Let me show you some little comparison to Digg. If you get dug, maybe you can do it to the front page. Maybe not. But whatever happens, you will be popular for no more then day or two. Your article will appear on main pages of Digg, but this so called dig effect is just temporary. There is plenty of articles about this effect and always one conclusion: this traffic can only harm your website. Hosting providers are usually not prepared to provide sufficient traffic for so many visitors and your site will be probably down. This is like a thunderstorm. But we would prefer just some weak rain, which would persist for some longer period.

And this rain is Stumble. What I usually do is that I stumble my own articles. But my site is quite new and I wanted to observe the stumble effect a little bit more in detail. I signed up to Subvert and Profit, where you can buy stumbles (and diggs as well). I decided to buy 30 stumbles (for this post). It took about a week to get them, but after that period I can’t stop wondering. I had about 50 to 80 uniques per day before. After my small investment I already have 200+ daily. And your question is obvious: will this trend continue or stop the very next day?

To answer this question we have to compare Digg and Stumble Upon more in detail of how visitors come to your site. Digg.com is a great website where all visitors can choose what articles they are interested in and they click only those which are considered to be interesting (title of the article is the key). On the other hand, Stumble users install a plugin to their browser and then click so called “stumble icon” to show next interesting page. But they never know what will appear – they can just choose the appropriate category. And that’s the difference. With Stumble you don’t have to have some amazing title of your story. It’s all about content – if the first visitors – users of Stumble- come to your site and find it interesting, they will stumble your article. Content is the key.
What is the lesson of this article:

If you want the thunderstorm, use Digg stimulation, you will get more than 20 000 unique vistitors per day, but after day or two, this will be over. It is one time business.

If you want the permanent rain, use Stumble upon. Invest some money to get required stumbles (thumbs up) and enjoy the coming visitors for a long long period.

Warning: Stumble and Digg visitors are certain group of internet users who don’t click on ads. If you want to spend for example 100 USD to promote your website via Stumble or Digg, your returns will be no more then 10USD. Social traffic are often webmasters and they really know that it is just an advertisement. Don’t expect any profits.

The last and very important question: Is it better to buy Digg (or other social things) or to buy backlinks? If you want tons of traffic immediately, buy social traffic. But for your permanent growth, it is better to buy quality backlinks and get traffic from Google. It is all about time. In long period, backlinks are more precious. Some people may like digg effect and stumble effect when they sell ads impressions. For all pay-per-click oriented webmasters I have only one advice: Invest to backlinks and create unique and quality content for a long period.

While SEO is still an effective means to gain traffic, the web is no longer two dimensional. It has evolved. Its become increasingly interactive, taken on a three dimensional shape. One that caters to our visual and audio senses, and allows web browsers to have more control over what they see, hear, and, what is hot. Search engines alone no longer determine what is popular. This is great for net marketers in a number of ways.

Social media optimization, according to Wikipedia, is a way to optimize web sites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites, also called social media sites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a DiggThis button, and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flicker photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing.

The four characteristics of Social Media Optimization are:

Participation – Consumers are not afraid to participate in communities by generating content and engaging in conversations about topics that interest them. Web masters who know this are constantly encouraging user participation on their own sites and blogs.

Conversation - Consumers today do not want to be marketed to. Blatant advertisements are not as effective as they used to be. Instead, consumers wish to be communicated with through conversation that is being stirred up on blogs, wikis and forums. Consumers now have methods to express their thoughts, recommendations and complaints and they are doing so. Webmasters can now communicate with their target audience in real time, and can take these concerns, recommendations to better serve their audience.

Openess – To build trust with their target audience in order facilitate conversation, webmasters must first be open with them. They need to let them know who they are right off the bat. Pretending to be someone your not is the surest way to lose trust. And because any good business is first built on trust its crucial to be open and honest with your market.

Community – Social media conversation is not pulled out of thin air. Every form of social media is based on the fact that we all want to belong to something; they all have a community component to them. Social media sites are micro-communities that allow people with similar interest to share insight, advice, and recommendations about products and services. Before a webmaster can begin to monetize they must first become an accepted member of the community. This is why the first two characteristics are so important.

SMO can be a websites savior. Many web sites are static meaning they are rarely updated and are used as a storefront. Setting up a blog or adding unique, provoking pieces to sites like Digg is a great way to increase linkage to your website. Encourage user participation by facilitating the conversation that is happening virtually everywhere. By not joining in you are silencing yourself. Get heard yourself heard. Consumers are already talking about products and services; help them to get their attention on hours.