I’ll try to keep this brief and to the point, which means no fancy pictures, just raw tips for JapanSoc success.
From the moment you submit a story to JapanSoc, you have 72 hours to get it on the front page. Let’s get cracking!
1. There are less visitors to JapanSoc at the weekend. Submit your articles between Monday and Thursday for maximum eyeballs and socs.
2. Use a short catchy title, and capitalize the first letter of each word. Long titles get cut off in the sidebar box so you need to explain what your post is about in the first four or five words. You’re competing with other stories in that sidebar, so make it good.
3. Provide an original story description, at least two sentences long. If it’s not clear what the article is about from the description, people might not bother to find out. Also, cutting a pasting from your post looks lazy and might disuade a follow-through click, unless it’s so good the reader just has to see the rest.
4. Comments play a major role in getting socs, so ask a question in the story description to encourage them.
5. If you’re on Twitter, tweet your submission. Every story in JapanSoc has a “Tweet This!” link. Click that and you can ask your followers to follow the link and soc your post.
6. Encourage your fans to get on JapanSoc and vote for your articles. Don’t rely on regular JapanSoc users to lift you into the “Upcoming” sidebar box. See Tools and Banners for ways to get your regular readers actively involved.
7. Follow people on JapanSoc. It’s easy to make friends on JapanSoc. Just click someone’s avatar and then click the “Add friend” icon in the bar at the bottom of the screen. They’ll be sent an email notification and if they reciprocate, your articles will come up on their “Must Read” page, increasing your chances of getting those vital votes.
8. Soc other articles and leave comments. Show interest in other people’s articles and they will be more likely to follow you, vote for your submissions and comment on them, too. It’s called the rule of reciprocation:
“One of the most potent of the weapons of influence around us is the rule for reciprocation. The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.” – Robert B. Cialdini, author of The Psychology of Persuasion (William Morrow, 1993)
9. Every time there’s a new comment on your submission, it shows up in the sidebar which encourages more views and more socs. Keep the conversation going and you’ll be on the front page in no time.
10. This last one is the big secret. I am amazed that it’s so underused. It’s by far the most potent, powerful method of rocketing your article onto the front page in no time at all. Can you guess what it is?
If you use StumbleUpon and want people to stumble your article, what do you do? You click “Share”, choose friends and copy/paste a message to each of them, right? Well, JapanSoc has almost exactly the same thing.
Like Twitter, you have to be following the person you want to message, but unlike Twitter, they don’t have to be following you back. Once you’ve built up a list of people you’re following, you can send soc requests like this:
- Click the “Send a Quick Message” icon in the social bar at the bottom of the screen
- Choose a friend from the drop-down list
- Paste in your message (raw urls can be included and no character limit) and click Send!
Repeat the process for all your friends and you never even have to leave the page! They’ll be instantly emailed the full message so you can expect some extra socs when they next check their email 
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Disclaimer
The list above highlights steps you can take after you submit a story to get it on the front page, but I haven’t talked about what topics are popular on JapanSoc or tips for writing an article that really deserves to make the front page. Ultimately, it’s up to everyone to vote for what they like, not what they are begged into or feel obliged to soc.
JapanSoc Think Tank 
