Share and Share Alike – 4 Fantastic Reasons to Leverage Social Bookmarking

By Affilorama Group
Share and Share Alike – 4 Fantastic Reasons to Leverage Social Bookmarking

 

Social What-now?

Last week I suddenly became completely bored with the contents of my iPod. Normally I’d pop over to iTunes or try Googling a few things to get some new ideas. But this time I went to Digg. A few minutes later I had the names of some awesome bands I’d never heard of before, thanks to other people thoughtfully sharing their favorite webpages about Tech/Extreme Prog Metal and Ragga Jungle (just kidding – my tastes aren't quite that extreme, but close).

For those of you who aren’t already best friends with the likes of Delicious, StumbleUpon and the aforementioned Digg, these sites all come under the umbrella of ‘social bookmarking’. Social bookmarking websites allow you to save a list of sites that you find interesting (kind of like your regular browser bookmarks function), but with a couple of differences. Firstly, you can access these bookmarks from anywhere, on any computer, just by logging into your account. And secondly, your bookmarks are public, so other people can see what type of content you are currently enjoying. (Note that many social bookmarking sites also allow you to save privately if you want, but that takes the fun out of it a bit). As you save your bookmarks, you can ‘tag’ them by topic, meaning other people with similar interests can find them and save or ‘vote’ for the webpage too.

Ultimately, social bookmarking sites give you a fantastic way of finding interesting content on the internet. The voting system means that genuinely good content gets pushed to the top of the pile, without being influenced by black hat tactics and other kinds of trickery. Here are some other reasons why social bookmarking is something you need to seriously consider getting aboard:

1. Humans do it better

Search engines like Google use a complex algorithm to return 'relevant' results and they work fantastically when you looking for something very specific. But they don’t work so well if you aren’t sure exactly what you’re after. On the other hand, social bookmarking services are fantastic brainstorming and creative aids. Nothing beats 100 humans actually reading something and deciding it's good. All you need to enter is a very broad topic and you’re off on a journey that might very well lead you in unexpected and exciting directions.

2. Spot emerging trends early on

By the time something turns up on Google's front page your grandmother will have known about it for a week. Yet affiliate marketers and web entrepreneurs need to get in on trends at the chrysalis stage so they can capitalize on the rising surge of traffic. Now I'm not suggesting you fill your pages with irrelevant keywords just because they're flavor of the day, but sometimes you will find an emerging trend that is relevant to you or your niche. Social bookmarking sites are throwing up new trends all the time, so they are incredibly valuable places for affiliate marketers to hang out.

3. Learn what’s hot (and what’s not)

You've probably heard that social bookmarking services can send a lot of traffic to your site or blog, but it's not just as simple as placing a 'Digg It' or 'Stumble This' button on your page. Certain types of content naturally get more attention in these services. Yes you need to be interesting, but a 40,000 word dissertation on the geopolitical history of the Middle East, although immensely fascinating to a nerd like me, may not spin the wheels of most social bookmarking users. If you’re worried about being out of touch, then start reading through the popular content to get a feel for where it’s at.

4. Share and be shared

The really popular social bookmarking users are not the ones who just vote for their own content – they find and vote on interesting stuff from all over the web. They become a reliable source of good information, one which people will go back to time and time again. So while there's nothing wrong with submitting your own content to the bookmarking services, make sure you spend a while sharing other people's as well. Think of it as online 'Karma' - the more you give to these communities, the more you'll get back in return

If you haven’t already done so, then I highly recommend registering for Sphinn, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit to begin with. Social bookmarking sites are huge potential sources of information and many of these services have a natural online marketing or social media focus, which means they are great places to find relevant information to help your own online marketing activities.

Our Shameless Plug

You may have noticed we have buttons linking to several major bookmarking services at the bottom of most of our content. We're in the process of updating this system, but if you do find yourself enjoying one or even several of our articles, we would be eternally grateful if you could help us share them with the world.

23 Comments
mastercands 16 years ago
Hi Chris,

Thanks for the tip.I have to say that it was extremely fast to subscribe on the sites that you refer (Sphinn, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit ).I just hope this does not came with a lot of distraction that can affect the course (AB).

But comparing all the sites (for subscription) I preferred the http://digg.com/ because I could attach my facebook account at the same time.

Thanks
leon joomla websites 16 years ago
I always wanted to really know about digg and how it worked, this gives me a better understanding of it. and i bet a lot of link juice for your sites. if you look at it that way.
Dillon Affiliate Dude 16 years ago
Nice post.
LinkaGoGo is another site I've been seeing results from lately too.
Chris Goddard 16 years ago
Glad this helps give people a bit more of an understanding. It's just a matter of getting out there and using the different sites and seeing what suits you best. With regard to linkjuice, typically, a lot of these sites have nofollow links (I'm not sure exactly which ones though), which means that they don't pass on link juice. However, these sites can send something even better... traffic!
Dave Hale 16 years ago
As an avid user of social marketing, I love your blog entry. Good stuff to keep the topic in front of us.

Also, to let those know who have not yet tapped into this market, that it is the up and coming venue for traffic.

I received a call this morning from a business coaching client asking me to assist his company grasp the full usability in social network marketing. If online marketers are looking for a new area to jump into, here it is. Small businesses are treading water trying to figure this area out. For $100+/hour you can jump on in.

Dr. Dave Hale
The Internet Marketing Professor
http://www.drdavehaleonline.com
William 16 years ago
An informative post no doubt.

I am using a few of the mentioned coupled with Quizilla, Zimbio, Wetpaint ... because of the social aspect as well as the "Google love" these sites are getting :)

I really havent explored them too much for niche research but will no doubt look into that aspect too.

Thank you

William
rocketdocket 16 years ago
Good piece.

Here are other ways to promote your blogs, websites, Twitter, FaceBook, etc. using social bookmarking and Feedburner, Google's essential tool to create RSS/ATOM feeds

The "link splicer" selection under the "Optimize" tab within FeedBurner.com lets you select one social bookmarking site to add to your feed: Digg, Del-icio-us, Furl, Bloglines, My Web 2.0 and ma.gnolia. (Burning a FeedBurner feed is easy; just follow the directions.)

My blog feeds incorporate Del-icio-us. Every time I post to my blogs, I click on the bottom of the post and enter additional information about the post, including keyword phrases associated with the post. Then I enter my blog feed on FaceBook and the HTML code supplied by FeedBurner on my other blogs as widgets.

The RSS feed, containing all of my recent posts, appear on FB and my blog sites with titles and summaries of each blog post. Readers can subscribe to your Feedburner feed and view your stuff in Google Reader, My Yahoo and dozens of other locations.

See the right sidebar at MobileBeyond.net for an example.

When someone subscribes to my blog feed via email, they also see everything I've posted to my blogs bookmarked by Del-icio-us. Since all of my blogs are mobile and marketing-focused, readers find related content of interest.

If you want the ultimate summary of your online work, sign up at FriendFeed.com, enter all your sites, including Twitter, and you'll have one source on the Web that contains everything you've written. Friends you make on FriendFeed can follow you and you can follow them.

Good luck!
Petra Weiss 16 years ago
I have heard so much about social bookmarking and digg, delicious, sphinn etc, and I have started to use them myself a bit. I was wondering whether it would be possible to write a little "how to social bookmark" tutorial - some kind of action plan, or how to do it the right way. I am sure many affiliate marketers find this still quite confusing.
Phil Hughes 16 years ago
Awesome Post Chris!

The Power of 'Word of Mouth' will always win over a computer algorithm. That's still the main reason that even the 'algorithm' indexes blogs so well... A friendly referral will top a paid spot every day of the week!

I personally love stumbleupon and Digg for finding cool new stuff online. hell, the internet is still the 'wild wild west' in a lot of ways and having some cool stuff trickle in now and then is always a welcome treat!

Thanks for keeping the message out there!

Phil Hughes
http://philhughes.tv/blog
Greg Parke 16 years ago
So Chris, Is social bookmarking just a case of sending a blogg you like to a social bookmarking site? I just tried to send this one to Digg but it looks like someone beat me to it. When social blogging, is it possible to add a link to your own site when submitting.
Daniel Howard 16 years ago
Hi Chris

Great post, I love social media, twitter just keeps on growing and only getting bigger. I like digg for book marketing. sphinn is the internet marting social place... so great info there.

Regards

Daniel Howard

Daniel Howard
Michael Podgoetsky 16 years ago
I ve been using Stumbleupon for a while and this site can send A LOT of traffic to your site but what is the difference between Stumbleupon and www.Digg.com anyone?
thanks
Michael.
Karen Visoky 16 years ago
I've never done any social bookmarking yet. Looks like I should get started!
john kelly 16 years ago
great post chris, glad you didn't mention Twitter, because it is rather lunatic. Certainly not a relaxed read :o)
ciao john kelly
Harjit Irani 16 years ago
Thanks so much. That is the way internet market is heading to now.
Ben Miedema 16 years ago
Great content. Social Networking is the way to improve your SEO ranking. Let us not leave out: Propeller.com, Twitter.com, Tagza.com, Newsvine.com, Swik.net, Slashdot.org, Technorati.com, Fark.com, Furl.net, Connoea.net and Squidoo.com
Mike Brockman 16 years ago
That was a brilliant post on social bookmarking.
Probably the best written overview on the topic that describes what it is, how it works, and the benfits to be gained by using it.
Robb Novak 16 years ago
Chris,
Great post. The only thing to add is that you should check out Symphony X if you are looking for some great prog metal. Really good stuff.
Stephen H 16 years ago
Hello Chris,

Awesome education lesson at 11 pm at night. Just today I found this firm online called WL Marketing that will do 600 social bookmarking submissions for me for like $140... not sure if anyone has ever used a firm to do this sort of stuff, I was just thinking that this may be a well spent expense, to not have to physically do like 600 myself :-) If anyone has ever done something similar, please let me know before I jump on this to give it some thought.

Thanks and have a good night guys

SH
Chris Goddard 16 years ago
Thanks for the comments everyone!

@Stephen H: I'd be careful with bookmarking submission services. Simply put, while there may be 600 bookmarking services out there... the majority of them will either be EXTREMELY targeted, in which case they'll have little relevance to your website. You'd be far better off submitting to the top 5 or 10 services yourself, and then providing buttons to allow people to vote or submit your site/blog themselves. These should not be confused with press release submission services which can be very effective.
rocketdocket 16 years ago
Good comments and questions from all. If you're into blogging, check out Caroline Middlebrook in the U.K.

Caroline, a protege of Yaro Starak and social media expert (especially StumbleUpon), offers a FREE course online called "Traffic Rush." The free version is a series of emails, but buying the full course upfront is well worth the money and shouldn't divert you from completing the Affilorama course.

Caroline's blog is at: http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/
Sumerki 15 years ago
Great post, thanks!
Отличный постб спасибо!

Сумерки 3
hcg drops 12 years ago
Hi there! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to
give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading your posts.
Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects?
Appreciate it!