One of the biggest questions I get pertains to promoting an article online. Once you have written something amazing, it doesn’t really matter until people read it, and the best way to get it read is to promote it on social bookmarking/networking/news sites like Digg, Reddit, and others.

Of course you have already heard this all before, and you want to know what the “secret sauce” is that gets certain people on the front page of sites over and over, and the answer is simply: connections.

The biggest weakness in all of the social promoting sites is the fact that if you have many people give a thumbs up to your story, you will move up the ranks and get a fair bit of traffic, even if you don’t make the front page.

While systems like Digg and others are wise to group voting, you can continue to build up great stories and promote them by increasing your group, and only using groups that would enjoy the story to boost it up in the rankings. If you have a friend that wouldn’t be interested in an article you wrote, don’t send it to him or her. You can then create lists of about a dozen or so people, for different sites, interested in different things and tailor your promotion list accordingly. With a big enough pool of people, you can get your best articles promoted rather easily, and then, if they are really good, the community, once they are exposed to the article, will do the rest, and sometimes bring your post to the front page, where it will then be insulted in all its glory.

How do you increase the pool of people you can call on to help with promoting your post? Make friends! Network with people in the same boat as you, and when you have written your best articles, let them know. It might not always get the response you want, but if you give them the option of promoting it through one of the social news websites, they might just do that, even if they are just doing it to bookmark it.

Bloggers are very approachable. Even us here at Devlounge love to hear the ideas you might have in regards to content we should be publishing, so say your peace on the contact page.

Promote your articles often, become part of the social news/voting community, and make friends. All systems have their weaknesses, and in this day and age, if you don’t work those weaknesses to your advantage, you won’t get noticed. It is a sad truth, but a truth none the less.