How To Be A Solid Digg Citizen: Creating A Killer Social Media Profile

Yeah, that’s right–I bet when you signed up for Digg or any of the other social media joints that you just threw together your profile using minimal brainpower (I did too )

Well, Brent Csutoras over at Search Engine Land is preaching about how to create a smart social media profle, and he is totally spot on.

Here are some great digger profile tips, comin’ at ya:

1) Mask or No Mask? When you sign up for Digg, you’ll be asked to create a Username that will be associated with all of your submissions and diggs and comments. Choose it carefully. You can either use your real name (ex. JoeSmith), or create a unique handle that will allow you to be anonymous in all of your activity in Digg (ex. frogmaster).

Brent recommends that if you’re using Digg for marketing, that a wise thing to do would be to create a username that would allow you to be anonymous.

2) Make your user name easy to say and remember. Don’t try to get all fancy and come up with a name that no one can pronounce or recognize. Choose something catchy, like “MrBabyMan” (now that one is hard to forget! )

3) Choose an avatar that works in all sizes. I’ve made this mistake before–a photo that looks good blown up big is not necessarily recognizable in tiny size. On Digg, depending on the page you’re viewing the avatar will be one of 3 sizes. Be sure that the avatar photo you choose looks good in all of the sizes. You get extra bonus points if your avatar is reminiscent of your user name.

4) Be mindful of what you’re linking to–variety is important. Many people use Digg and other social bookmarking sites for marketing purposes, but you’re not really supposed to only promote your own and your friends own stuff. You’ve gotta mix it up and share a variety of links from a variety of sites or else your profile will lose some of it’s power, since it may look like you’re using it for personal gain.

I learned this the hard way–when I first started using Digg, the number of blogs I was reading was not that many. Basically I was just reading my friends blogs. I was showing a friend of mine that I had added his post to Digg, and when he looked at my list of links he said, “Uh, you might want to fluff your links out a little bit.” So, to avoid a false impression don’t link to the same sites over and over and don’t submit your own stuff. Just share the post with some friends and if they like it they’ll Digg it.

5) Participate on a regular basis. Kind of scary, but Digg is watching ya and keeping track of everything you do and when. Brent says:

Digg sorts friends by recent activity and tracks the last time you logged into your account. All your recent submissions, diggs, and comments are also logged in the recent activity section of your profile. Make sure that you log in to your account as much as possible and perform various actions to keep your account looking fresh and active.

6) Your stats will show if you’d be a good friend. Yup, your user stats are on display for everyone to see. People who look at your profile can see how many articles you’ve submitted, how many stories you dugg within the last 30 days, what categories those stories were in, and the number of total diggs your account has. From looking at your stats, people can judge how good a friend you’d be or if you’re only in it for yourself. If your stats show that you’ve submitted 50 articles and have only dugg the articles you’ve submitted yourself, you’re looking at bit self-centered there . So, when you’re participating in Digg, be mindful of what your stats are revealing.

7) Add friends authentically. Don’t go on a massive friend adding campaign–it doesn’t look authentic. If you add a whole bunch of friends at one time, then those friends will be able to see how many people you’ve added and they’ll be on to ya. So, choose your friends mindfully, and add them in reasonably small batches or one at a time.

Grow your profile naturally over time. Digg will get suspicious if your profile balloons up with 500 friends overnight, so don’t do that! Just take your time, work on your profile a little each day, and add friends who you would really like to have as allies on Digg. Patience is a virtue, and your hard work over time will be rewarded. Pretty soon you’ll start to be viewed by all as a solid Digg citizen.

Can I get an “Amen”? Very wise tips. I have made a lot of these mistakes myself, and I’m truly thinking about re-working the way I do my profiles. Live and Learn.

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