Ads
Some of the so called social media sites are broken and a waste of time. In fact they are not social at all, they are anti-social. So you not only waste your time using them you also get viciously attacked, deleted or banned for no reason.
Many bloggers and webmasters still cling to the past where some social sites have been hailed as a democratic web. Those hopes have often been disappointed. Anonymous down voting, raging mobs and top down solely profit oriented teams behind the sites have wreaked havoc to our hopes.
Still there are plenty of social sites that work and do not fall it into these pitfalls. So whether you want to get popular there or simply contribute just for fun there are much better alternatives.
Digg vs StumbleUpon, Delicious and Mixx
Digg has deteriorated more and more in recent months:
- Less and less traffic
- random power user bannings
- crap on the front page
and the infamous bury brigade that will trash otherwise popular content for no apparent reason have made this site an Eldorado for the ugly and desperate. Those ugly who hate everything that is not Apple, Linux or WII and those who are desperate to get the server crunching Digg traffic (for the ensuing high number of links).
While there are still many genuine users over there and many of them even submit my blog posts unaware of the Digg ban on all things SEO, they can’t compete with the bury brigade and the Apple fan club.
Even environmental sites get buried and flamed as Spam. My blog got submitted more than 30 times and did not get popular once. Even if it did (once it appeared it would gaining 120 diggs in 4h etc. before it got buried) the traffic would crash my server and bring dozens of flame comments. The bounce rate is above 90% anyways as the traffic is “one size fits all” thus very untargeted.
- Do you want significant traffic? Focus on StumbleUpon instead. Here you don’t have to hurry either. No “one day” time frame of getting popular.
- In case you like Digg for the links, use Delicious instead. While Digg is only abut fitting in the mob (you can still succeed over there just adapting to the lowest common denominator, especially “tits and ass”) Delicious is about real value. Many of my posts are really popular there. Those who bookmark you will often feature your link automatically in their blogs.
- Users who are just into social news for the fun of it switch to Mixx. The community there is outstanding, the team very helpful and there are no blacklists for topics not fitting the mob.
Reddit vs Stumbleupon, Mixx
Just yesterday I got somewhat popular on Reddit. I got 47 “up” votes and 46 “down” votes. So in the end I got “1 point”. Guess how many referrers I got from Reddit? 4! Four people visited me. It means that at least 42 people voted me down blindly! OK, I’ve been popular on Reddit a few times and you get some visitors from time to time, even if you have just a small blog like mine. Those visitors do not even look at your site though. They disappear right away when they see no boobs or something. Reddit has one of the highest bounce rate of all referers - 94%! Those who really bother to read will just spit on you. Reddit has one of the most obnoxious crowds, it’s as vicious as Digg. They’re infamous for sexism also, so women keep off.
If you like bursts of traffics even as a non-celebrity site focus on StumbleUpon which is good for 200 visitors even for noob users. It has the lowest bounce rate in social media with 30 - 40% as long as you’re relevant and fit the category. In case you rather enjoy the simple allure of social news, Mixx is your friend. Very civilized and positive community, see above. No flamewars etc.
DZone vs Hacker News/YCombinator
A few days ago I was, for the first time ever, submitted to DZone by one of it’s power users. I had the DZone button displayed on SEO 2.0 for at least 4 months and nobody ever bothered back then. I was amazed to find out that DZone users are the same as Reddit users: They don’t read (bounce rate 93%) and those who do leave vicious comments. Unless you’re a hard core nerd whose tutorials are only understood by a chosen few, do not bother with DZone.
A much more positive and well-balanced site is Hacker News/YCombinator. Here both developers and entrepreneurs convene.
Hugg vs MindBodyGreen
Recently I submitted 3 postings to Hugg. Two very interesting ones from highly acclaimed green sources. One from my blog, the Blog Action Day poverty post. The first two got zero votes beside mine until today while my post got flagged as Spam (probably SEO = Spam over at Hugg) and never even appeared on the site.
A possible alternative for a green social news site is MindBodyGreen.
SEO TAGG s Sphinn
I joined SEO TAGG even before Sphinn existed and was very disappointed from the start. This site has no active user base whatsoever. I revisited it recently and nothing has changed even though they now do Adsense revenue sharing 50/50. Sphinn in contrast is by now a source of up to 800+ targeted visitors per submission and has a great community. Everybody who is serious about search marketing should get involved there.
Moreover sites like Social|Median, social browsing service Browzmi and niche social sites are another option for early adopters and people who are into targeted news.
Disclaimer: Don’t get me wrong if you are a genuine contributing user of one of these above sites I criticize. You can’t ignore the ongoings there though. Also you will notice that you can’t change these sites as they are not really democratic in most cases, they’re run by companies and you’re their non-paid workforce.
So before they sack you like Digg does with it’s most acclaimed users, just use the alternatives. It breaks my heart each time someone submits my postings to Digg. He might as well print them out and throw they away. Have you noticed that there is no Digg it button here on the SEO 2.0 blog? It’s because it’s a waste of time for me and you.
You can find me at StumbleUpon, Mixx. Do not befriend me just due to the fact that you do SEO or read my blog. I will only “friend you back” if you’re genuine and contribute great stuff which is not solely related to my work. In case you like solely my SEO stuff check me out at Sphinn, Delicious and Social|Median.
This thing has 10 Comments
I’ve all but given up on all of the apart from SU!
SM is too slow loading for me always! Mixx doesn’t get the quality of submissions imho, Sphinn is well too boring! ;) And Digg well!, I still submit i still share and digg but socially not for traffic!
Very interesting post. As you do I think sometimes Social Media its too overated. In my case working on a Ecommerce Site getting social is seeing like Spam, and in the same case as you I found that most visitors aren’t worth the time you spend.
IMO I think StumbleUpon has the best traffic out there.
Excellent Review on Social Media Sites. Good Work and thanks for the update.
DZone is definitely a tough audience. If something gets submitted that doesn’t fit the audience very well, lookout, they’ll speak up.
Tad, interesting post. I dont know if I agree completely with you about all the buzz around digg. Sometimes life is not completely fair.
Sphinn for instance is still a pain in the ass, sometimes I get to the front page they cancel my account, it happened 3 times, its really annoying.
BTW @style time, Sphinn is anything but boring :-),
Cheers
Lucio ribeiro
styletime: Yes, in case you want to choose just one site you should take StumbleUpon. It’s risky though relying only on one.
Federico: First generation social media, especially news and bookmarking does not work as well as expected. Social browsing does though. In future we’ll see much more of that.
Steven: In my case it did fit but the reaction was as described above.
lucio: They banned you at Sphinn? what for?
thank you for sharing to us the alternatives. the post is very informative.
I agree with you. I found stumble upon is much more effective than other social media sites and It also depends on each persons opinion on social media sites. But I don’t feel that spending time in social media sites is waste of time.
Senthil: It depends on which social media site you are speaking of!
I like Digg. I still get most of my traffic from Digg and it ranks well in the SERPS. Although I need to follow your advice and use SU a little better.
Very interesting post. I had no idea that all that conflict was going on in Digg. Might have expected it though. When ever you put two or more humans together you seem to get conflict. That is the joy of the social interaction. So it seems is the lowering of intellectual standards, and the ever growing popularity of human sexuality, and titillation.