Following on nicely from Dave’s post on Digg, the Guardian Unlimited site today offers a great example of the power of Digg to drive traffic.

Here are yesterday’s most read stories:

Nothing fascinating here, you may think.

What is interesting is that the top story “Mysteries of Computer from 65BC are Solved” was posted on the site in November 2006. Why would such an old story suddenly become the most popular story on the UK’s most popular newspaper site?

That’s the power of Digg!

I’ve been commissioned (or, to put it another way, asked repeatedly) by Alex to write a few posts now and again on the social media and bookmarking side of things; the part of our SEO work over which I currently preside. Lately we’ve been working regularly with several social bookmarking sites, most notably Digg and StumbleUpon, but there are so many out there that it’s probably easier to start with these two. Alex has rather genially already mentioned Digg in a previous post, but I thought it might be nice to go into a wee bit more detail.

If you’re involved or interested in online marketing and have not yet heard of the social bookmarking phenomenon known as Digg, it’s probably about time to poke your head out from behind that rock and embrace one of the big boys currently in the Social Media world.

Digg runs off an entirely social platform, relying solely on its users for its constant injection of fresh, peer-reviewed content. People submit an URL, wedge it into one of Digg’s many categories, stick a title and quick description on it, and then unleash it upon the masses. If someone likes it, they can ‘digg’ it, which basically amounts to giving the submission a single vote. If, for any reason, a user does not deem the content worthy of Digg, they can ‘bury’ it. The more positive votes, the more visibility the content gains, and the more traffic is whisked off to the URL in question.

Digg is not the first site ever to have come up with this idea. Slashdot has been operating a peer-review system for its comments for years now – it seems to be a particularly effective measure against trolls and fanboys filling comments threads with rubbish. Digg, however, have taken this system and put it into action on a grand scale, and in the process have spawned several sites who share content in a very similar way, such as Reddit and Mixx. The algorithm grants the users who have a history of submitting popular content more power than the average Joe, giving their submissions greater visibility. Categories can be masked so each user gets only the content that is most relevant and interesting to them. Almost anything can be submitted to Digg: articles, images, videos, Flash games, podcasts, directories – even updates to Digg’s site and inner workings are announced by submitting a link from the Digg blog.

But what can Digg bring to your site? Well, a hell of a lot of short-term traffic. The vast majority of stories on Digg have a short life-span, but during that time you can enjoy a sharp surge in visits. Here’s an example for you – one of our more successful viral posts was submitted to Digg and gained around 1,750 diggs in its first 24 hours on the site. While this may not seem a particularly large amount, let’s see how that converts into traffic…

As you can see, the daily visit count has gone from pretty much zero to a whopping 60k visits. In one day.

Naturally you’ll want your site to be full of good content in order to keep that bounce rate low, gain return visitors, and translate the traffic into sales; but the window of opportunity is slim due to the short lifespan of most content submitted to Digg.

Digg’s influence does not end here. Online activists Anonymous have been utilising Digg’s power in recent weeks to spread word of their war against Scientology, using the site to popularise anti-cultist sentiments, releasing secret Scientology documents and even arranging a variety of ‘raids’ – non violent protests outside major Scientology centres around the world. This further emphasises the idea (and real-life power) of online socialism – using YouTube to release their video press releases, utilising social media sites to spread the word; and most importantly, galvanising people to feel compelled to do something about L. Ron Hubbard’s legacy. Tom Cruise be damned.

More on Digg next time – and perhaps a short foray into the world of StumbleUpon – same species, different animal.

Being a sales and marketing bod often involves going to a lot of trade shows. This week’s was the TFM&A (Technology For Marketing and Advertising) at Earls Court 2.

A very interesting day it was too. I was particularly impressed with Danny Meadows-Klue, from Digital Strategy Consulting and his talk on “Marketing to the Facebook Generation”. While there was an element of preaching to the converted about his talk, he raised a number of interesting points about the flow of traditional marketing spend to the internet and how best to manage this change.

One point that he made which really resonated was the current underuse of online channels by many companies of all sizes. It was only a small part of the talk, but was particularly interesting to someone who devotes a lot of time and energy trying to convince companies to devote a larger chunk of their marketing spend to the web.

His point was that, for most companies that now advertise online, this media channel would be the least likely to suffer cutbacks in the coming squeeze. The strange thing is that many companies are yet to even dip their toes in online marketing!

(This seems like a convenient point at which to crowbar in the fact that we are now getting some coverage in the print media – check out my internet marketing column in next Tuesday’s Brighton & Hove Argus – it’ll be in the Business Section and called “The Bottom Line”)

Danny gave some examples of great online marketing campaigns – the two which come to mind are Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and STA’s great travel blogs, which are offered to anyone who purchases a ticket from the company. These campaigns show how a little thought goes a long way with online marketing. The Dove campaign shot from inbox to inbox around the world in record time. STA, on the other hand, is a grower. Both are examples of fantastic social media (or web 2.0) marketing.

Having worked online for a couple of years now, it is amazing to see how seriously people are now taking our field. Even four years ago, internet marketers were viewed strangely by the traditional marketing world, kind of like a geeky subculture. Now, everyone is scrambling to get onboard. Early adopters have seen fantastic returns in both brand perception (one of the cornerstones of Danny’s talk) and – this is particularly true of SEO users – sales.

Next stop SES on the 22nd!