Factors of Success in Social (News) Communities
Initially I just wanted to report about some experience on DIGG but then i noticed that i try to cover at least two different topics in one post, so I decided to split. In that article I will cover key factors of success on news driven Social communities like well known DIGG and will cover my firs serious steps with DIGG in the next article.
Currently I’m the number 49 of top users of the Russian DIGG sister called news2.ru, therefore I think to have some experience and some kind of instinctive feeling for mechanisms we have on that page. News2.ru is a typical example of social news-driven page and is quite similar to DIGG. Therefore my experience can be useful also for DIGG users and other similar Web2.0 sites.
Success factors of digging
As I think there a only two main factors your success (success of your submissions) depends on. That are the quality of your stories and friendship. Yes only them two and some sub issues its quite simple. Such an statement my appear as vague for you, therefore I’ll try to be more concrete.
High quality stories
High quality stories are known as:
- unique
- unusual
- very actual
- interesting for everybody
That are primary properties on successful story. Now you may think that the appreciation of these attributes is highly subjective, that is partly true. However everyone can achieve good objectivity by analysing the actuality of post. E.g. U.S. President election is quite actual at the moment, Cold War maybe not. However with some experience thee appraisal of these properties will get better and better. I can say I began to feel what kind of stories can reach the TOP.
To be actual and have many stories to choose, it is recommended to subscribe to RSS feeds of news portal of your wish or several of them. If your social-community portal presents websites statistic , you are well advised to study it and chose some with the best success rate.
So what to do? How to begin? The answer is clear too, you just have to star and play a bit around. If you are non completely new in the field of social news community, then you just can’t leave this step out. However as already mentioned the success factor of your news will grow with experience.
It is difficult to provide some examples of good or bad news, because it’s highly depends on the time context and also other things like presentation! Presentation is one of the sub factors I wanna say some words about:
- Always use pictures! Choose them with care.
- Use headlines that magnify attention (Compare: “Microsoft considers to by some Yahoo shares” vs. “Microsoft takes over Yahoo!”)
- But use headlines that are precisely express what is in the content behind them. Otherwise your messages can be considered as spam or inaccurate.
- Be aware of duplicates
- The content at it self should be good presented and layout carefully. Don’t write to much, but try to make your link sexy. Don’t lie.
- Use the right category!
Doing so you will create solid and high potential submissions, and you has learned this, the second factor comes to a play which helps enormously to use the potential of your submissions.
Friendship
If in the beginning of your “career” maybe non of your messages reach the top, at a master level the rate of your positive submissions can rise up to 50-99 percent (depending on social service and other factors). But this success is only possible with a active circle of friends!
How to get friends on social communities? You should be able to answer this question at your-self, because it is not much different as in the real life. Friendship grounds on mutuality and deserve much time. Decide for yourself whether you are ready for it. However gaining new friends is in any case new experience and enrichment for everyone.
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