There’s an interesting post at Doshdosh.com about creating digg-friendly content that lets you crack through to get diggs from readers.  Using cracked.com as a model Maki, the Dosh Dosh guy  boils their success formula down to a few relatively simple points about getting followers and click thrus from social networking sites.

First, it is important to study the site in question (Digg, Twitter, Youtube, whatever) from the tactical point of view. Take a close look and learn what readers respond to. Generally to develop a following you have to create content that has broad appeal. And the best way to do this is to use a kind of “template”. As an example of a template Maki pulls apart the approach used by Cracked.

In short, they use  what he calls an attention grabbing frame into which they can plug almost any type of content about anything. By virtue of being packed into the frame it gains mass appeal. The Cracked formula boils down to this (supposedly tongue-in-cheek) -

The” + (Number) + “Most” + (Over the top adjective) + (Subject) + Of All Time (Synonyms like “in History” or “Ever” will also be accepted) = Popularity

For example, “The 6 Most Stupendously Obvious Political Lies Of All Time”

Of course you will then have to go on and actually provide some content about whatever it is you’re talking about.

Also, assuming you want this to be relevant to your own target niche it should be something that people within your own community of interest will find interesting or intriguing.

I don’t want to be overly anal about the marketing angle in all this, but from the marketing perspective, what’s the point of getting “diggs” from people who have absolutely no interest in what you are trying to market. Or as I’ve said elsewhere, what good is getting thousands of views of your “dancing monkey” video if you can’t convert that into interest in whatever message or product you are trying to push?

So the challenge is not only to find the “attention grabbing framework” that works, but to find a way to cram your marketing message into that framework. Off the top of my head, the best example I can think of is the “Will It Blend” series of videos.

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