When I first joined Digg I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I made all the common newbie mistakes like mass adding friends, mass adding power diggers, and mass shouting to any of those poor souls in my friends list. I was hired do to Search Engine Optimization for a local company, right out of high school. I had heard that social media was the newschool method of getting stuff done. I’ve heard crazy stories of boatloads of traffic, which is every webmasters dream. What a fool I was!

After a brief stint of being a jerk with no ‘social skills’ online, I decided to stop using Digg as a tool to submit spam. I created a new account as a sign of good faith, and added friends slowly, and surely. I got an AIM account. I activated my Google Talk account, and was prepared to serve my community.

Some things I learned along the way to achieving a brilliant social media network:

1. Do Everything in Your Power to be Contacted – People wanting to share their sites content cannot do it alone. They need anyone and everyone they can get their hands on to pass around their votes. Since sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon rely on a voting system to propel them through to the front page (and win all the trafficks), there is a lot of sharing involved. Be available on: Google Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Go through Digg to get people’s instant messenger (IM) handles. Introduce yourself as a fellow digger, etc. and let them know you’re interested in helping them get their votes up. If you do this from the start, you’ll gain a reputation. Don’t come on too strong from the start, because that will kill any respect you might want to hold in the future.

Example = TalSiach of Digg

2. Submit and Share Your Friend’s Stories – When you share stories from one of your friends websites, or one of their submissions even, you are proving that you are really there to be part of the community. You gain trust, and you might even score some sweet backlinks (there are literally hundreds of webmasters that thrive on Digg, backlinks are wicked).

3. Find a Proper Niche for Your Site – There are a TON of niche community sites like Digg, such as Tip’d (Financial) Hugg (Enviro-friendly) and many more. You’ll be able to find more people on those sites too, and it’s awesome to have a niche where you can get useful feedback on your posts.

4. Do not Spam with the Share Button – Limit yourself. A lot of people appreciate hearing from you once, maybe twice at most per day. Reciprocate on voting on anyone you share with, because a lot of people actually do check on your activity. Which leads to my next point.

5. Be Active – Active Diggers get noticed, even if you don’t submit popular stories. A vote count is probably the thing that most people look at when they go through fans. High vote counts, high comment counts. Avoid blind digging if you can – help your friends out, but vote on things that are truly important to you. People will notice your trends, and choose to befriend you based on your likes and dislikes, because they are often similar.

6. Use Twitter Hashtags to Find People – Use the #Digg #reddit #stumbleupon hashtags to find people that use them! They’re typically active social media folks, and they’re definitely worth a Follow.

Good luck in your conquest to build an excellent social network, I am glad that I eventually figured it out. I regulary chat with many new people, about life as well as voting on submissions!