Some people aim to be among the best of the best at the social media sites that they frequent. They look at the number of times that they hit “front page” as their black belt or MVP trophy. I’m here to present a different opinion: he or she who interacts with the richest list of contacts, friends, or acquaintances wins. Plus, I have one other nugget of wisdom that I’ll share at the very end of this post.

450px-agee_home_run_spot.jpgSome of us have dreamt of being a top Digger - it still gnaws at me a bit, I must admit. I’m talking about one of those savvy lads or ladies that can seem to hit Digg’s front page almost without trying.  It’s like getting a high score on a video game, being the most experienced player in a MMORPG, or getting the most home runs in a season of Major League Baseball.

The most widely used benchmark for Digg success is this top 100 Diggers list.  It’s based on a measure of popularity, or the raw number of stories the Digger submitted that went popular and appeared on the Digg front page.  Here’s a quick screenshot as of this morning:

Screenshot Digg Top 13

“Wow,” you might think, “I want to beat Mr. BabyMan!” That would certainly be a concrete goal worth bragging about, as unlikely as it is that any of us would ever come close. But I think it’s the wrong goal to chase, especially if you are a content creator.

The better goal is to become a part of the Digg community and make lots of friends there.

I don’t mean just adding people to your Digg friends list, and vice versa. I mean actually contacting these people and developing a working relationship with them instead of treating them as icons on a computer screen. If you do a good job at that, you have the best scenario not just for hitting Digg’s top page, but also for being a respected voice in social media in general. The latter goal is where the real value of Digg lives.

There are well over a million Diggers. There is a top 100 list and a top 1000 list that tracks a small percentage of these people, but both lists are geared towards the people with the highest Popular stories scores. However, there’s a huge number of talented, devoted, and valuable people who don’t rank on those lists that can be some of your best contacts and who are more accessible than a top 10 Digger who probably gets more E-Mails, IMs, and other contacts per day than most of us combined and barely has the time for the basic essentials of life.

Side note: anyone that I’ve ever contacted who is on the Digg Top 100 list, although they may be slow to respond at times, has been polite and friendly to the best of their abilities. That includes three of the top 5 Diggers that I’ve had the pleasure of contacting (I’ve never tried to contact the other two).

Besides “popularity”, here are some other attributes to look for:

  • Look for people who Digg a lot of stories. It’s not a coincidence that everyone in the Digg Top has also Dugg no less than 40,000 stories apiece - it shows a level of commitment to the community. That doesn’t mean that they’ve actually read all of the stories, but they’ve probably read the summaries of all of the stories and read quite a few of those stories. At 5 seconds/story on average (which is probably not high enough), it takes over 55 hours to Digg 40,000 stories. This shows a strong level of commitment and interest.
  • Look for people with high numbers of comments - these people are the most visibly involved after the people who submit stories. You do need to be careful, because certain commentors are more negative than others, but this is one indicator to check. You should also read some of their comments to see if you share at least some of their opinions.
  • Look for people who have interests that are the same as yours, based on the stories they submit and Digg - you’re more likely to have a connection with them right from the start.
  • Look for people who are content creators. You may recognize avatars and names from blogs, photo sharing, or other media. If you check their profiles, many of them have contact information. If you think you’ve got something in common, contact them and start connecting! Just be polite, respectful and don’t ask them for anything other than a chance to talk and a chance to help them out. See how it goes from there.
  • Look for people who are active in other social media. They tend to use the same profile pictures and IDs on most social media sites (e.g. Reddit, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Delicious, Ning groups, etc.)

There are a lot of great people on Digg who are worth getting to know. It’s hard to hit home runs without their support. However, Digg is not a home run derby and if you approach it that way, you’ll find that it’s a hollow goal. The real value you get is through the relationships that you form through social (yes, remember that word) media. Strong relationships will transcend any one website or event and these relationships are the key to success in whatever you do on the Web.

Finally, here’s the other tip that I promised above: these general principles don’t just work for Digg, they work for many, many other social media sites.

Think about that.

Other useful resources:

From Tamar Weinberg of Techipedia:

Social Media - It’s no longer every man for himself

You Can’t Own The Community Without Understanding Them

11 Tips To Enhance Your Digg User Experience (And Hopefully Bring You Front Page Fame)

Oh heck, you should read all of Tamar’s social media writing at Techipedia. I’m not sure that she likes Digg as much as she did at one time, but her articles will stand the test of time.

Also:

Read Before You Play?- Muhammad Saleem’s excellent guide to social media sites


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