Social Bookmarking

By Cheryl Salazar, The Partner Marketing Group

According to Wikipedia – A social bookmarking service is a centralized online service which enables users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Social bookmarking involves saving bookmarks (web addresses) to a public Web site such as Digg or Del.icio.us so you can access these bookmarks from any computer connected to the web. Your favorite bookmarks are also available for others to view and follow hence the term ‘social bookmarking’.

Social Bookmarking Sites

If you wish to create your own social bookmarks, you should register with a social bookmarking site, such as:

• Del.icio.us
• digg
• StumbleUpon
• LookSmart
• Blinklist

Benefits of SEO Bookmarking

The benefits of SEO bookmarking include:

• increased interaction with and sharing of content
• enhanced brand exposure via social sites
• provision of links for SEO
• and as popular content is promoted via social media, these provide links within blogs and driving of secondary traffic back to your site via backlinks.

Hopefully you can see the value and power of social bookmarks. You can think of it as viral or guerrilla marketing in a way. It can be a powerful grassroots method of marketing your site. As with everything on the web, caution should be exercised. Ensure that your content is valuable and worth sharing with others, otherwise it will appear as an obvious marketing ploy with very little gain.

Best Practices

Common best practices include:

• ‘friending’ influential members of social communities that engage in content relevant to your topic
• paying close attention to titles to ensure they are captivating
• using tags/keywords often associated with content that is ‘hot’/’topical’
• and inviting your friends to view posts of interest and benefit to their business.

And Don’t Forget

Remember to always:

• Inventory your media
• Keyword optimize your media
• Research social media communities
• Make it easy for readers to save/share content
• Create profiles and grow a network of friends
• Participate, participate, participate in community, and
• Measure results!

For more marketing tips, visit www.ThePartnerMarketingGroup.com, or opt into our monthly newsletter by texting the letters TPMG to 22828