Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Social News for Social Good Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg if there’s no buzz, there’s no interest. —Branford Marsalis Jonathon D. Colman Associate Director, Digital Marketing http://www.slideshare.net/jcolman/slideshows http://www.linkedin.com/in/jcolman www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #1 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #2 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 www.nature.org flickr: ricko Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #5 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 No Time? No Money? No Problem! • Social news sites can help you get the word out fast • They’re among the most popular sites on the web • They have diverse audiences, not just kids in college • They’re free for you to use • Great at driving traffic as well as commentary • Your partners/competitors are already using them • Hold both short-term and long-term marketing benefits www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #6 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 About Digg.com Breaking news, video, and amazing content from all over the world — users find, post, and rate the best of the web’s newest content. • 150th most popular site on the Web [ALEXA.COM - FEBRUARY 2008] • Over 20 million unique visitors/month [COMPETE.COM - FEBRUARY 2008] • 2.7 million registered users [ESTIMATED; JOHN GRAHAM-CUNNING] • Demographics: 25-34 years old, international [QUANTCAST.COM - FEBRUARY 2008] www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #7 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Results: Social News Campaign on Digg 200 visitors/day “Typical” web feature on nature.org www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #9 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Results: Social News Campaign on Digg 20,000 visitors/day 200 visitors/day “Typical” web feature “Typical” visitors/day on nature.org on nature.org www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #10 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Results: Social News Campaign on Digg 20,000 visitors/day 18,000+ visitors in one hour 300+ visitors per second 200 visitors/day “Typical” web feature “Typical” visitors/day Everyday on nature.org on nature.org Environmentalist www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #11 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Results: Social News Campaign on Digg 76,000+ visitors in one day 20,000 visitors/day 18,000+ visitors in one hour 300+ visitors per second 200 visitors/day “Typical” web feature “Typical” visitors/day Everyday on nature.org on nature.org Environmentalist www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #12 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 But Isn’t This Just “Empty” Traffic? • Motivated much engagement on Digg: 2,200+ total “diggs” and 600+ total comments from Digg users • Created “spillover” success in other social networks • Drove many unsolicited links from other web sites and blogs (50+) • Inspired links from elite blogs (1,000+ authority in Technorati), inc. The Huffington Post, Cisco.com, Mental Floss, and LockerGnome • Increased organic search engine findability, positioning • Acquired new contacts we can turn to for future marketing efforts www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #13 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 How Much Work/Time Did This Take? • Less than 5 minutes to create the actual Digg post • Plus 2 hours to publicize the post to Digg contacts (via Digg “shouts,” Facebook, Twitter, IM, etc.) www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #14 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 How Much Work/Time Did This Take? • Less than 5 minutes to create the actual Digg post • Plus 2 hours to publicize the post to Digg contacts (via Digg “shouts,” Facebook, Twitter, IM, etc.) • Plus 1.5 years to build up a credible, authoritative Digg profile • Becoming a good member of the community, learning best practices • Building reliable contacts, voting for their stories • Creating network of links to/distribution for our posts • Posting content other than nature.org stories (i.e., not spamming) www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #15 of 16

Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Conclusions on the Value of Social News • Social news is not always the right tool for every marketing scenario • Complements a strategy leveraging traditional online tactics • Success can generate short-term (and huge) bursts of web traffic • Engagement on social news sites will be high, but will be low on your site (as measured in length of session, conversions, etc.) • Becoming popular can drive coverage on elite blogs, web sites and drive many new links, audiences to your web site • Offers long-term benefits for search engine positioning • Can take time to build up credibility and authority in the network www.nature.org Web Executive Seminar: Social Sites for Social Good | Jonathon D. Colman Slide #16 of 16

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Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg

by Jonathon Colman @jcolman

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Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg Webinar Transcript