To Digg or not to Digg?

18 July 2012

If you’re thinking about building a website to start up an online business, you have probably also entertained the idea of starting a social media presence to tie everything together. For instance, your main website, which will house your main business, will be interconnected with various streams of social media, perhaps video sites, social gathering sites, etc. So with all the many options out there available to you, have you ever considered using a site called Digg?

Digg, simply put, is a social news site that receives its content from its many users.  A basic user will upload their content to Digg, and the community at large thus votes on it. If it’s popular, they can “digg” it, and the content subsequently lives on and rises up through the ranks. If the content isn’t “dug,” however, it is instead buried and ultimately disappears from view.

Any site such as this is a double-edged sword in that, for its ease of use and its massive potential for success in promoting your business and brand, you could also just as easily post something that users do not like and that ends up damaging your efforts.

So, for a business, you should risk using Digg to promote your brand?

Main Reasons to Use Digg for Your Business

In a simple answer, yes, you should definitely try out a site like Digg. You won’t have to put a lot of effort in. just make sure that you’re always willing to post content to this social networking site. If things work out, you can receive an influx of traffic and new long-term customers for your business. The reward greatly outweighs the risks involved.

News Resource

People who use Digg aren’t simply floating around its pages looking for humorous content. Most of Digg’s audience is comprised of serious individuals who are looking for what you might call news on a grassroots level. This creates some great opportunity for you to attract people with original content. Having your article make it to the front page of the site almost guarantees thousands upon thousands of visitors to your site. Even if you can’t make it that far, you will still pick up some traffic as long as people digg your site.

Popularity

Popularity online is always contagious due to something called social context. It’s like ending up a fan of the same sports teams your parents like, or following in the footsteps of your siblings and the type of music they like. We live as social creatures, and thus we live in social context. As an article on Digg begins to become popular, a snowball effect is created and it will continue gaining popularity. This is a reward that you cannot pass up. You almost have to try for it.

Diversity

It’s important in business that you play to a niche, but what the appeal of a popular article on Digg does is stretch the bounds of your niche. You can attract a widely diversified audience to your site by having a popular article with Digg. It’s a medium wherein you can target a much larger market with success.

Using social media sites like Digg can really help you boost the overall popularity and name recognition of your brand at large. The bigger risk here is to actually not use Digg at all.