Here’s a question that might provoke some interesting discussion over the weekend:
Which Social Bookmarking Site Would You Prefer to Hit the Front Page Of?
Would you prefer to hit the popular page on Digg, hit StumbleUpon’s buzz page, make it big on Delicious, Mixx or Reddit or is there some other social bookmarking page that you’d rather do well on?
Also – WHY did you choose the one you’ve chosen? Is it just about the raw numbers of readers, that it leads to secondary links, that it’s more focused and brings a higher quality of reader?
Now it’s over to you for your say….
Stumbleupon has given me the best results. My site doesn’t really work for digg and I don’t think I’m that interested in that type of traffic. My understanding is that it doesn’t last. While I appreciate the spikes I do get from Stumbleupon, I enjoy my site growing organically.
I prefer StumbleUpon as Stumble users provide a better conversion rate to regular readers.
Secondly SU traffic is not hit and go, you keep getting stumbles for a long time unlike Digg.
Digg just provides spikes and does not last for even one full day, the only satisfaction you can get is watching a towering graph in your stats service for the day you were Dugg.
Digg because I use it over the others! Haha Not only that, I find a lot of quirky reads like recently a digg user asked his prom date out on digg by reaching the front page. It was the sweetest geeky thing ever.
I’d say Yahoo Buzz.
It would be crazy.
SU has a low bounce rate, but honestly, I prefer to keep building my profile on Twitter, which has no front page to game. Refreshing.
Both StumbleUpon and Digg.
Digg sends lots of secondary links. StumbleUpon doesn’t.
On the other hand, StumbleUpon gets me lots of regular RSS readers. Diggers usually don’t stay for more than a few minutes.
I’d actually prefer to hit the front page of Value Investing News, the niche social bookmarking site in my blogs topic area. It brings me the highest quality traffic. I get some good commenters and premium subscribers that way.
For more more general traffic, I actually really like del.icio.us. It seems to bring my site longer term benefits in terms of traffic and maybe even SEO benefits.
Stumble Upon. Here’s why:
When people review your site, they actually have to read your content and put some thought into it.
On the other hand, sites like Digg just ask for votes. Votes are instrinsically useless unless the reader ACTUALLY CARES about your content. Which is most cases they don’t because Digg is more like a popularity contest. Most people will exchange Diggs for Diggs, even if the content completely sucks. Its pathetic.
At least with StumbleUpon you’re getting some readers who actually care about what you’ve written.
I’d rather have a few seriously interested readers instead of a massive amount of uninterested readers.
I want a DIGG effective!, but the DIGG categories are so bad, I do not know which category to file my submission under.
Stumble upon can be good in the long term. If you are using Stumble Upon the way I do, you would have browsed dozens of pages with a minute! I think many people do not stay long with a stumbled page.
StumbleUpon by far. Even after the initial wave has been and gone, traffic still comes through—StumbleUpon is actually set up so that all links still have a chance of getting stumbled. Whereas with most other social bookmarking sites, stuff that passes from memory stays passed from memory—and it’s a very short-term memory at that.
My sites wouldn’t work for Digg—in my side blogs I’m too focused on a specific niche to work as wide appeal. And in my main blog, I blog about blogging—a no-no to the Digg crowd.
StumbleUpon is very friendly to both visitors and site owners, and thus wins hands-down for me.
I prefer SU because the readers are generally in the mood to “gamble”. They’ve selected a few topics they like, but they’re rolling the dice – which means they’re coming in with a (relatively) open mind, not looking for one specific bit of information. They just want something interesting/entertaining.
Not to mention that SU tends to bring consistently lengthy surges in traffic (I’ve had several thousand referrals from them per day for almost 2 weeks in the past). It may not convert all of them to regular readers, but it does so better than Digg.
Speaking of, Digg traffic sucks because half of the people who read your story want to offer their $.02 as to why they think you’re wrong/stupid (which is sort of par for the course when you consider Digg’s average reader).
I’m also a big twitter fan (@inkedmn), as many people who follow you are (theoretically) interested in the same types of things you are, which would generally mean they might be interested in your blog. This all depends, of course, but I’ve had a few posts do well on twitter due to a sufficiently large following.
I tend to prefer StumbleUpon, in large part because it’s hard to find a Digg category that my topics would do well in. SU is general enough to suit just about anyone, yet you can narrow your Stumbles down to your interests, meaning your traffic has a chance to be interested in what you’re saying.
Not that I’d object to doing well on any of them…
SU does it for me, however with my rash of hard luck, I think I would be lucky to land on the front page of a “Wanted” poster.
I would prefer to be in yahoo buzz.. which I heard could bring you thousand of traffic
I tend to agree with Damien and Kieth and prefer SU popularity over Digg. Digg front page spikes can be nice (I’ve actually got one right now), but they are not sustainable. While Digg traffic will generally not convert visitors into loyal readers, a front page or two can help build a new blog’s brand and its legitimacy.
The two posts I have had go popular on Digg were written explicitly with the Digg community in mind, and I would rather not write all of my posts within the strictures of that template.
I think Digg still brings the most traffic but Stumble Upon’s seems to be more of what I’m looking for in a reader which is why I’d go with Stumble.
Still wouldn’t turn down that Digg first page though!
I agree with the point @Shankar Ganesh put in, with spikes Digg also gives you lots of incoming links.
I get decent traffic from StumbleUpon, and on occasions, del.icio.us. Material from my blog has yet to get traffic from Digg.
My votes go to Blogging Zoom and StumbleUpon. Also, Propeller has categories that fit what I write pretty well. I don’t get much traffic from it, though.
I like Blogging Zoom because I’m a blogger and it’s for bloggers about blogs.
StumbleUpon seems to bring in the most great traffic, very targeted.
I don’t like Digg because they banned me and won’t respond to any of my attempts to contact them. I started using it before I understood social bookmarking and made some mistakes that looked like spam, I’m sure, and that’s likely why I was banned. But almost a year later, I still can’t get them to respond. So to heck with them. I’ll stick to the above sites.
Sherri
Digg might lead to some secondary links, but StumbleUpon can bring a sustained level of traffic if the content stays relevant.
if it was truly important, probably Digg, but since i had my account deleted and swore that site off (except for random lurking), and since i hit popular on Mixx daily, uhhh…
to be honest, i’ve never really used the others, except reading Reddit once a month or so.
how about the cover of Wired Magazine?!?! that’s the real deal right there…RU Sirius level stuff!
I’ve had the best results with Mixx. They seem to stay around longer and actually read a post, and are much friendlier within Mixx than many users are of other services.
I only ever use mixx. I love it. Sometimes I make it to the front page and it’s great.
I’ve gotten a lot more traffic with StumbleUpon, but the problem is it does not convert to ad clicks well for me at all. There is a high bounce rate and low page visit/site time rate for SU traffic on my site. Much lower than from direct and search engine traffic.
StumbleUpon works best for me. I haven’t ever gotten myself active in many others to compare but digg I find to be a bit too difficult to work for good traffic. With StumbleUpon, I have had my site on the “buzz” page many times and the traffic it brought was fantastic, long-lasting, and converted well.
While Mixx, Reddit, and many others are gaining in popularity, they just don’t have the numbers yet to see what the result is to sustain traffic long term. This is something that StumbleUpon has proven it can do.
Since my blog is a homebase promoting my podcast (Nobody’s Listening) my needs may be a little different that most. A visit is not enough, otherwise I might vote for Stumbled Upon or Digg.
I’d rather see my site on Delicious i think. Bookmarks are forever… for the most part. When someone bookmarks you, they’re making a commitment. That’s what a podcaster needs. It’s more than a click or a hit. Podcasters need them to click that ever important Subscribe button… and to listen.
Here’s a short list of other places I’d like to see my show: Podcast Pickel, itunes front podcasting page (currently on page 2 of featured comedy), and PodcastAlley.com.
In general I prefer Stumbleupon.com however for specific topics niche social networking sites can be far more effective eg: http://sphinn.com for SEO and Internet Marketing articles
StumbleUpon, most definitely. Like everyone said, it’s much more quality traffic, not just quantity.
Secondly, probably Kirtsy (formerly Sk*rt) – it fits my niche well.
Digg absolutely doesn’t work for me because of the horrible categories. Mine doesn’t fit in any of them.
StumbleUpon has given me a great spike in traffic that lingered for a few days.
I haven’t gotten dugg yet so I don’t know the quality of the visitors as far as links and subscribers go.
I have heard digg is more of a one time thing where as stumbleUpon might last a few days.
Digg is the best one to hit the front page on. It causes front page placement on all the other sites — none of the other social sites typically cause something like that. I agree that StumbleUpon buzz traffic is WAY better, but getting on the buzz doesn’t typically cause a Digg to happen.
I would like it to be Stumble upon but my results are way better with Digg
Delicious, I think that the average guy coming from there is more likely to become a regular reader and that the link may be promoted again on the front page. Also people are using delicious more and more as a search engine.
This said, I think that it’s even better to be promoted on several niche social networks, that’s what has worked the best for me so far.
Interesting topic, I look forward to seeing the overall outcome. I am still trying to determine the best social networks/sites to spend my time on, what little I have online.
StumbleUpon did the job well so far. Although I use Digg, Mixx, Reddit too.
Mixx is still new and the impact is not that big.
I have to agree with Aaron’s comment about the Digg categories. Most time I’m “forced” to submit articles to “Tech News” which isn’t quite the best place. Not every time. While Mixx has a “Tech Opinion” category, which is definitely better.
Give me Stumble Upon any day, hands down. Simple to use. Great dividends. I am averaging 150 new hits a day and I just signed up in April 2008! Love it, Love it, Love it!
Prefer stumpleupon in general
However I’ve found that niche social bookmarking sites are far more effective eg: sphinn for SEO/Internet marketing articles
Stumbleupon & Delicious …
Quirky reads like recently a digg user asked his prom date out on digg by reaching the front page.
StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Digg, Mixx, and region centric ones like Indianpad.
Stumble and Digg
I would like to hit the front page of Digg, of course I would but my worry is that people who come from Digg aren’t usually of the best quality when it comes to being visitors. They are often very rude in comments and just overall don’t seem to be that nice (this is only my personal experience, if you’ve had better experience with Digg users that is absolutely wonderful). So, because of that I think I would rather hit it big on Delicious.
I would have said Digg until a few days ago when I had a post get hit by StumbleUpon traffic. I had no idea how much something I wrote could explode so fast. It was very exciting.
Stumbleupon has provided the most poor quality traffic to me. Thousands of visitors a day to one of my posts but none stayed more than a few seconds there.
Digg and reddit gave some better quality traffic :) One of the best i can go with is reddit, but cant ever agree with stumbleupon..
Hands down, Stumbleupon … it is a great provider of fantastic traffic.
hmm.. i like blogcatalog over digg.
digg is useless to me, i have never tried stumbleupon yet but i shall do so now seeing the good comments that have arisen from it.
But yes so far blogcatalog has worked best for me. =)
sorry about double posting.. im not spamming im just wondering.. are you able to submit your own site to stumble upon??
or does it automatically have all sites that are on the web in its system?
Yahoo! Digg and Yahoo! Buzz are my favorite. however recent comScore study says that popularity of Yahoo! Buzz is increasing and that of Digg is decreasing… Wake up Kevin Rose!!
I’m not sure I have any preference about why social bookmarking site I hit the front page of. Just this week an article I wrote about an error with the latest Iron Man torrent hit the front page of Reddit and generated about 25,000 visitors in just a few hours. That’s happened to me twice, now.
I personally think it’s almost impossible to hit the front page of Digg unless you’re very much in the loop there, or already a big name. I rarely submit stuff to Digg anymore. There’s no need when Reddit is so effective for me – as I’ve said before, about 75-80 per cent of my traffic comes from there.
As others have mentioned, however, a quick ego boost aside, social media traffic is basically useless as the bounce rate for those kinds of visitors is almost 100 per cent. It’s better and more consistent from somewhere like SU, as you tend to find the people there were looking for that content in the first place (that led them to check out your site).
I prefer StumbleUpon. As others have said, SU seems to have a ‘stick around’ quality. I am also a SU member, and I have found most people to be friendly and positive. Can’t go wrong with the friendly and positive vibe. Of course, I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth either…to get featured on any social networking site’s main page would be very appreciated!
Stumbleupon is my favorite! I wanna be front page on that!