There are many social media addicts in this world.  You see it every day on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon.  Even Propeller, Mixx, and Newsvine have their share.  What you may or may not know is whether or not you are one of them.

It’s often tough to recognize.  Perhaps the joy of seeing your first story on the front page of the site was enough to set you off.  Maybe it’s a desire to promote your point of view, a political candidate, even your own blog or business.  For some, it’s something that passes the time (until too much time has passed).  Read these signs below and seek immediate help if 3 or more apply to you.

1. When you hear breaking news on the radio, you immediately pull over and whip out your laptop or cell phone to see if it has been submitted.  Sometimes, you whip out your laptop or cell phone without pulling over.
2. This sentence makes sense to you: “I almost FPd a Jobs fanboy submit, but the brigade buried it off upcoming.”
3. One or two nights a week are spent listening to The Drill Down and the Social Blend at The Mixxing Bowl.
4. Your GTalk is loaded with people you’ve never met, never actually spoken to, and whose name may or may not be real, but somehow you feel a close kinship with them.
5. Any time you play cards, a spade makes you think of a guy named Muhammad.
6. You had plants, as far as you can recall, but there are now just baskets of dirt with dead brown leaves in them.  You vaguely remember having a dog as well.  Also, there’s a strange smell in your apartment.
7. Some (or all) of the following groups of apparently random letters and numbers means something to you: QGYH2sbutkicGt2099dexlovex27hlmoojj.
8. Regardless of what kind of computer you have, you claim to have a Mac.  If you are bold enough to admit that you own a PC, you at least run Firefox as your browser.
9. Story, video, and image quality are important to you, but not as important as the headline.
10. The Presidential race may or may not be important to you, but either way, your main reason for wishing the primaries were over is to stop reading headlines about Ron Paul.
11. Within 0.03 seconds, you can look at a cute picture of an animal and know whether or not it was photoshopped.
12. Your feed list is longer than your grocery list

In the real world, we pick our friends based upon certain traits and conditions.  We want people we can like who have shared interests and who have a certain proximity to us.  The Internet has changed the proximity aspect of friendship, but we still need to be able to interact with our friends in some way to truly be friends.

In social media, “friendship” is more of a way to get votes for your submissions than to interact with others.  There are certainly those who make real friends through social media.  Some of the people I interact with on a daily basis were people I met on social media sites.  Still, the bottom line in social media friendship is “vote for my submissions and I’ll vote for yours.”

There is something skewed about this concept, but we’ll ignore it for this article.  Instead, we’ll accept the fact that most social media friends aren’t really friends and focus on how to be a good one, as well as finding other good ones.

Good Social Media Friends Submit Good Content

It seems like a no-brainer, but it needs to be stated.  I submit stories that I think are worth reading and I expect my friends to do the same.  If someone submits the occasional crappy story or self-promotional piece, I don’t mind as long as the majority of their stuff is good.

Good Social Media Friends Vote for MOST of Your Submissions

I remember getting a message from a social media powerhouse one time that said “Vote for all of my s__t and I’ll try to vote for most of yours.”  Arrogant, pompous, but hey, at least he was being honest.  The idea of blind-voting for all of your friends’ submissions is a flawed one for some sites.  Digg and StumbleUpon take the number of stories you Digg or Thumb Up into account when determining the quality of your submissions, so hitting everything submitted is definitely a bad idea.

I have been running an experiment over the last couple of weeks with this, just to make sure that it was true.  A week and a half ago, I was putting 1-4 stories a day on the front page of Digg and getting a decent level of stumbles on my submissions.  Once I started ramping up my Diggs, hitting everything submitted by my hundreds of friends, I started noticing that it was taking longer and longer to hit the front page.  Once I had a great weburbanist submission get 194 diggs in the first 24 hours and NOT make the front page, my over-digging theory was confirmed.

Reddit, Propeller, and Mixx, on the other hand, seem to not mind blind voting.  In fact, it helps your status to vote more on Propeller and Mixx.  Still, many people watch for blind voters and either sink them or avoid them altogether.

As a general rule, vote for the submissions that are good.  If you would have considered submitting it, it’s worth your Digg/Stumble/Upmod/Vote.

Good Social Media Friends Keep Messaging Their Submissions to a Minimum

Sending stories on social media sites is okay if used only when necessary.  If it’s really, really, really good, you should consider spreading the word.  Don’t spam, and don’t accept friends who spam you.  If you’re getting every submission from a user sent to you, send them a message and ask them to slow it down.  If they don’t remove them.  Don’t be a spammer and don’t reward spammers with your friendship.

Good Social Media Friends Communicate with Each Other Every Now and Then

One of the best ways to really be a friend is to communicate.  It may take some time, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of friends, but take the time occasionally to drop your friends a line.  Thank them for voting for your submissions every once in a while.  Compliment them for finding a particularly incredible piece of media. Just say “hi” from time to time.  Some won’t appreciate it and will think you are trying to game them.  Most won’t mind it at all.

Good Social Media Friends Defend Each Other

This is a minor point normally, but in some cases, it’s a big deal.  If one of your good social media friends is getting bashed by a troll, help your friend out.  Bury the troll’s negative comment.  Write one in reply that defends your friend.  You wouldn’t let your best friend in real life get bashed and you shouldn’t let your social media friend get bashed either.

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The best social media submitters have friends.  Lots of them.  Making the right friends and working with them the right way is possibly the most important aspect of being successful on social media.  Someone with no friends can submit a picture of Elvis walking around in the forest with Bigfoot and it will never make the front page of any social media site.  It’s a flaw in the systems, but it’s one we have to deal with for now.  Might as well make the most of it.

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Social Media blogs are everywhere.  Heck, you’re at one right now!

One of the first front page stories that stayed at the top of the Propeller “Most Popular Stories” was titled, “Propeller.com new layout Sucks!!!“.  If you click on the link to it, you get this:

This article has been removed from our system for violating our Terms of Use.

Fair enough.  It was inflammatory and while it may have been a sounding board for disgruntled users, it did not offer a lot of value to the site.  Soon after, an article titled “Propeller. Fail.” was posted and has been the top story on the front page of the site for some time.  Not a lot of value again other than as a eulogy for the original story that was removed, but still, the point was made.  At the time of this article, it has 227 comments.

The question must now be asked: 2 days, several complaints, several poor reviews, and a disgruntled user-base that is expressing itself by keeping these stories at the top — what does Propeller do now?

Should they say “OOPS, nevermind!” and put the old version back up?  Should they just weather the storm that always seems to come when something warm and familiar is changed?  Should they defend their position that this new format is better?

or…

Should they re-market themselves, allowing those who don’t like the new version to leave while pushing for a newer brand of Propeller users?

I hope they do not select the last option.  This is a site that I have enjoyed and defended over the last few months and I would hate to see all of that effort go to waste.  Here is a screenshot of the current front page as well as a screenshot of last night’s front page.

Above is now.  Below is last night’s.

There really isn’t anything else to say about it.  The people have spoken loud and clear.

It really could just take some getting used to, but I already miss the old, clunky version.

Most people who submit content to social media websites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, or Propeller do so because they believe what they are submitting is worthy of making it to the front page where it can be viewed by a gazillion people.  It could be something that interests them from the news.  Perhaps it’s a story they worked exceptionally hard on from their blog.  Maybe it’s a hilarious video they found.

So, new to the world of social media, they submit it and wait for their name to appear in the popular section.  It’s a great story, afterall.  However, in most cases, it does not make the front page.  Undaunted, they try again.  And again.  Eventually they start to look at what hits the front page and they see a discouraging trend — the same names keep popping up, and it isn’t theirs.

What do they do?  They click on a profile.  At Digg, they might click on Suxmonkey, a front page regular.  They scan down to the stats and their eyes pop out of their head.  34,000 Diggs!  Oh ____!  Perhaps they check out Reddit next and click on QGYH2 to see a karma score over 100K.  Moving right along to Propeller, they check the Top Contributors section to find that they’ve all submitted hundreds, even thousands of stories and comments.

If you are one of these people, don’t give up!  You don’t have to spend hours a day, every day, to become a regular to the front page of social media websites.  You simply need a strategy that fits your schedule.

Each social media website is different.  They have different techniques that work (which is probably why very few make it to the top ranks on multiple social media sites).  Here is a breakdown of ways to make it to the front page on a tight schedule.

Reddit

We’ll start with Reddit because it’s the easiest for a part-timer to hit the front page.  On Reddit, you don’t need a huge friend list.  You don’t need to upmod (vote for) dozens or hundreds of stories a day to get noticed.  You need four things: quality content (even though low quality content can sneak in sometimes), excellent headline writing skills, an understanding of what the hot topics are on Reddit, and luck.  That’s it.

Read the first few front pages.  You’ll start to notice trends (which often fluctuate) of topics that are hitting.  Some easy topics to push through are Bush-bashing stories, RIAA-bashing stories, and cop-bashing stories.  Not into bashing?  No worries.  Get there with the headline.

Because Reddit does not have a way to leave a description, the title itself must be the description.  You have more space than most social media sites, but you must choose your words carefully.  Be creative, tell the story quickly, don’t mislead, and you’ll be fine.  Here are some that are on the front page at the time of this story:

• Dolphins Finally Invent Wheel
• Russia will preemptively use nuclear weapons if their allies’ (including Iran) sovereignty is threatened
• This is how Al Jazeera International reported the results of the Nevada caucus (image)

Notice that even if you don’t read the stories, you still probably learned something from the headine itself.  Note of warning about headlines: do not get sucked into the “Vote this up if…” style headlines.  For every one that makes the front page, another 50 were downmodded to oblivion.

The luck comes in when you least expect it.  You might submit 3 stories, with the 2 most promising going nowhere and the one you regretted submitting making it to the top.  Reddit is quirky, but remember, you don’t have to be a power user to make it to the front page.

Digg

On Digg, it’s almost impossible to make it to the front page simply on merits of the story.  An exclusive interview with Jimmy Hoffa coming out of hiding may not make it to 10 Diggs if submitted by the wrong user.  Luckily, the Digg algorithm does its best to keep the part-timers in mind.

Most Diggers who make the front page on a regular basis Digg dozens, even hundreds of stories a day.  Many people establish a large list of friends and Digg most of their submissions.  The hope is that they will reciprocate, thus driving their stories up as well.  While this is the best strategy for those who can be active, a part-timer is not left behind.

For those who are part-timers because they can only Digg on certain days, there is hope.  Look at Tomboy501.  She normally only submits on weekends.  She takes a little time during the week to Digg some stories, but saves the story hunting and mass digging for weekend bursts.

If you can Digg regularly but only in short spells, you can still make your submissions go popular.  Keep a tight list of friends, small enough to be able to digg most or all of their submissions in the time that you have.  Submit regularly, but not necessarily a lot — 1 every day or two is fine.  The Digg algorithm takes into account how many Diggs you get on your average submission, so if you are submitting regularly but not getting more than a few Diggs, it will be easy for one of your submissions to make it to the Hot in (category) section with an above-average number of Diggs.  Once it’s there, the quality of the story takes over.

If your story is front-page-worthy, it SHOULD make it up through the levels and eventually to the front page.  Once it moves from Hot in (subcategory) to Hot in (category), if your submission is good and you haven’t hit the front page lately, it has a good chance of making it to the Hot in (news, videos, images) section and on to the Hot in All part.  Now, it’s ready to fly.

Be sure to prune and replenish your friends’ list regularly.  If you only have a few friends and a few submissions, it doesn’t take long.  Check to see if any of your friends haven’t been digging you recently and see if any of your non-friends have been.  Digg likes variety, so having the same people voting on your story will eventually lead to their Digg being “devalued” somewhat as a vote for your submissions.  Then, it will take more Diggs to make it to the Hot sections.

Either way, it isn’t hard to hit the front page as a part-timer.  Some top diggers will tell you it’s easier that way.  Considering you can get to the Hot sections with 10-15 Diggs and they have trouble showing up at 50-100, you can understand where they are coming from.

Propeller and Mixx

Like Digg, Propeller and Mixx each favor new people.  This time, it isn’t the algorithm as much as it is the members themselves.

On both Mixx and Propeller, you can make a large friends’ list, even if you don’t have much time.  These sites make it extremely easy to vote for your friends’ recent submission.  For Propeller, just click on “Friends Online” and then on “Friends’ Submitted Stories”.  For Mixx, click on “Your MixxFriends”.

You will be able to see the headlines, vote for the ones you want, and move on.  A fast reader and faster clicker can go through a dozen pages of stories in minutes.

Again, submit regularly, but not too much.  Keep adding friends who have common interests as you and who are active.  If you have the time, check your messages often and vote for the stories sent to you that you like.  Don’t “share” stories unless you’ve got one that you really want to hit the Front Page.

When you’ve got a winner, Share.  On Propeller, this can be time consuming, depending on the number of friends you have, but you can share your story and a message to 5 friends at a time until you make it through your list.  On Mixx, it’s as simple as sharing and checking off all of the people that you want to send the story to.

Two warnings:

Don’t share every story you submit.  In fact, only share the ones you really think are front page material.  The more you message people your stories, the more likely they are to block you or remove you from their friends’ list.

Check your messages.  Sometimes, people will send you something to the effect of “Stop messaging me your stories.  I check through all of my friends’ submissions, so if I like it, I’ll vote for it.”  Be courteous and you should be able to keep your friends voting for your stories.

Even though both get less traffic than Digg or Reddit, they are still fun and worthy social media websites to check out.  Both have features unique to them, so stop on by if you haven’t already.

StumbleUpon and Newsvine

I don’t know yet.  That’s the short answer.  Both need more than just a few minutes a day to really make an impact.  Since neither have a traditional Front Page structure, we’ll skip them for now and come back with better data next time it comes up.

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Making the front page of social media sites can be a rush for many people.  It’s neato, to coin an antiquated phrase.  Be careful, though.  It can definitely be addicting at times.