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Social media is the traffic primer for blogs and news sites. All dynamic content that needs real-time visits has a chance to be a star, even if just a shooting star, in the social media environment. I am sure that most of you are active in one social media network or another – while some are great, other a merely a waste of time and energy if you are not focused on the right niche, if you have the wrong tone and so on. We used some of these networks to submit news about our Rudolf plan and many other stories of interest (most of them non-commercial) and the response was incredible.

StumbleUpon – is the “it” of the moment. Things are happening here and because the way Stumble functions is still a mystery for many, there are still those who try to crack the algorithm, fool the system, get famous over night (apparently top stumblers have more authority in the network and their submissions get more hits) and so on. But in our experience a Stumble submission brings decent traffic even with a single submission (at least 300 clicks in a day).

The main advantage of StumbleUpon is that popular pages can drive massive traffic even weeks after the original submissions. We already have experience with our own Top Ten Search Alternatives to Google, which still drives Stumble traffic today.

Digg – is still a powerful traffic bringer, and a server crusher. No, this will not happen if you have your website hosted by THC. We are proud of the stability of our servers, and when you reach your resource quota a backup server comes in place and takes over the load. No account will be suspended because of sudden traffic – so bring it on.

There are however some points you have to understand: if you are a “Techcrunch” you need a dedicated server. While we try to provide the best services for bloggers with a low budget is our understanding that sites with loads of daily traffic generate enough revenue to afford their own web space. So if the traffic exceeds your allotted quota once in a while, we don’t mind. But if you are so popular to drive tons of traffic and blow up all expectations, you should probably look for a hosting solution that fits better your needs. THC offers even customizable plans – feel free to contact support and negotiate your plan.

Anyway, back to digg – the network made major changes to its algorithms, mainly because of negative comments about the way this network functioned (popular diggers got paid to push stories to the main digg site, leaving to chance to less influential diggers). If you manage to create a strong network of friends and if you are savvy enough to make them send your stories to their friends and the friends of the friends, you will make it to the front page.

Reddit functions almost on the same principle: if you have a story on the front page and if the story manages to stay there for a while, you’ll get a decent influx of traffic. It’s not easy to “force” your news there – digg is easier and more effective. There are no secrets on how to make it to the first page of reddit either: you need to network with other users and send them your stories. Sometimes such a practice, if abused, becomes “spam.” Be careful not to fall in this trap.

Del.icio.us doesn’t perform any magic, unless, of course, you make it to the first page. Actually on all social networks front page news send good traffic. To reach the front page you need a solid network and enough votes to beat other stories. It’s not always democratic and sometimes better stories get buried by other stories with less potential, but in the end we are in a highly competitive environment.

Last but not least, Propeller will send you ready to buy users. The traffic is not great, but the people there actually read your stories and then vote. You cannot fool a Propeller user into giving you an undeserved vote. The network is not as popular as Stumble and Digg probably because of the impossible page loading times. Obviously Propeller is not hosted by THC.

Other social bookmarking type of networks you might like: Faves, CiteULike, Connotea, Diigo, Fark, Furl, GiveALink.org, Ma.gnolia, My Web, Mixx, Newsvine, Simpy, SiteBar

To end this list of great social media sites that can send traffic to your blog, I would like to give you a few articles to consider. You’ll find there elaborate analysis and even more social networks to choose from:

• Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?
• Top 38 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic)
• The Social Media Top 10
• List of Social Media and Social Networking Sites
• 125 Social Bookmarking Sites
• 50 Top Niche Social Media Sites, and Their Power Accounts