How Social Bookmarking Helps Your Business
Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter didn’t take long to catch on. Even for people who didn’t use the Internet or care to keep in contact with their long lost friends much recognized the significance those sites could have for their businesses.
But did you know that before social media sites came there was social bookmarking? Social bookmarking has quietly been growing behind the scenes and is another excellent opportunity to get recognition for your product, business, service or even an action an employee does. How do you get started in bookmarking to benefit your company?
The Dos of Social Bookmarking
- Promote a Relevant News Item
- Make it Professional
- Include URL Information
- Respect Other Users
- Read Other Articles Posted
Promote Good News
When you have something important to tell the world about, write an article and post it to your blog or your webpage. Then you can take that link and promote it to the social bookmarking sites with another mini article or a share. There are literally dozens of social bookmarking sites to choose from, so if you had a lot of time, you could spread your information to all kinds of new sites. Each site will require you to create an account, but in most cases it is a free process.
What you want to add to the bookmarking sites is information about a product or service for your business. Write an article describing how awesome it is and what the features are. Post the article to your blog or give it its own page on your website. Take the URL for that specific page, no matter where it is uploaded, and then promote it – bookmark it – to the sites for additional promotion. Some of the social bookmarking sites to get linked up to include delicious, Reddit, Mister Wong, Stumbleupon, Digg, MSN, Blinklist and many, many more. There are actually over 100 sites where you can bookmark your URL to if you wanted to create accounts with all of them.
Be a Professional at All Times
The content might not be on your own page, but with any luck there will be hundreds of viewers that do see it. That means that spelling, grammar and punctuation still counts. Make this like a job interview or a first date; you want to give your best impression. Always be professional in your tone and presentation, no matter where the content will be. Sloppiness doesn’t’ win you any points and could even discourage people from checking out your social bookmarks.
Include Contact Information
The best article or description of a link won’t do you any good if the URL or at least the name of your website isn’t included somewhere in the description or actual article you are posting to the social bookmarking site. You might know where it originated from, but that doesn’t mean anybody else will know! Include your website information and the business name in the author details and the actual page you are adding for a bookmark. Since you created the original page you plan to share, then embed the link so that when people read it, they can just click and be automatically connected to your site. The easier it is for them, the better off you will be and the more traffic will be sent to your site.
Be a Good Neighbor
This includes respecting other users and taking the time to read other articles that are posted. After all, you are posting your own articles or bookmarks and want people to recognize yours, so take a minute or two and recognize a few others in the process. If you can’t take the time to see what articles, webpages and pictures are being promoted, how can anybody else? Click on like or rate the item so that it looks like your profile is an active participant in all ways to the site. You want to be a valued member of the community so do your part to help everyone’s business too.
The DON’Ts of Social Bookmarking
- Post “News” that Isn’t Relevant
- Spam a Site With Your Links
- Be Rude to Other Users
Post Irrelevant Garbage that Doesn’t Have Meaning
Putting a bookmark on an article related to your company that doesn’t have a point is just the same as wasting time and energy. If there isn’t a valid point to what you are telling people, why should they take any time to read it? Only put a bookmark on an article or a tidbit that is newsworthy or will get people interested in your business or product. Make it worth their while to take the time and read it. Certainly you can include a picture or even a video embed, but make it interesting as well as educating with a point. Time is valuable and you don’t want people to think of you as a time waster before they even visit your site.
Spamming a Site
Spamming anything is just obnoxious. Whether it is with emails on a daily basis that serve no good reason or it is posting the same news with a different URL to the bookmarking sites, it is annoying. The site could even deny posting the article or take away your privileges for adding the link. The sites have started paying attention more to exactly what is posted and will check for duplicate content. If your title or even the URL is familiar or already used, it will probably be denied. Only add bookmarks when you have new information to share, a new product to discuss or something else that you haven’t already bookmarked on the site for others to see. Spam is spam no matter where you put it, so keep it limited to the sandwiches if you must use it!
Being Rude is Not Allowed!
Would you want someone to comment on your bookmarks in a nasty way? Would you appreciate someone following around all of your bookmarks and calling you names or slamming your business? No way! So don’t go out and try to trash other people who include bookmarks to the same sites you do. Trash talking other people – who are probably business competitors – is a great way to get noticed in a negative way! Negative associations will not improve your business so do not engage in them in any way. If there is a negative comment on your link or profile, then simply delete if you can or else ignore it. Be the bigger person and let them run amok with negativity and not you. There comments aren’t on your actual webpage, so they won’t hurt it.
Social bookmarking is an easy way to get the word out there about things going on in your business. You don’t have to go to every site and make a profile to bookmark URLs, but having a few accounts is a good idea. Promote the URLs you can through a bookmark on these sites and see if it increases your traffic or your sales. If it does, then maybe you do want to go out and add more accounts on the other sites.
