What is Social Bookmarking?
L: Today, we are going to be talking about the growing practice of 'social bookmarking' on the web and how you can use it as a marketing tool. The key question we need to ask is simply: what is 'social bookmarking'?
J: It's basically a simple way for people to share their favorite websites with lots of other people but doing this all at once through their online social networks
L: okay, that sounds interesting but surely, if I want to share a website with my friends, I can just send them an email with a link to that site?
J: That is true but it would also have a few disadvantages. In my view, most people don't feel like putting in all their friends' email addresses and sending a big group email just to let them know about one web page. They may also feel like sharing their favorite link with more people including sometimes even total strangers.
L: Oh, I see, so sharing website links through online social networks is easier to do and reaches a wider audience?
J: Absolutely, and from a business point of view that means we are talking about an opportunity to make it really easy for other people to spread the word about what you have to offer
L: That sounds good! So what kind of online networks are there, which can we used in this way? Can you give me an example?
J: One of the fastest growing networks recently has been the social website Facebook, which amongst other things allows people to share links with their friends and colleagues. Anyone can log in and post a link to your website for all their contacts to see. Another big website is Digg.com which lets people share their websites with anybody from the public.
L: I guess those examples are very different. In my experience, Facebook is mostly restricted to friends so - on that logic - Digg.com would get your link out to more people?
J: Yes, that could be true, although different online networks have different advantages and disadvantages. For example, Facebook could be a more trusted network so getting your links on that could even persuade more people to take a look in practice. The key thing is to encourage people to spread the word about your website in whatever way they are most comfortable with since that can increase traffic to your site as well securing direct incoming links from those social websites
L: Okay, so what do I do to get this working for me? I mean, how can I actually encourage people to use social bookmarking to spread awareness of my site?
J: It's fairly easy, all you need to do is identify which pages on your site people might want to share with others and then integrate some special buttons onto those pages that help people easily bookmark them on their preferred social networks
L: That doesn't sound quite so easy, sounds a bit technical actually!
J: Well, it is a bit technical because it needs to work so that you can add new pages that automatically feature those special buttons but this is something that we can easily help our clients with and it can be achieved within only a couple of hours of work
L: I guess this will really make people think about their content because they need to create pages on their websites that other people might get excited about and want to share with others
J: Yes, that's absolutely right! Social bookmarking only works when your content is worth sharing so it's a pretty good way to encourage people to improve the free resources on their site. In my view, the best way to make it work is to create some useful articles and consider combining them with appealing images or media to motivate people to bookmark those pages.
L: Sounds like a good strategy, I guess you will be making the transcript of this podcast an example of that?
J: Hey, you've figured out my cunning plan. Absolutely, any useful article or podcast can be an opportunity for social link promotion! In fact, if you are listening to this podcast now, feel free to scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see some examples of how to use social bookmarking in practice.
