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- Sphinn It!
Went Hot: September 29, 2008 - 11:51 am
Posted By: hjortur 66 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://seo2.0.onreact.com)
Category: Bookmarking
Good reminder, specially for the newbies. Be patient, it just takes time.
12 Comments
Comments
I never really thought of self-submissions as so negative...this post helped to shed new light on the subject, as well as offering a perspective I hadn't considered before. I typically approached submissions as a means to get my work in front of a larger audience initially...not thinking necessarily about how the self-submission would be interpreted. Definitely food for thought!
Thanks for the submission hjortur! In fact it does sometimes take time for a post to be picked up especially if your blog has no big audience yet. On the other hand it's better late or even if there is no submission at all in some cases instead of a bad spammy-looking self submission.
There are of course media where self submission is more OK than on others. I practice self submission on Twitter myself as there the audience is very targeted and people already know me, some are even my fans eagerly awaiting my new posts.
The best case scenario though is your regular readers and subscribers picking up your posts due to their sheer quality.
SEOAy: Yeah, most SEOs underestimate the problem. It's the SEO 1.0 web directory mindset.
Point taken! I often use Twitter to announce new blog posts to my followers, but also sometimes submit my own stuff to Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Mixx, etc. to get it in front of a larger audience initially.
I will certainly think twice before doing that in the future based on this post. It never really dawned on me that self-submission could be viewed so negatively by the linkerati that are often an integral part of helping to spread viral content via Social Media outlets. Kudos on the post! Very useful information...that you didn't even submit yourself. ;)
ive got a list of people I want to send this link to...lots of people are doing this and if they don't participate in the community enough they have no idea that what they are doing is "wrong".
I think this is a very good discussion. I learned this the hard way (just check my sphinn submissions). My own get the least attention, but when somebody else has submitted my blog posts, it's gone hot. So my learning was, it doesn't pay off to self submit. Submit others and maybe, they'll start read your blog.
I do self submit on Twitter though. And automatically on Facebook. But I see that as different as I'm not asking for votes there but sharing with my followers.
Hi, I have a comment on your blog so won't repeat the same thing over here again :) but still, to will say the same point that sometimes it becomes necessary to submit your own posts. Like I have submit to sphinn twice in a week because I felt the posts are good enough to submit to sphinn and I can't wait for someone to do that. :)
Pushkar
Well, I'm certainly guilty on this one and, in fact, I've written about self exposure a good bit. As far as the major social media sites, like this one, SU, Mixx, et al, I agree with the points made, but with services like Twitter, I'm not so sure I agree. Twitter is more of a mass communication tool, like a large group chat. I don't really see the harm in a quick line like, "New blog post on...." on twitter. This can help gain exposure and only those who choose to follow you will know about the link.
Also, there's the issue of, if nobody knows you exist, how do you get that initial exposure? Not everyone does a Google Blog Search to look for fresh posts on a subject and often Google burries blogs of lower authority, regardless of how high the quality of the content. How do you break the initial ice if you do not do some self-exposure in the beginning?
Yeah, Twitter is OK I think, because these people are your most ardent readers already. Initial exposure can be gained by different means without self submission though. I should follow up on that.
That would be a post I would be interested in reading. Perhaps I'm "old school", but the only way I know how to gain initial exposure to a site is to tell others about it and do some good old fassion canvasing on the major networks and high traffic sites. Not spamming mind you, just canvasing.
Hi Tad,
Won't repeat the whole comment I left on your blog, but I thought it worth repeating this part:
According to the Sphinn guidelines (http://sphinn.com/guidelines.php), they actually prefer you to submit your own posts:
I've done that with a couple of posts and they've gone nowhere. I've also noticed that most of the articles that go hot are not submitted by the author. So it looks like the Sphinn community agrees with what you say, even though that's not the official policy.
Google knows which social profiles are yours and what links are to your own site, all mapped by the SocialGraph API. In fact, social sites use A tag attributes that pass on to Google that links to sites are created by you and owned by you. They can tell even more about you than that and it is all coded into social bookmarking sites.
Take a look at the SocialGraph API.
In fact I have been telling everyone this for the last nine months, I guess no one has been listening.
Using my site strategies my mastermind group all created PR4 profiles on Digg in less that 45 days from the creation of the profile. Don't submit your own blogs, don't shout them and follow my instructions and your profiles, friends lists and power on social bookmarking sites will grow.
I agree, self submission is definitely a no-no on many of the popular social networking sites, especially Digg and Reddit. Community building and friendly suggestions are the way to go.