As everyone and her sister are putting their shingles out to do social media consulting, blogger and marketing guy Ed Kohler has a sharp and amusing analysis of where the reported 7X increase in traffic to Village Voice Media alt-weekly sites is coming from.

Ed sees that the big spike in traffic is due to points on Digg, but he digs a little deeper and discovers that note only des it looks like VVMedia is gaming the system, it's all the work of just a couple of people (people who should get new jobs and be promoted to be social media consultants as their reward, IMHO).

With some well-considered analysis, he figures out that the diggers who promote their stories most avidly have other real identities and actually work for the company--but they also--the best ones--take the time to give digg other links to preserve their rankings.

Sounds like VVM is busted; 10 points to Ed for a really interesting post and a good job--thanks!