Understanding the 'Digg Podcast' section
BY STEPAN MAZUROV
Almost 2 months ago, for their 42nd (re)design and feature roll out, Kevin Rose announced on the Digg blog about a new feature called "Podcasts." Here is what he said:
Podcasting
Now you can Digg your favorite podcast series and individual podcast episodes. Not only can you see a list of the most popular podcasts by section, you can also dive into any individual podcasts to see the most Dugg individual episodes. And don't forget - every time you Digg a podcast or podcast episode that is bookmarked in your profile and shared with your friends.
The Podcasts Section: what does it offer?
After we all had some time to play around with this section and get a feel for its popularity it is time to get down and dirty and figure out how to use it to promote your podcast. Instead of following the traditional "newest items first" scheme used in every other section, the digg team decided to sort podcasts by lifetime diggs. The basic idea is that each podcast is represented in order from highest diggs to lowest with the image, title and short description of each podcast as well as the good old Digg This button. Those curious enough to dig deeper have noticed that once you are on an individual podcast page, Digg proudly allows everyone to vote for individual shows within a podcast. While the diggs you get for individual shows do not reflect on the grand total for your show, they seem to play a significant role in the "Upcoming Podcasts" section featured on the main podcasting page.
The visibility of the Podcasting section is incredible, but after 2 long months, getting to that page is extremely difficult for an up-and-coming podcast. To make matters worse, and crush your hopes of getting recognized for your great podcasting talent, 6 out of 10 Revision3 (Digg's videocasting company) shows reside snugly on that front page without a chance of being pushed out. To gratify your work and challenge the front-page status quo you must not look to digg, but rather your own subscribers.
Tips on utilizing Podcast Feature to promote your Show.
The plan is simple. You need to utilize your listeners and subscribers to increase your visibility on digg, which in turn will drive more traffic to your podcast and get you more subscribers. To help you through this process, digg has some great tools for us to use. Recently they updated the embeddable "Digg This" buttons for your site in order to be smarter and less intrusive than ever. Here are a few tips on how to take advantage of them while promoting your podcast:
-Include digg button in your posts and on your site. With each blog post or in a designated location on your site there should be a "digg this" button embedded. After these tips there is a quick step-by-step guide explaining how to do it in more detail. You have 2 styles to choose from and you can change out the background color, but that's it, you cannot change the color of the link, nor use something other than yellow if its not your color. If the button does not work with your design or for personal reasons, you can just include a link to your podcast section on Digg with an encouraging and, possibly, a life-threatening message. Before you ask "Can I add the button to my iTunes podcast page?" the answer is "No," iTunes does not allow you to embed or link to anything other than your home page. Your best bet is to verbally ask your listeners to ether go to your site and digg your show, or direct them to your podcast page on digg.
-Include a link to the individual show page in your blog posts. This should be your number one priority because the diggs you get for individual podcasts directly determine if your podcast is worthy to be featured in the "Upcoming Podcasts" sidebar. There is no easy way to do this, and sadly the "smart" digg this button isn't smart enough to recognize the links pointing to the individual pages. To add insult to injury, there is no way to know the link to that page beforehand (although, they are all sequential and you can just +1 the number at the end of the link), so you are stuck with doing some mouse work after you get the URL and including it in your blog post that way. Some of you are beginning to wounder if you can just skip this step, but like I said earlier, the upcoming podcasts sidebar is a great way to promote your podcast. And the diggs that individual shows get seem to be a significant influence in getting featured there, so prompting your audience to digg the individual shows is very important.
-Promote your digg account and encourage your listeners to add you as a friend. Digg is becoming widespread and has accumulated a huge user base. Chances are some of your listeners are regulars on digg. If not, some will definitely like the idea of following what you digg and would love to share some of their interests with you. If you show some love and promote mutual friendships, with a bit of luck and depending on your demographic, you will have quite a few people digging every episode. This will only improve as you visibility on digg solidifies. Also do not forget to digg your own shows, there is no harm in that.
How to add a "digg this" button for your podcast to your site.
The process of this is quite simple. All of this is taken straight from Digg Tools:Integrate page.
1. Make sure your podcast is on digg and identify any mistakes it might have. If you have an iTunes feed, chances are all is well and digg is syndicating your content correctly.
2. Identify podcast URL. Navigate to Podcast Search and do a quick search for your podcast. Take a note of the URL. For these instructions I'll use our own Kris Smith's podcast, Croncast. The URL of the digg page for his podcast is http://www.digg.com/podcasts/Croncast_Kris_and_Betsy_Smith_2
3. Pick a button design you wish to use. You've got 2 to pick from: Plain Vanilla or Slim Peach
If you wish to use Plain Vanilla remember "normal" and for Slim Peach keep "compact" fresh in your mind.
4. Get to embedding! With all info collected, use the code below to embed Digg This Button in a post, or anywhere on your site. It is quite straight forward, just remember to replace bold, italicised parts with your own.
digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/podcasts/Croncast_Kris_and_Betsy_Smith_2';
digg_skin = 'compact';
That's it! You are done. Now comes the time to use the social media reactor and get your audience pumped up and participate in the promotion of your podcast. So that your mad ninja skills can finally be rewarded with some fame.
