Reading Time: 5 minutesToday, it isn’t unusual to hear the term “social” being used almost anywhere you go. The number of people and businesses engaging in various Internet social communities has grown exponentially over the past several years. Hearing terms like social network, social news, and social media have now become commonplace in our everyday lives.
However, social bookmarking is one term you may not hear as often. The power of the social bookmarking method is both innovative and advantageous for businesses and consumers alike.
This guide discusses all the key aspects of social bookmarking (definition, benefits, disadvantages, sites, and best practices). Keep reading to learn how to use this smart marketing asset to spike traffic and improve your website authority.
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking, also called social book marketing, is a way for internet users to manage, share, and store valuable resources they find online. These resources include blogs, videos, images, articles, and social media posts.
Instead of saving sites to a local computer, social bookmarking sites allow you to save your favorite bookmarks online and access them anywhere, at any time.
Social bookmarking sites use algorithms to detect trends and patterns in your bookmarks and curate feeds with similar content. Whenever someone adds material to topics that you follow, they’ll appear on your feed. Your feed also offers an avenue to find new trending bookmarks.
You can share your bookmarks with anyone, select individuals, or organize things that interest you for personal use. If you decide to share with others, add tags to the content to help users searching for similar topics find the content easily.
Social bookmarking sites offer threads and rooms where communities can discuss topics that interest them, repost, and vote.
Social Bookmarking Applications for Businesses
Social bookmarking is an excellent method for businesses to incorporate into their SEO strategy. Here, companies can quickly gain live links to their site, which helps increase traffic through visits from their target audience.
When used properly, the result is more organic links, a boost in your site’s page rank, and an overall increase in site traffic. This is also a good way to see how your business performs from a consumer standpoint and how well the public receives certain campaigns.
Social Bookmarking Advantages and Disadvantages
| Social Bookmarking Benefits | Social Bookmarking Disadvantages |
| It relies on humans for categorization. People understand social bookmarking content better than automated resource alternatives like search engine bots that try to decipher the meaning and categorize based on algorithms. | Some users spam others by submitting the same content on one platform several times. |
| Users sometimes bookmark resources that search engines are yet to index. | Some users share low-quality content while chasing increased website visibility and authority at the expense of value. |
| Social bookmarking backlinks offer excellent opportunities to increase website visibility and traffic. | It suffers from tagging issues, such as lack of capitalization and plural/singular standards, misspellings, terms with multiple meanings, confusion about antonyms and synonyms, and a lack of tag hierarchy. |
| It facilitates quick material curation by providing categorized results based on users with similar interests and commonly bookmarked content. | |
| It allows you to create or join communities with similar interests, which can support valuable professional relationships and expose you to new opportunities. | |
| Some social bookmarking sites provide analytics, such as the top search terms for a given period, which can be valuable insights for your marketing campaigns. | |
| These sites feature vast resources that can inspire your next project. | |
| Social bookmarking allows you to store all resources in one place, making sharing and team collaboration easy. This is in contrast to sending different links and tagging members, which can be challenging to track. |
Top Social Bookmarking Sites
Here are a few of the more popular social bookmarking sites to help you get started:
Although it offers all kinds of social bookmarking content, from videos to webpages and products, Pinterest shines the most for its vast catalog of pictures. You can increase your following on the platform by posting often and using relevant keywords on your pins. The platform lets you pin anything from YouTube posts to recipes and animal photography, sync your Pinterest account with your e-commerce store, and sell directly from it.
Digg
This social bookmarking site is ideal for article submissions due to its resemblance to a digital publication. You can add tags to help interested users find your topic. People “dig” (like) content they enjoy or “bury” (dislike) submissions they find unhelpful.
StumbleUpon
A platform that allows you to pick areas of interest upon registration. Afterward, the algorithm shows you hot links within your selection that you can view and like. You can share your links, as well, so other users can see them and engage with the content.
It lets you promote your brand by posting content to relevant Subreddits (communities that discuss niche topics). Users can upvote or downvote content to increase or reduce its visibility on the platform.
My Link Vault
This Chrome extension lets you organize your favorite links in categories and add tags for easy content access. You can switch devices while maintaining your social bookmarking content by downloading your links as a JSON file and reuploading them to the new device.
Slashdot
A popular choice for tech experts, this social bookmarking website allows you to submit reviews, editorials, articles, and stories that the administrators can reject if they don’t align with their guidelines. Negative content leads to the loss of karma points. Users also rate content as funny, overrated, offtopic, insightful, etc.
Tips for Successful Social Bookmarking
- Select which social bookmarking sites you want to be on and create a complete profile with all your company’s relevant links (website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc).
- Submit your website to a relevant category on your chosen bookmarking site to ensure your content reaches the right audience to boost its discoverability and shareability.
- Some social bookmarking sites have buttons and tools you can add to your website and/or blog. Decide which ones you want to utilize and install them to make sharing/bookmarking easier.
- Post fresh, interesting content to capture the eye of your target audience.
- Share other content related to your industry and use unique titles and tags to avoid appearing like a spammer.
- Engage in the sites’ communities by rating content, writing reviews, and networking with other members with similar interests.
Get the Most From Social Bookmarking
Provided you follow social bookmarking best practices like sharing quality content, staying active, and avoiding spam, these platforms can be an excellent way to promote your business. In fact, the most popular ones, like Reddit and Pinterest, have at least half a billion monthly visitors, providing a vast pool to gain followers, grow your brand, and attract more website traffic.
Combining the social bookmarking method with other link-building and social media marketing efforts can be the key to the success of your online marketing campaigns. Looking to do so? Vizion Interactive offers comprehensive social media management in addition to other marketing services. Contact us, and let’s help you perfect the art of social bookmarking and other promotional tasks you need addressing.
