Digg.com & Del.icio.us - Marketing Research & Web PR

Digg and del.icio.us: Compare & Contrast new uses for Internet marketing research and Web PR


What are the similarities and differences of Digg.com and del.icio.us.com? I am not new to Internet marketing, but my expertise lies mainly in pay-per-click campaign management and website content development. After reading “The New Rules of Marketing & PR,” by Meerman Scott, I became vastly more aware of the importance of social media marketing and it’s effective uses. Scott discusses the importance of developing “buyer personas,” which triggered the idea of using del.icio.us as an organizational tool for developing effective marketing plans, using both Digg and del.icio.us for valuable marketing research, and using Digg for initiating viral marketing.
Both Digg and del.icio.us can provide valuable marketing research. Both sites allow users to view websites, blogs, and articles based on what other users researching same or similar topics found useful. Users of both web tools “digg” or bookmark web content deemed valuable or interesting, allowing registered users to search content based on popularity rather than algorithms developed by traditional Internet search sites such as Google and Yahoo. This unique searching mechanism can provide easy access to valuable web content buried deep within search engines or not yet indexed. This provides the user with fresh, popular content valuable for researching clients, their products and competition, and prospective marketing targets located within blogs, RSS feeds and sites not easily accessible through traditional methods, and information can be tagged and utilized as needed at later dates.
Digg and del.icio.us also provide tools to share content with friends and colleagues. However, their are some major differences in this capability. Digg allows users to sync with Facebook, Twitter, and locate “friends” utilizing the user’s contact list in various email platforms. Del.icio.us only allows you to send content to other del.icio.us users who’s contact information you already know. This feature makes Digg more valuable for promoting content, which can be easily used to promote viral marketing. Users who are active in social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and who also actively participate in blogs, can spread the word quick and easily using Digg’s content sharing tools. Del.icio.us, on the other hand, is more easily utilized for sharing content between , say, co-worker’s within the same marketing department where everyone is on a shared network.
Where del.icio.us excels is it’s ability to organize groups of websites for a common purpose, like developing buyer personas. Using Scott’s example of “Sam the Athlete,” one can tag all websites that this particular persona visits on a regular basis with a tag used exclusively for that buyer. Tags can be created for each buyer persona and important websites easily assigned to each group. Websites can be given multiple tags if they are useful for multiple purposes, such as targeting multiple buyer personas or categorizing for product or competitor research.
Both Digg and del.icio.us allow registered users to create profiles. However, Digg offers a detailed profile including photos, interests, contact information, links to social networking sites and your own website, friends, and categories of interest. Del.icio.us, in contrast, only offers a very limited profile including display name, email address, and website.
In conclusion, while Digg and del.icio.us are both valuable tools for conducting marketing research and bookmarking important content, Digg is more like a cross between a social network and bookmarking tool, and del.icio.us is definitely primarily useful for bookmarking, while offering limited abilities for networking. This makes Digg useful for research and viral marketing, while del.icio.us is most useful for research and categorizing important marketing content. To summarize, use Digg to accomplish viral marketing strategies, and use del.icio.us for developing marketing plans.



by Mark Rogers


 References:




Agrawal, Harsh (December 11th, 2008). Digg: The beginners guide.
www.shoutmeloud.com/digg-the-beginners-guide.html
Retrieved August, 2nd, 2009 from Google.com, search phrase “common uses of Digg”
Roach, Kim (May 24th, 2007). Top 10 Ways to Use del.icio.us.
www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/top-10-ways-to-use-delicious.html
Retrieved August, 2nd, 2009 from Google.com, search phrase “common uses of del.icio.us”
Scott, David Meerman (2007). The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Hoboken, New Jersey: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.