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How Digg Got Me On ESPN and Fox News
By Brian Cuban (c) 2008

What is Digg? For those who do not know, I will use the
description right off their web site:

"Digg is a place for people to discover and share content
from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online
destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the
best stuff as voted on by our users. You won't find editors
at Digg — we're here to provide a place where people can
collectively determine the value of content and we're
changing the way people consume information online."

I will not go into all the ins and outs of Digg. You can
read a good article about it here. You basically submit
content you find interesting to the Digg Community. The
community votes it up or down. If enough people vote it up
and not too many vote it down or "bury it", your submission
makes it to the "Front Page" which can generate thousands
of hits to the submission.

Is Digg beneficial to the "obscure bloggers" of which I
count myself? It can be if you remember the key phrase
coined by Viacom movie mogul Sumner Redstone "CONTENT IS
KING!". I actually thought my brother Mark Cuban coined the
phrase until I read about Redstone. This is the golden rule
that drives the Digg community.

What is your blog about? Is your blog about getting traffic
from front page postings regardless of quality of the
content because you are ad supported? I see a lot of that
on Digg. That kind of content in my opinion is not king
when it comes to blogging because it is almost always
content generated by someone else. Why not spend some time
building a loyal readership base with quality and or
original content? If you don't, people are not going to come
back until you have another popular submission. I want
reader loyalty. I want people to stick around and look at
my multiple posts. The only way they are going to do that
is if they enjoyed the initial post I submitted to Digg.
When a Digg submission of mine hits front page, it is just
as or more important to me how many other of my articles
are clicked.

There is nothing wrong with writing about other people's
news. Unless you are writing an original screenplay it
makes sense to write about the world happening around you.
The key for me at least is to take an event, even if 500
other people have written on it, and make it mine with
original ideas, thoughts and viewpoints. If I cannot add
something new (at least new to me) to an event, I tend to
stay away from it.

The tendency of some Diggers is to read only the lead-in
when they digg. I try to create a lead-in that encourages
readers to click on the link to my blog rather than simply
digg and comment off of the lead-in. A bad lead-in can get
an article buried as quickly as a bad article itself. The
art of writing a good lead-in can be compared to a a teaser
for a Hollywood movie. You want to capture the interest of
your audience quickly without giving too much information.
You want them to be curious enough to go see the
movie(your blog). It is a continuous learning process.

Do not be afraid of the comments. When a submission goes
front page there can be hundreds of comments. Many of them
are hateful and tough to read but, if you shrug those off,
and find the meaningful ones you can learn a lot about ways
to improve your writing and content selection skills. I
routinely got tortured for my grammar before I started
working harder on it. I still get tortured to a degree but
the complaints have reduced dramatically.

Here is an example of how Digg recently worked for me
resulting in two ESPN interviews and an appearance on The
Fox News Channel.

On June 6 2008 I wrote an article entitled "Why Athletes Go
Broke". It went popular and generated 814 Diggs. This is a
fairly modest number for a front page submission. In
contrast, the actual article on my blog received 30
thousand hits. This is again, not an unusually large number
of hits from a front page submission. The real benefit is
the other search engines and blogs that pick up on this
large number of hits. This process got my post noticed by
the New York Times. The Times linked to my blog in
their Freakonomics Section in a post entitled: Why Do So
Many Celebrities Go Broke. It was also posted in their
"Whats Online" section. The Times postings resulted in my
submission being picked up by news blogs all over the
world. This resulted in two ESPN interviews and a national
appearance on the Fox News Channel (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=hjldvaBeTYc). I have also received several offers
to write for publications.

What lessons can be learned from this? There are some that
will say that this only happened because my last name is
Cuban. I dispute that assertion. I have written many blogs
that have gone front page and not generated any interest
beyond Digg. It proves that Digg does work for bloggers
even in the face of any disdain by the Digg community
towards the blogging community. I have no idea if this
disdain actually exists, but I read about it frequently. It
proves that regardless of any Digg variables, content will
always be king. If you have content that is timely,
interesting and hits a "public nerve", Digg will work for
you. Digg is not just for distributing hard news around the
internet. Digg can work to distribute your thoughts on that
news as well. You just have to have something worth saying.
Digg can pull back the curtain, but the audience still has
to like the show. Be original - Be timely - Be bold as a
blogger. The Digg community will stand up and take notice.
===========================================================
I am a Dallas attorney working for Mark Cuban companies. I
am an avid writer and part time actor. My website is
http://www.briancuban.com
===========================================================

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