NetzTune-Uppro

I’m basically a writer by profession, so I can attest to how hard it is to come up with such magnetic content that, in Web 2.0 terms, it becomes viral–spreads like a virus, in other words–all on its own.

What’s at stake here?

For instance, if you can get an article of yours on the first page of Digg, that feat is said to guarantee you about 10,000 to 30,000 new visitors, along with 1,000 external links within three weeks.  On Reddit, getting featured can get you 4,000 to 10,000 unique visitors as well as 600 links.  Those are probably the two biggest.  I had an article featured on Stumble Upon once, and that gained me about 500 new visitors for two days running.  I may have gotten one link out of the total, but Stumble Upon is further down the social media food chain.  Still, others have reported better results than mine.  (Reverse luck of the Irish.)

Of course, the tempation is to sign up for one or more of these sites and then promote one’s own blog or Web resource, hoping to create some buzz.  Lots of people try this, but to me it’s always seemed like spamming.  Others have all their friends promote their blog the same day, hoping for a payload, but this can just as easily get you banned.

The key is to have content that is unique and valuable to others.