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Oct. 23, 2007 at 8:58am Eastern by Neil Patel
How To Shout On Digg Without Getting Shot Down
Tons of people have been using the Digg shout it feature lately. A shout is a message that can be sent between two or more users on Digg, making it a very powerful tool for getting many people to take notice of content, and potentially garnering lots of Diggs.
Some Digg users consider the shout out feature to be the most effective way to get a story on the Digg homepage. Others, however, feel that it's nothing more than an easy way to spam others. I personally see it as a very effective feature. Here is how what you need to know to use the feature optimally.
First, grow your Digg user profile to 300 plus mutual friends. The more mutual friends you have the more people you can shout to. If you have fewer than 300 mutual friends the feature is still effective, but your chances of making the homepage decrease.
Before you start shouting, think about the importance of the story you are promoting. Some users will get irritated if you shout too often, which is why you need to use this feature only with your most important stories.
Once you submit a story or someone else submits a story that you want promoted, you need to think about the timing. Timing is very important when shouting because the quicker you get votes, the faster you are going to get to the homepage. I recommend shouting right after a story is submitted—and, more importantly, during working hours, because that is when people browse Digg.
The last step in the process is to start shouting. The easiest way to shout your friends is to shout to all of them at once. The problem with shouting to all your friends at once is that only 100 of them will receive the shout. Digg did this to help prevent spamming and gaming, which is why you need to shout 100 of your friends at a time. I usually shout my first 100 friends, then my second 100 friends, and then my last 100 friends.
If you have not tried the shout it feature I highly recommend doing so. Although some may see it as spam, Digg is the one who created this feature. Moderate use of the shout it feature should not be considered spamming. Yes, abusing it should be considered as spam, but if Digg did not want people to use the feature they would have never released it.
Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.
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By Neil Patel
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