Community Jump Start from Social News Sites?

[rogerd]

Social news or bookmarking sites have the potential to drive a lot of traffic - hundreds or even many thousands of visits in a day. For a startup community, that's a big blast of traffic. These visitors from digg, stumbleupon, etc. are notoriously bad converters, though. If they don't even click on ads, are they likely to click the "register" button and start posting?

Still, any exposure may be good exposure when you are starting up a community. So, what do you think - do you promote your community using these services? If so, how has it worked out?

[trillianjedi]

The big aspect for any new forum is to get across to potential members that you have high quality content. A series of good pieces, succesfully promoted on Digg, de.licio.us etc helps give the forum a stamp of quality.

I know from personal experience that a forum won't pick up many active members following a forum thread making the Digg homepage. But what you do pick up is a little branding and some links. The result of those two may well in turn bring in some posting/contributing members.

As part of an overall strategy, it certainly can't hurt.

[rogerd]

I think part of the issue with Digg members is that a significant percentage are clicking to be part of the process (clicking stories submitted or dugg by friends, boosting their own digging activity, etc.) There's a lot of random tasting that goes on, too, IMO.

Still, it stands to reason that if a site picks up an extra few thousand visits, at least a few of those visitors will find the site to be useful enough to bookmark and visit again.

[John_Blake]

Still, any exposure may be good exposure when you are starting up a community. So, what do you think - do you promote your community using these services? If so, how has it worked out?

The social news sites (especially Digg) are notorious for causing a giant flow of enthusiastic visitors to a given website. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, they won't stay for a long time viewing around if there is nothing attractive to be read/seen. That's why, relying on social news sites to attract some interest to your website is fine but not the only way and not the only point to concentrate on.

[rogerd]

I think you are right, John. The key thing, I think, would be to only "promote" very interesting and linkable topics if you hope to derive any long-term benefit. Even after the flood of Diggers is gone, you may end up with some blog or other links, and perhaps a few members.