Lately i’ve used a lot of social networks to promote my websites, especially blogs and i want to share my thoughts on them with you. And then i would like to see your experiences with them in comments.
Stumbleupon
This seems to work best for me, because if you have a good profile, with good pages submitted and enough fans, it can bring much recursive traffic. The traffic from Stumbleupon seems to be better than Digg, with more interested readers, that stay longer on the website and navigate more pages. Also, in comparison to Digg, Stumbleupon can bring even more traffic, but not all in the first day. For example, i’ve posted a story two months ago and it still brings me decent traffic, counting more than 100,000 visits i think.
Digg
In my opinion, Digg seems to have too many bad users that keep burying news with no reason, have an auto-bury algorithm and moderators. So it’s quite hard to get a story popular, if you don’t have a strong profile or a very interesting story. The traffic coming from it depends from day to day and especially the hour the story gets popular. It can often happen to only bring a few thousand of uninterested readers, if the story doesn’t get popular in a rush hour.
Lately i’ve read that Reddit has the worst membership of all Social Networks on the web and from the experiences i’m having with them i’ll have to agree. There are very bad, uninteresting, spammy or old stories on the subdomain front pages especially. It doesn’t bring very much traffic and also the traffic doesn’t seem good at all.
Propeller
I don’t have much experience with this one, but it doesn’t seem very good to me and the traffic seems to be low. On some niches, it might be good, but i still prefer Stumbleupon, Digg and Reddit better than Propeller. I think the transfer from Netscape.com harmed them a lot and the traffic definitely decreased. In my opinion, it’s been a bad idea and probably a loss for them.
Hugg
A niche social network, that brings extremely low traffic and it only seems to work for environmental-based stories. Very easy to get on the front page and even if it doesn’t bring much traffic, it’s very targeted and the readers stay longer on the website than from the other social networks.
Other social networks
I’ve also tried Mixx, NewsVine, ShoutWire and others that i’ve had absolutely no success with them. Mixx is new, doesn’t bring yet much traffic, but has potential and a good membership. It might become very good in the future. With NewsVine i’ve had no success and i don’t seem to get it. ShoutWire worked good until i got banned with no reason and i didn’t want to sign up with other user because i got mad on them.
Now please share your experiences with the social networks, so we can learn more about them and understand them better.
January 20th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Stumble is the best!
January 20th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’ve had some good success with StumbleUpon, but Digg is quite a tough nut to crack.
January 21st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I have had some good success with social networks, indifferent though. Digg and stumbleupon have been really good for me but the rest have been close to useless. Nice summary.
Regards Andrew
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I think you have to work on synergies between these networks or find special niche networks for your specific niche, you can’t expect one size to fit everyone. Not anymore.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I have had mixed results with social networking websites. I agree with the above, you are likely to get more joy from a niche specific social news site more than a general one.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Very nice and useful post
. Thank you I wasn’t aware of much of these articles and blogs.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:38 am
i have had success with stumbleupon and also technorati. but with technorati there’s always this perennial problem of dipping rankings.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I like stumbleUpon
January 25th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Stumbleupon is the only site I use. Does having more fans equate to more visits? If so, how to we get more fans?
January 25th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Stumbleupon has worked best for me… my site is too niche to work well on Digg/Reddit. I’ve had the best luck with forum and article marketing, though.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Everyone always says that stumbleupon is the best. I just haven’t been very successful with it. I have had much more success with Digg.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:25 am
Thanks for demystifying these social networks, you’ve saved me alot of time!
January 31st, 2008 at 10:23 am
StumbleUpon is the best in my opinion also and some of those readers may even get you some clicks on your ads. But if we talk about targeted traffic, there are few few chances of getting something nice.
That is why sometimes I just prefer using SE, organic traffic is far more better.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Yeah I’ve seen no results from propeller or mixx.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:35 am
I will also vote to stumble, that really works
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:32 am
The post is very amezing. You have saved lot of the time of the readers
February 7th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I agree, this is an extremely helpful blog. Although I did not know much about Stumbleupon before reading this blog, I definitely want to check it out now since so many other people agree that it is the best. I will want to see how it compares to Digg.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
My vote goes for stumble too
February 8th, 2008 at 6:59 am
So far, among all social networks, I have only tried stumbleupon. You should have seen the look on my face when I checked on the stats of my blog one time I stumbled an article of mine. Albeit in my case, the traffic lasted only 2 days, the most 3.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I like stumble because of the randomness. It’s always a surprise, and you can set which channels you like. Digg is cool to browse, but I like the randomness of Stumble.
February 10th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
stumbleUpon is good. Anyone tried hands on orkut
February 11th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I work with those social networks as well as a few others. I’m warming up to Mixx, I really like the colors and design (Yes, I am one of those people…) and I like the layout of the whole thing, plus more people from Digg are starting to migrate a bit over to Mixx. I think the site will have some success but it is going to take a lot for them to get as big as Digg is now.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:22 am
i tried facebook, myspace and friendster the results are amazing but only the first week after its not working anymore, you have to redo everything again.
February 12th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Great post! I would say it’s stumbleUpon for me. Social networking is really the way to go.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Thanks for pointing out Hugg and Mixx, believe it or not, but a new client of mine has a Costa Rica wildlife foundation and Hugg is actually ideal for his latest project!
Mike
February 14th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I hate that you need the StumbleUpon to make it work but the site is still the best in my opinion. Digg was the pioneer but it’s too tech heavy. I agree that Mixx has a lot of potential.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I’m fan of Stumbleupon, rest is junk for me, especially digg, why? for same reasons you mentioned in your post.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:05 am
stumble is the best for me, then digg, the other is just for backlinks
February 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
StumbleUpon is pretty useful.
We hear a lot about Mixx beating Digg, but so far Digg seems to be holding in just fine… Still, could be the case of a castle being undermined yet still seems strong.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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February 29th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Yes, I have noticed positive feedbacks for using StumbleUpon in other blogs too.
Thanks for sharing your findings.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I like clippers. It’s the easiest bookmarks i use. Stumble,propeller,blink,digg is good for me. Reddit got my last vote. I got some bad experience with it.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
After seeing that I can’t get to the front page with 207 votes and 107 comments (the vast majority were natural votes), I gave up on Digg, it’s definitely not about the users anymore, Stumble Upon rules, u got to try it!
August 5th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
With my experience Stumble/Digg/Mixx is the best.. I also got ban from Shoutwire for “spamming” but I only made one post wtf? Anyways, stumble gives you a lot of traffic if you send to friends, Digg is the same send to all your friends but there are some dumb people who bury your for no reason, Mixx the people are nice and easy to get on top.