Social Bookmarking Services

Social bookmarking generally refers to the mechanism that is used to aggregate and create collections of user submitted links that redirects to original sources and websites. Social bookmark users can submit and describe a specific link to a article, blog post, picture or video and label it with tags that are chosen upon submission. The main purpose of using social bookmark services is to share popular bookmarks with other online users and encourage them to follow the submitted bookmark. Besides that it generates instant inbound website traffic, quality inbound links it is also very valueable for search engine indexation as social bookmarks contain user generated titles, descriptions, tags and content categorization. Popular social bookmarking services are closely watched by search engines as they help to;

• Index websites quicker, as visitors can bookmark a new URL quicker than a search engine crawler visits the website.
• Index deeplinks easier, as bookmarks can be content which are deep hidden in websites or not present in main site navigation or sitemaps.
• Deteriming link quality, by calculating the amount of bookmarks or votes on each bookmarking services but also across others services. More bookmarks or votes normally mean a website is relevant and contains interesting information.
• Categorization and classification of links, due the usage of tags, categories and other meta information that is submitted by bookmarkers. This will help search engines to determine or validate the subject for a website.

Another interesting fact is that social bookmarking services also enable to determine the connectivity that is present between several contacts and content. On most social bookmarking websites you are able to see the network of bookmarkers and which users have favorite a submitted URL. This will give you the ability to digg into a niche network and find interesting contacts for your business.

Social bookmarking services are very popular among “normal” internet users and webmasters. There are many bookmark service providers like Delicious, Digg, Technorati, Reddit, Google, Stumble Upon, Blink List and many more (see updated list below). It is known that these bookmarking services are generally not very popular within business environments. The main reason because social bookmarking is still more personal used lies behind the fact there is a knowledge gap about the relevance and value for businesses and organizations to create online product/service company exposure through social bookmarking and networks.

I believe that many online businesses and companies can benefit from the usage of social bookmarking technologies and services when deployed careful and aligned with online marketing strategies. I would personally suggest the following short advices if you are currently not using or do not have any knowledge about social bookmarking but considering the usage and want to investigate the possibilities:

• Most important is that you are understanding the principles of social bookmarking and what content tagging actually is and does. This can be done by visiting several social bookmarking services and see how they work or first read some interesting books or paperbacks as “Social Bookmarking Made Easy” by Frank Bennett, “Social Bookmarking” by Dagmar Neuberger or “The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success” by Lon Safko. These books give you great insights on the benefits and most effective way of online marketing through social networks and bookmarking services.
• After read books or other online sources, try to identify all the online content resources and business processes that can get benefit from social bookmarking technologies. The most important benefit of this technology is that enables you to connect people and consumers, organize your online resources and attract prospects to follow and read your online service or product information.
• After you set up this high level social bookmarking plan you will need a dedicated group of people who are going to submit bookmarks, maintain, find interesting online contacts and participate on social bookmarking websites by reviewing and replying connections. This to guarantees submission quality, interaction and continuity in your exposure through social bookmarking websites.
• It is wise to start on a selection of big and popular social bookmark websites as Digg, Delicous, Google Bookmarks and/or Technorati. After getting familiar with them I suggest you search for specific niche bookmarking services that fit your business needs. As social bookmarking is gaining popularity the last few years, there are all kind of niche and geographical oriented services that may fit your network, business and strategy the best.
• Last but not least of when starting up your social bookmarking engagement is that you track, trace and share your benefits and success of this investment. This can be carried out by following your web analytics and make reports about the amount of inbound hits by social bookmarking services (referring websites) since the start up and if possible and applicable conversions done by these referrals. Done this will give you great insights in the effectiveness of your effort done. Communicating these results will also help to get understanding, encouragement and the ability to convince senior company management for the wide usage of social bookmarking and networking for business usage.

The technology of social bookmarking helps to create a clear view of different resources that are present in niche businesses and topics. It also enables you to spread your company buzz, get online exposure for your products and let others discover with much ease by submitting, sharing and participating in social communities and networks. Finally it promotes decision-making, provides a way to get in contact with potential customers and helps in creating a wide online social sphere for your company.

Currently there are over 500 known and “active” social bookmarking services and websites. To give you a head start in this bush I made a list of the bookmarking services I find most interesting and currently often use to share my bookmarks. This favorit list is based on content freshness, moderation, pagerank, traffic rank, brand and overall functionality.

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