why is Microsoft or Bush evil or submissions with PIC in the title
• diggs from the same IP gets your account suspended, voting patterns have to vary
• duplicate content or articles with just a video might get your website banned

StumbleUpon
+ traffic sent is distributed evenly across time
+ submission of own content is allowed
+ friendlier crowd
+ users more inclined to vote for your content, rarely giving negative votes
- users with a large number of fans have the best change to make a story popular
- a lower amount of traffic than Digg
- bounce rate differs since your content is served arbitrarily to the user
Tips

• stumblers appreciate pictures, so make sure to include some in your articles
• optimizing the upper part of your page to convince the user to vote
• greater chance to receive visitors genuinely interested in your topic, since StumbleUpon selects the pages it will show based on the user’s preferences
• choose the appropriate topic and tag your article wisely by choosing popular keywords

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