Measuring Success of Selfless Social Media.
I was recently forwarded a quality blog post about a comment that Senator Obama made in a debate about disability. The comment and post were specifically about the Terri Schiavo matter. Though I made some minor changes to the title of the post on a couple of the social news sites I submitted the story to, I left it virtually untouched and basically pulled a quote from the body of the post as the description.
I submitted to:
Digg
Care2
Mixx
Propeller
Stumbleupon
Reddit
Now, with the political and election focus these days, and that Obama is arguably the frontrunner, I thought it would do decently well on Propeller and Digg. I figured the dark horses were Mixx and Care2. Now, because I have no access to analytics data on the site I submitted, I certainly don’t know which one drove the most traffic, or the most quality traffic, but the results are as follows:
6 Diggs.
18 Notes on Care2.
0 Votes on Mixx.
2 Votes on Propeller
0 Reviews on Stumbleupon.
0 Points (2 Comments) on Reddit.
This was submitted on a Friday evening, perhaps the worst time to submit to social news sites. Regardless, based solely on votes, it’s clear that you must submit content to sites that have a niche focus as well as to generalized sites. And why must we submit sites that we have no control over? Because if we don’t, social news site algorithms can de-emphasize the power of your submissions, and you’re less likely to gain friends and votes.
