Social Networks: Digg Sucks & StumbleUpon Rules Them All

If you run a website then one of the most important and frustrating things you have to deal with is how and where to get traffic. If your a new site this can be overwhelmingly frustrating and many people (myself included) have sought to get that golden article that lands on the frontpage of Digg. Over the past month I've had a couple posts get noticed, nothing that sent earth shattering or server exploding traffic my way but enough that can be measured. The results are more than a little interesting.

I got brushed by Digg around Sept 4th, again nothing too mind shocking but enough to register a nice little spike. The effect lasted for about 24 hours, right up to the point the post got buried (as it was starting to gain some good momentum no less).

Initially the article started off on Reddit and that provided a nice little spike, again, nothing major but enough it caught the attention of a digger. The effect was the same, very short lived. In fact, several articles submitted to Reddit resulted in subsequent traffic spikes, all showing similar results, very sharp spikes that trailed off quickly. Not nearly as quickly as Digg, but nothing super sustainable either.

Another article posted around the same timeframe got Stumbled and it went crazy (for me anyway). The interesting thing was that while it showed the same sharp increase in traffic it took it way longer to die off than either of the other two networks, maintaining traffic for nearly two weeks. In fact, I have a couple articles that got Stumbled more than 6 months ago that still send regular traffic.

I'm not the only one that has noted this either, Shoemoney noted similar patterns with both Digg & Fark as compared to StumbleUpon. Shoemoney notes the differences in terms of time on site, suggesting that contrary to popular belief Stumblers tend to hang around longer than most people believe. Looking at my own numbers, they aren't as dramatic but seem to coincide with what Shoemoney saw. StumbleUpon had an exit rate of 54.31% while Digg was right there at 54.19% but Reddit didn't hang around long at all with an exit rate of 87.73%.

What's all this mean? Well, to me it means that Digg is overrated and Stumblers ROCK! Digg traffic is purely "in the moment" traffic and while it may bring you new reader it's not sustainable after the initial shock wave. StumbleUpon is, in my opinion, the best of the major Social Networks. It's easy to use, doesn't arbitrarily kill submissions because of some predisposed prejudice and the members really make it a community. Unlike Digg who rules with an iron fist and gives power diggers the power to totally kill something based on their own bias. Power Stumblers certainly have the ability to command major amounts of traffic but Stumblers seem to be more concerned about things of interest to them or things they feel will be of interest to others (that's the big difference) where Digg appears to be a "members only" club, where if your not part of the "in" crowd, you have little hope of ever being invited to dance. It? also doesn't really matter that something you have might be of interest to a large number of Diggers, if it's not of interest to the main stream it's dead.

If your looking for decent traffic, then getting involved in StumbleUpon is a key thing you should be doing. Aside from the potential of major traffic if Stumblers like your stuff, just participating will turn you on to some pretty cool sites and individuals. You can tag me on StumbleUpon via crazy4bass.stumbleupon.com, drop me a note or add me as a friend.