Digital Media Buzz > Digging For Gold

Digging For Gold

By Sheila Shayon

We all know that Digg, the user-driven social content website, is based on ‘Diggs.’ Everything is user-submitted and user-ranked. Enough ‘Diggs,’ and your content is promoted to the front page for all to see.

We also are familiar with Digg Ads, feature content that sponsors place in the stream of stories for users to vote on. Digg has figured out a way to get paid for what users already click on.

But now, Digg is digging deeper for the gold. The company is testing a new type of advertisement that surfaces old content previously submitted to Digg, which is relevant to certain advertisers, and allows them to wrap it in their own ad unit.

In the first such ad for Where The Wild Things Are, Warner Brothers picked three previously popular stories on Digg - each with several hundred ‘Diggs’ before the studio wrapped it in its ad unit.

This new type of advertisement solves an inherent Digg weakness, that once a story is off the main homepage its likelihood of being seen again is greatly minimized. There’s huge incentive in surfacing older content - advertiser money. The ad unit also features a large graphic for the film, and a click takes you to the movie’s website.

Another example involves Symantec’s popular security software, Norton. If Symantec wants to advertise its new security software, the company finds previously posted Digg items related to Internet security and inserts them in the ad box along with the company banner. This format advertises the product, and gives users something potentially engaging to click on.

“We began this process about nine months ago, our goal, to create a game-changer model that incentivized advertisers to create ads that actually speak to the audience,” says Bob Buch, Digg’s VP of business development. “Building off the success of Digg Ads, the next challenge was to create something scalable that reflected the Digg brand.”

Part of the process is changing the grammar to Digg-appropriate headlines, writing from the POV of a user and not a marketer.

Advertisers welcome the creative challenge of finding sponsored content that satisfies a broader audience. According to Buch, Intel decided to promote its blog, on Digg. “They wanted to be in the conversation with mobile information,” he says. (Intel opted to include comments.)

• Toyota partnered with www.howstuffworks.com providing information on various topics such as “How a Hybrid Engine works.” “They even stretched out to sponsored content on ‘How to Start a Non-Profit,’ and ‘10 Tips from Happy People,’ relevant and newsworthy information, and they achieved a 3-5% click-through page rate,” Buch says.

Ultimately, the creative/sales challenge of this new format demands:

• Being vigilant about ad quality;
• Delivering on expectations of a user’s click-through;
• Timing algorithms to user need.

When asked what basic skill set is required for this kind of innovation, Buch comments: “It’s not SAT-score intelligence, it’s understanding how to satisfy the wants and needs of three distinct stakeholders: users, publishers and advertisers. It’s a model where the user is an equal stakeholder. At the epi-center is a win/win equation.”

The billion dollar question now: can Digg syndicate its branded model to other sites, and will users continue to click on a recognized brand’s offering? The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow: how much will advertisers be willing to pay as the scale increases exponentially?

Digg self-describes as follows: “By looking at information through the lens of the collective community on Digg, you’ll always find something interesting and unique. We’re committed to giving every piece of content on the Web an equal shot at being the next big thing.”

Is the next big thing — ads so cool they become the gold standard?