Web Design Ireland

For anyone that has spent any time trying to garner the elite position of the front page of any social bookmarking website, you will begin to notice that certain types of stories with certain appeal, seem to work better on some than others. The following is what I’ve began to see more and more.

Reddit. Very American audience, responds well to political debate (especially American politics), with a generally older (wiser?) demographic. Snippets also work well on Reddit, i.e. you have something to post, but no website to put it on. Kinda defeats the purpose when it comes to website promotion, but if you weave a careful marketing message into the fabric of the message, it may result in organic searches.

Digg. Younger more technical audience than Reddit, that tend to stay less time on site. Digg users seem to clique together..on some counts its like being back at school. List posts or funny stories always do well on Digg. With the youth of today skimming content with more speed than ever before, Digg seems to have become be a haven for those who want their news fix and content quick, without trawling through tons of sites. Think of it as a social syndication tool. If you are going to retain a visitor from Digg, you are going to have to distract them from their normal path of click and quit, with great content. In addition if you are thinking that it takes just great content and a load of votes you are wrong. Diggrank - the algorithm behind getting to the front page is ever important.

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us for me, is one of the better social bookmarking tools, as it integrates with the browser and takes into account natural browsing / bookmarking patterns. Things that do well tend to be “free downloads”, large lists and long articles. f you think about the way you use your bookmarking in Firefox or I.E normally, you tend to bookmark things to come back to later, or that would be useful at work (when you are at home) or vice versa. Del.icio.us users tend to follow this trend, and the front page is frequently filled with Titles that haven’t been particularly well written in the hope to catch someone’s eye. This is because the content is what invokes someone to bookmark, from natural browsing, rather than visiting say Digg, then clicking on interesting content. It is much more passive social bookmarking tool.

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is great at providing unique links that you would never find elsewhere, and compared to its competitors provides a completely different user experience. There is a great sense of community at stumbleupon, and its users are almost always decent to each other. They stay on average (looking at my site stats) 2.7 times longer than the average Digg user, which says something. Founded in 2001 they have an audience now of more than 2 million users, and are continuing to grow. Some of the best ways of gaining traffic is to start adding friends, who will notice your link when it has been submitted.

Blinklist

Much wider audience profile than other sites, seems to be an older audience as well, that enjoy (as the name suggest) making links. As blinklist takes some time to operate in comparison with other social sites, there is much more organisation, in the links put together, which in turn means that the users tend to be patience, organised people. If you are selling stationary or diaries online, get your products in front of them :o).