The Digg Shout Mafia
December 14, 2007 – 10:36 amThere have been many who have condemned Digg’s shout mechanism as a spam tool; however, I have found a way to live with this previous annoyance without offending my friends.
First, its important to note that shouting is an effective mechanism for getting your article front page. Simultaneously, it is a method to make your friends angry and un-friend you.
Naturally, if I took the time to submit an article to Digg, I feel it should be front page worthy. So I have adopted a shout policy that helps me expose my articles of interest without incurring the wrath of my friends and the anti-shout army.
I now use a patent pending “boomerang shout spreadsheet” 
Basically, its a Google Spreadsheet that lists all the people who have sent me a shout. I then only send shouts out to people on that list. Yes, its a bit tedious, but I want to respect the wishes of my friends who are part of the “shout me and I kill you” camp.
What I was expecting the Digg shout tool to be valuable for (conversations with my friends) can be done via other social networks. With Digg allowing you to list all the social networks you belong to in your profile, that process is facilitated.
So in summary, shout me all you want… but note that I will be shouting right back at ya!
How do you currently handle your shouting activities and what results have you experienced?
9 Responses to “The Digg Shout Mafia”
I try to limit shouts to only those stories that I think have a chance but need a boost.
By DiffeeOnline on Dec 14, 2007
Haha @ “Shout me and I kill you”.
Personally, I’ve never sent a shout to my Digg friends. I do receive shouts from almost 75% of my friends. 85% shouts come with requests to digg the articles and the rest can be counted as ‘article recommendations’.
To be frank, I don’t like receiving shouts that comes with a ‘catch’ ’cause I myself check what my friends are doing. If I find that any of my friends has submitted an article of interest, I’ll surely digg it. Poking in the back whenever you submit a *personal* article isn’t a good thing, IMO. If your article has any quality, I’ll certainly digg it. If I don’t like it, I won’t digg it even after your request.
When this feature was added to Digg, ‘article recommendation’ was the first thing that came into mind. Didn’t even think that it’ll be used for self-promotion.
By Avinash on Dec 14, 2007
Good piece … I’ve been working at developing my own spreadsheet for this, though as you mention, it is tedious. I also only shout stuff I really want to go hot.
My concern with shouting too often is that if people become conditioned to find out about your content via shouts, they’ll stop looking for it themselves, and will rely on shouts from you.
By Jeff Quipp on Dec 15, 2007
I really don’t bother with it, I think I have used it three times with middling success.
I find it very irritating to be shouted out by people who do not even vote on my stuff.
Mostly I always make sure I vote for my friend friends and stories I like.
Hitting me up on email or msn is more like to be succesful, unless you do it every day of course.
By Lyndon Antcliff on Dec 15, 2007
To shout or not to shout, that is the question. Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of offended Digg friends or watch one’s pet post languish just a few votes shy of Popular… apologies to WS but you get the picture.
Seriously, it’s very difficult to look up all of 100-odd friends’ submissions once or twice daily - i have no idea what those 500-1000 friend people do. I appreciate friends sending me shouts to bring their posts to my attention. Overdo it, though, and i un-friend them to get a little peace.
By WordsnCollision on Dec 15, 2007
You are too kind. When people send me frivolous shouts I just drop them.
I would expect the same as I don’t send out many. If it is too much for them they can delete me. Send me many shouts in a day I don’t care but don’t expect to vote on every single one and hold it against me if I don’t.
Also I don’t keep score as I can’t expect people to vote on every single article I send them. They might not think it is as great as I do and thats ok.
Shouts and broadcast are just a part of social media. If it irks some people they should reconsider the medium.
By Jordan Pearce on Dec 16, 2007
i never shout. maybe im just that guy at the mall who is too chilly drinking his bubble tea.
to show how far i have carried this method, my friends and i have had a band/website for 4 years and never done any shouting/advertising.
By gaston monescu on Dec 16, 2007
I used to do something very similar, except instead of an external document.. I would just bookmark all the shouter’s profiles in a bookmark-folder in FireFox.
That way, when I’m in the act of shouting, I can just open up the folder and view who all has shouted me. Those are the ONLY ones I select to shout at.
It works. Although, I must also say that I have completely given up on shouting and reading shouts. This is just what I did for the first month or so…
By Jeff Flowers on Jan 4, 2008
@Jeff Flowers
Great method!
By Elmer Thomas on Jan 4, 2008