My recent post on 12 Wordpress Editors that you can choose over the default WYSIWYG editor was one of the posts that took me the longest to write, simply because it involved quite a bit of research. I would have to thank Monika for recommending Windows Live Writer to me, that got me wondering if there were other editors too - which culminated in the post. It all began with Maki submitting the post to Sphinn. The rest, as they say, is history.
How it Happened
When the post went live, it was barely noticed - I was quite surprised that it didn’t elicit a single comment even from my “Active Readers”. Admittedly, I was disappointed since the post had taken the longest time and most effort to come up with and to see it looking forlorn made me wonder if the post was not written effectively enough. I was tempted to submit the post to StumbleUpon, note that I’m fairly new to StumbleUpon and have only stumbled a modest number of sites. In keeping with that, my stumble brought in only a trickle of visitors that didn’t help much in increasing the activity.
I almost let it go the next day and was brain-storming for my next post when I noticed a link in my Dashboard from Sphinn. I was pleasantly surprised since trying out Sphinn was something I had been putting on the backburner for quite sometime now. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw not one, but ten Sphinns for the same post I had almost given up on - almost. I needed no further encouragement to sign up and thank those who had Sphunn the story, and especially to Maki, who had submitted it. How he came across the post is beyond me, I do hope he’s reading this post from his RSS reader!
What followed is what Steven describes as a Domino Effect of Traffic. He explains how second tier social media sites like DZone, CSS Globe and Sphinn can be used as stepping stones for succeeding with bigger sites like Digg, Del.icio.us and Stumbleupon. In my case, what happened was, when Maki submitted the post to Sphinn, it brought along a few targeted visitors who also happened to have a power profile on StumbleUpon. Thus, when members from Sphinn found the post useful, they Sphunn it and Stumbled it. This set the domino effect into motion.
When the post hit the front page of Sphinn, it brought in a handful of unique visitors, some of who also Stumbled the post, which eventually resulted in a huge traffic from StumbleUpon - the post is still listed on the StumbleUpon Buzz page.
Digg killed my traffic
After the first day of traffic from StumbleUpon, I decided to experiment with a Digg button to encourage visitors to Digg the post and in turn, increase the traffic further. Without a lot of fan-fare, I stuck a Digg button to the post and sat back, expecting visitors from Digg to kill my server. What happened in reality though, both surprised and intrigued me - the traffic from StumbleUpon started drying up! Visitors from StumbleUpon were no longer thumbing up the post which meant that the rate at which newer visitors would come, was reduced.
I wondered if it was because the StumbleUpon effect wasn’t big enough and it was dying out after a day in a natural process. Since there wasn’t a lot of traffic anymore, I also removed the Digg button since the post had only received a grand total of 4 Diggs. I let it stay this way for a while and was pleasantly surprised to find that the post started attracting traffic again, the very same day! I attributed this to the wide vagaries of the Blogosphere and reckoned that it was just a one-off incident.
A few hours before removing the Digg button, I’d sent a few shouts to my friends on Digg to which Karen and Edgewhere kindly obliged, bringing the total to 6 Diggs. Karen also left a nice comment saying that she’d Dugg the article. On a whim, I put the Digg button back and waited yet again for the “dreaded” Digg effect - in vain. Instead, my StumbleUpon traffic began to dwindle. It didn’t take me long to put one slump in traffic and another slump in traffic together to realize that the Digg button was actually what was killing my traffic.
What could have happened was, when the visitors from StumbleUpon arrived, they saw a prominent Digg button displaying a total of 6 Diggs for the article, which is rather abysmal by any standards, effectively, impressing upon them that this was an article that hadn’t received many votes and may not be of interest to them. Thus, they would just Stumble away. This is purely hypothetical of course, but it seems to best explain the “W” in the graph. So much for the Digg effect. What you could do better, after learning from my experience of losing four days of traffic could be to use a Digg It! button that doesn’t show the Digg count, until it is up to a respectable number. I had to learn the hard way that perception is very much the reality - hopefully you’ve had it easy.
Recipe for Success
- Do a bit of market research and determine what other people in your niche are looking for. I addressed a concern that a lot of people had - Monika was the first to suggest it to me, I soon realized that there were a few other bloggers who were also using third-party editors and many more who weren’t aware of it, like me. This created the perfect situation for the post.
- Try to make the list as comprehensive as possible. Most people are busy and would like to see concise descriptions of all available options. Of course, it may not be possible to cover them all, but if you account for the majority, it will certainly help. A list with many items seems to do the best with Social Media - its just too irresistible to see all the resources on one page and will tempt them to bookmark/promote it.
- Social Media helps a lot in bringing in traffic - its one medium that doesn’t distinguish between an established blog and a newer one. Bring it on your side by displaying appropriate buttons prominently that entice readers to click. Hiding the Digg/Del.icio.us count initially, until it reaches a respectable number seems to help as seen from my experience.
- Use second tier social media sites effectively. Submit your post to as many of the smaller sites as you can at the same time - Digg, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon all factor in the time that an article becomes popular.
- Its natural that a percentage of readers would spill over and click through to other posts on your blog - help them find your best articles by listing them right below the post. The articles listed just under my post marked as “You may also like reading” which are effectively from the Related Posts plugin, received the most hits. Unfortunately for me, not all of them were my best ones. I’m sure I would have got a better response had I placed similar articles that are also my best ones. Don’t rely on the plugin to do it for you - hand-pick them yourself for the best results.
- Don’t kill the effect by displaying ads that are more prominent than the article itself - it reflects badly on the blog and personally, I’d just move on. Although you may be tempted to make a quick buck, hold onto the temptation and you are sure to reap better benefits later.
- If you think your post is really good and that it could use just the slightest bit of promotion, you could ask your closest friends to help you out. But be careful not to spam them with posts everyday - that just reduces your chances when you’ve really got a best-selling post. It really is a no-brainer, but be sure to return the favour if they need some help too.
- Remember to thank those who promote your article by sending a mail or adding them as a friend or anything else that you’re comfortable doing - so long as they know you appreciate their gesture.
The Result
The post has already got almost five times the traffic that the whole blog got in the past month. More importantly, the subscriber count has doubled in as many days and I’m still counting. (If you were one of the people who Stumbled/Bookmarked on Del.icio.us/Sphunn the post and are reading this one by RSS, this is to say - thank you!)
Read similar posts on Social Media , sphinn , stumbleupon.
43 comments ↓
Interesting stuff, especially your theory about the Digg button killing your traffic! Digg is such a tricky beast, it scares me a little heh! But i too have great success with Sphinn and StumbleUpon and once you start getting your name out on these networks it gets easier and easier (assuming you still produce quality content of course!)
I Like this site after get a small reading on it. I’ll make it as my favorite one
Wow, that’s a great in-depth look at your results. I think it’s very interesting about the Digg button. I’d be interested to see if others have the same experience. And thanks for the mention and link.
@Caroline
This past week was nothing short of a roller-coaster ride and I enjoyed every moment of it! I’m really getting drawn to Sphinn too and see myself using more of it. Personally, I find StumbleUpon easier both in terms of getting success and usability than Digg or Del.icio.us, but until I start seeing some traffic from them, I guess I can’t really comment on that. Nice to see you here, thanks for visiting and commenting!
@aryadewangga
That’s very nice of you, hope to see you around!
@Steven
I’m glad you like it - I was a bit skeptical about the length at first, I was afraid it was too long - nice to see you appreciate it. Yes, the Digg button is certainly something interesting, I’ll do the same as an experiment at a later stage - rather than draw conclusions from a single experience. Thank you for commenting!
I’ve noticed that traffic from SU tends to come in waves. For example, I had one post that got about 500 stumblers then about 5 days later it got another wave of about 500.
I think that having good navigation links at the top of your page helps them stick on your site better. Things like “Best Of” or “Recent Posts” prominently displayed help.
Congratz on your rush of visitors, Karthik.
If there’s one thing to learn, its better to have sustained traffic from Sphinn, SU etc. They don’t break servers, and help you get more subscribers(more technically inclined).
@Frank C
>>I think that having good navigation links at the top of your page helps them stick on your site better. Things like “Best Of” or “Recent Posts” prominently displayed help.
Certainly, glad you agree with my suggestion.
Thanks for visiting and commenting!
@Sumesh
Thanks Sumesh, yes, traffic from SU is much more regulated than Digg, and I’ve even heard that at times, eventually, traffic from SU beats that of Digg. Also, SU users definitely stay longer, their average time here is something close to 2 minutes, spanning more than one post on average - that’s saying something!
I don’t see my niche as a favorite in digg for the front page, so i stick to only stumbleupon,bloggingzoom and sphinn. I guess the 3 powers combine seems to be more effective than going to digg and requesting for votes.
What, for me, made this article readable had nothing to do with any superb teaching content but the fact that it was a down-to-earth simple story. So much of the “popular” stuff that I’ve read has the author trying to sound like the next big storybreaker, Amazon.com wanna-be reviewer and it all just sounds so fake.
And it’s a bit disturbing to me how many peoples’ emotions are affected by whether or not people Stumble, Kick, Digg, Bump, Plug or Sphinn their articles. Seriously, are people that f***ed up?
Fyi, I Sphunn ya…
Best wishes on conquering your corner of the b-sphere,
Sam
@Etienne
BloggingZoom is rather new, but it seems to be catching on well - Sphinn + StumbleUpon seems to be a great combination. Thank you for sharing your opinion with us.
@Sam
I’m glad you realized my feet are planted firmly on Earth
It was a conscious effort to keep it as simple and personal, personally, I like to read posts that are kept at a personal level, although presenting a successful idea effectively. To me, a blog is a lot more personal than a website and I always try to give it that touch.
Thanks for the Sphinn and the best wishes, I hope I’m there, someday, sometime.
Hope to see you around!
I am so happy for you Karthik that I was able to somewhat help you indirectly to get you all this traffic by inspiring you to write this great post of yours!
I have seen Maki submitting a few posts from other bloggers and the power he has to help sending you credibility and traffic is not to be underestimated.
You deserved every single visitor of those since the posts was very well writen and researched and this just gos to show how important it is to publish quality content!
Well done Karthik!
Monika
I was never a big fan of digg as i know that seeing small numbers on the digg buttons will make the readers take a big ‘U’ turn.I think ur article makes lot of sense but there is one thing that caught my attention,the ‘w’ graph.Where did u get that graph from???
Karthik,
This was a very insightful article, so thank you for posting it. I’m glad that you were able to leverage the power of social media to get visitors to your site. It is indeed very effective - after all, I found it through Sphinn.
“I had to learn the hard way that perception is very much the reality.”
That was the most memorable quote from your blog. And how true it is.
Thanks again for the informative article and best of luck to you with your blog. I’m sure you’ll continue to do well given that you have great content and people like Maki to help you out.
@Monika
You’re welcome Monika, and yes, Maki brings along a lot of credibility and in turn, traffic too. I had been Sphinning posts ever since and I’ve noticed that much of what I read is what Maki had submitted. I don’t make a conscious effort, its just something that I do unconsciously and every one of the posts are worthy of a Sphinn! What Maki is doing is simply amazing - the fact that he finds the time to do this amidst his own busy schedule is very much appreciable. Thank you for your kind words
@ysraghav
I’m glad you agree with what I’ve observed, the “W” graph was taken from a plugin called Wordpress Stats. You can find it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/pl ugins/stats/
Thanks for commenting!
@Fluid
Sphinn and StumbleUpon have really become my favourite social media networks. They send consistent, targeted visitors (like you!) at a regulated pace rather than Digg that only sends traffic that crashes servers (I may be slightly prejudiced, but that’s certainly a popular public sentiment).
Thank you for all the kind words, I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again - Maki played a very decisive role.
I’m glad you liked the article, hope to see you around!
Sure, no problem at all Karthik.
I just subscribed to your RSS feed, so I’m looking forward to seeing more great articles from you!
Regarding your fourth point above that states: “Use second tier social media sites effectively. Submit your post to as many of the smaller sites as you can at the same time - Digg, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon all factor in the time that an article becomes popular.” What would you recommend in the case where you have many posts that haven’t been submitted? Can you submit them all at once or is this considered spamming? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated when you have the chance. Thank you!
@Fluid
>>What would you recommend in the case where you have many posts that haven’t been submitted?
Submit the same post to many social media sites at the same time, not different posts. And yes, some sites don’t allow you to submit your own posts, such as Digg. But this post is to make you think beyond Digg - there are quite a few sites that do let you submit your own posts.
If you think a bit out of the box, you could have a friend who submits your articles and vice versa, the strength of each others’ profiles will matter, so make sure you do a lot of Sphinning, Stumbling, etc.
Hope that helps and thank you for subscribing to my feed
hey karthik, its a really nice and exhaustive post.. hav linked to it from my blog…
Glad you like it Maneesh, and thanks for the link!
Hope to see you around
[...] What You Can Learn from My First Social Media Success Story by Karthik My recent post on 12 Wordpress Editors that you can choose over the default WYSIWYG editor was one of the posts that took me the longest to write, simply because it involved quite a bit of research. I would have to thank Monika for recommending Windows Live Writer to me, that got me wondering if there were other editors too - which culminated in the post. It all began with Maki submitting the post to Sphinn. The rest, as they say, is history. [...]
[...] My First Social Media Fame And How You Can Profit From It - This is a fascinating account of how I Am Karthik dot com used second tier social news sites to gain traffic from tier one social sites. [...]
[...] What You Can Learn from My First Social Media Success Story by Karthik [...]
What happened to you? No posts for sometime…Hoping to see you back soon.
Wow! A really interesting post. A lot of insightful observations and it’s always fantastic to hear when your average joe gets a huge hit of traffic. It’s great to know that anyone can do it.
@Sumesh
I’ve not given up on this blog at all and will be back soon! I really appreciate that you asked - thanks! 
I’ve been really held up at my day job - sadly I’ll be away for sometime as things are rather hectic at the moment
@MDB
Its nice to hear encouraging words like that - glad you liked the post
I took my digg button off my posts, I too feel that stumblers see that before anything else and if it’s got a really low number, they pass on by.
I agree - its a lot about perception!
Hey Karthik - good stuff, I learnt a lot from it. I really wanna get the Digg effect on my own blog too, heh!
You’re welcome Albert - glad you picked up a few things
Blogs and Forums needs a push those days i thinks, there plenty of them overthere. I think if somebody really wants a successful Social media he has to come out with something new, add value to Blog and Forums, and mix it something new… otherwise it may be just one more over there…
good luck guys
That’s an interesting circumstance. I never thought Digg can actually do that to your site traffic. I knew better now. The recipe is brilliant. I have bookmarked this post for future reference.
Good info. I’m new to the social media field so this helps me out!
Thanks!
well try listing your site on various directories~~ that will help too
This is obviously one great post. The information are very insightful and helpful. Thanks for sharing all of these.
Thanks for the great info. You definitely did your research on this one as it contain’s some very useful info for a new Blogger to take into account. Very interesting thoughts regarding Digg and the Digg effect you pointed me in the right direction.
Thanks
Dennis
Nice piece of information, but the Digg button may have kept the people from staying on your site with a low Digg count, but that would not have dried up your traffic. You would have still had the same amount of traffic but they would have not been there as long. The other possibiliy could be also that the People who left your site many not have Stumbled your site because of the low Digg Count. Which would have caused you not to have as much traffic. Great Post anyway I have never thought that that would have happened. that is why we should always test and retest.
thanks for the heads up on digg
Great Post….I had no idea about digg causing that.
Nice Article…I especially liked the tip on not showing the Digg count until it hits a reasonable count.
Your site has excellent content and information.
I’ll be returning often
Thanks!
Al
Social networks can bring you in great traffic for good posts. The unfortunate drawback is the traffic volume can change a lot from day to day. Submit your own posts for only the ones you think are really good. Don’t submit all of your posts. If people see tons of your posts, they will be less apt to visit. If they see your site once or twice, then they know it is something they haven’t seen already. Don’t rely on social networks soley, but they can get you an extra few hundred visits.
Great post. Most of the traffic I have gotten from SU has come out of the blue. Just writing posts that are useful and trying to come up with catchy titles. It has paid off a little. Thanks for the tips.
you have got me interested in Sphinn and others…
congrats BTW
Thanx for the tip about the dreadful Digg button !
Wow. I never thought that using some of the social bookmarking sites could actually dry up visits! Maybe we should use those Digg tools that don’t display the numbers!
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