Social Bookmarking
Do you remember all the countless numbers of websites you have visited in the past year, or even the past month? You might have saved some of these sites in your list of favorites on your web browser, but other than that there might only be a handful that you remember. Those that you do save, do you have them handy when you are out and about? can you share them with a friend or a stranger with the click of a button? probably not. Social Bookmarking is the solution to all of this.
Social Bookmarking platforms allow you to save your favorite sites and organize them using tags (keywords). These lists are then saved on the platform itself and can be accessed anywhere you have access to the internet. You can then share your lists with other users of the same platform. Other users can add your bookmarks to their own collection, or share them with even more users. Thus creating viral marketing for the sites being bookmarked. On top of all this the top ranked bookmarks are then posted on the front page of the bookmarking site, or on one of their top lists.
Social Bookmarking is a tool to keep track of where you have been and see where others that share your interests are going. The viral exposure is a great way to market your business, your website, your blog, or simply your opinion on what’s out there. The problem is choosing from the many social bookmarking sites that are out there. Digg, Technorati, del.icio.us, propeller, StumbleUpon, Reddit, MyBlogLog, Fark, Furl, Ma.gnolia, Blinklist are only a scratch on teh surface of endless options there are out there to choose from.
There are numerous top ten lists out there talking about which ones to use, one that I found most useful is on www.social-media-optimization.com that has a list of the “main players in the social bookmarking space” It then breaks down the main players by explaining who each site reaches out to by including the number of visitors/users of the site, the demographic of the visitor/user, and what type of information does well on the site.
The top ten list includes:
- Digg.com
- Propeller.com
- StumbleUpon
- Reddit.com
- Del.icio.us
- Newsvine.com
- Fark.com
- Blinklist.com
- Clipmarks.com
- Shoutwire.com
Being new to social bookmarking myself I am currently trying to work with Digg.com, StumbleUpon, and Del.icio.us. All of which I hope to report on real soon!
