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Have you heard about PlugIM yet?  If not you may want to check it out, for lack of a better description I would call PlugIM as a clone of Digg that is Internet Marketer friendly.  In other words while you have to be a Michale Angelo of writing to make an SEO or Marketing story survive the bashing angry 14 year old pimple faced, video game addicted Diggers at Digg your Internet Marketing story is likely to be very well recieved at PlugIM.

That said there are some rules of the community and some things you can do to get your stories "plugged" and spend some time at the top of the list.  Here is what I have noticed so far to be effective or what to avoid.

1.  Just because PlugIM is specificly for Internet Marketers does not mean it is for any thing you are trying to hock, sell or build links for.  Forget stories about your credit cards, cell phones or um, enhancement products.   The categories on PlugIM are, Products, Development, Business, Search Engines and Marketing.  Now this is important the story should be in some way how they relate to Internet Marketing in other words "Products" is not a dumping ground for any generic "product".  This is a community of Marketers sharing intel on Marketing, so again your porn links, herbal viagra or other such nonsense are not welcome, so don't bother.

2.  Make your story something unique or different.  If some topic is hot in the community you may want to present the other side of it.  Even if you tend to agree with conventional wisdom you still might present the other side.  This is good journalism not just being on the other side of an issue, you learn a lot when you logicly present the unpopular side of an arguement.  The big key is just don't rehash what everyone else is saying, have a unique view and present it in your own stye, voice and from your own unique view.

3.  Write a good title and summary.  Don't just drop in a "snipet" from your story, think about what you are wanting people who see just your headline and summary to "get" about your story.  Ask if your summary and title would get your attention if you were a third party.  In short write it like advertising copy or to really grasp the mind set you need to have follow the old "talk radio rule".  The rule on talk radio is in your opening sentance, "have a point and don't suck".  This applies to PlugIM and in fact most social bookmark type communities.

4.  Submit your own stories.   Unlike Digg or Reddit where this is considered a crime against humanity and all that is touchy feely in the universe it is totally acceptable to submit your own stories to PlugIM.  The nice thing is people can plug you with out logging in simply because PlugIM tracks IPs.  So any of your readers can plug you so long as your story has been submitted.

5.  Ask for a plug!  Do you have an email update list on your blog to notify readers of new posts?  I have not been doing this yet but I am going to start and I expect it to add a plug or two to most stories.  A simple appendix to your email alerts saying, "If you like our latest story please click on the Plug This Button at the bottom of our story to help us get the word out" can add some backing to your efforts and of course you are paying back PlugIM a bit too by helping them get their name in front of your readers.

6.  Get active in the community.  Plug other stories, when a known user plugs you pull up their profile and IF they have any good stories give them a plug back.  Take a look at the newly submitted stories and plug the good ones.  Drop the feeds into your reader and pay attention to what is comming in.  PlugIM has become a great source of new content and ideas for me.  The boards are MOSTLY free of spam and carry tons of stories the Natzies at Digg would never allow.  So be involved and make use of the content because that will make PlugIM better for everyone.

7.   Blog or write articles about other peoples stories that got plugged.  Again not some tired rehasing but either an opossing opinion peice (be respectful if you do this) or expand the idea and take it to a new level or point out an unmentioned concequence.  Then let the person know you wrote about their article.  This builds new relationships and will probally get you a plug or two for your efforts.

8.  Integrate your efforts at PlugIM with MyBlogLog.  Most PlugIM users seem to link to their profile at MyBlogLog so contact pluggers with good content, especially those you see produce consistant good content over on MyBlogLog and form those all important relationships.  This will grow your entire effort not just your efforts at PlugIM.

9.  Think carefully before you choose to submit by automatic rss feed.  One nice feature of PlugIM is just drop a feed in with your profile and all your posts will get submitted automaticly.  Now if you blog is always about "marketing" or "search engines" this may be OK but many of my posts are about varied topics and honeslty some are just not right for PlugIM so I turned off that feature for my blog.  Also if you choose this option you don't control that summary and that gives you less control over the small peice of content that's whole point is to get the readers attention in just a few seconds.  So while the option is very cool think about whether it is right for your blogs style and content.

10.  Make it easy for your visitors to Plug your story!  Notice the button below this story all a visitor has to do is click "plug this" and I get a plug.  Make sure if you want to be plugged you use the PlugIM widget both on your main blog page and on your individual post page.  The beauty of PlugIM is as long as the user has not plugged you yet, he or she can with just a click even if they are not logged in or don't even have an account.  So take advantage of the ease of use and the widget.

I have been working to get my posts into PlugIM for just a month so far and have found most of my stories well recieved.  A few got dumped by the system but I actually communiated directly with Ryan "Dravis" Knowles who founded PlugIM via MyBlogLog and he helped me out with that.  This is what really sold me on PlugIM, the fact that the founder was not only willing to help me but sought my input as to how to help make PlugIM better.

Overall I am really happy with PlugIM both as a way to promote my blogs and as a really cool source of new content, stories and view points.  I encourage any blogger to take a look at it for both of those reason, hopefully my tips will help you to get the most our of PlugIM quickly.  Oh and if you would so kind as to give this story a quick plug by clicking the button below I would really appreciate it,

~ Jack

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