Social Bookmarking And Your Marketing
Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Yahoo! My Web 2.0. Heard of them? If you haven’t heard of them, they are websites that allow you to store your bookmarks online and share them. Online bookmarking sites have been around for as long as I can remember like since I first started to get online and that was in the 90’s. So what’s so new and interesting about social bookmarking and more importantly how could it work for your business?
Unlike the bookmarking sites of old, today’s sites allow people to openly share their bookmarks which is where the ’social’ bookmarking comes in. People can build their own lists that exist as a web page and others can come view the page. But what’s so exciting about that? For one, people can discover websites without searching. Searching as you well know is one of the most used methods for discovering information and websites but it does have it’s problems. For example, how would you know what words to search for when you’re don’t know what something is called? You may know it’s something you want but not know what the name or term for that item, problem or solution.
Secondly, sometimes search engines aren’t accurate at all. Have you ever searched for something and the results were a list of commercial websites or junk sites but what you really wanted was maybe a review or something else? Search engines may like you to think you cannot manipulate them but if that were 100% true, you’d always find what you want to look for every time you search. Truth is, they will list sites according to what they think makes a good website. So a webmaster only has to ‘play by their rules’ and get decent results. Besides, there are some really good sites that don’t make it to the top of search engines – maybe because their webmasters aren’t SEO savvy or just don’t have the time. I’ve come accross great sites on recommendation.
I know some people say don’t too get excited when someone bookmarks your site because bookmarks are like a blackhole, once entered never to be reviewed or revisited again. That is true of your browser’s bookmarks. Those stored on your computer. I honestly don’t know if social bookmarks are reviewed more often or not, but consider this. Social bookmarks are more like recommendations. We all put more confidence in our friend’s recommendations than any advertising or search results. Since friends have common interests, it’s safe to say what interests someone is likely to interest his/her friends. And when they see one site is bookmarked often by other people, it has some kind of group, epidemic or viral effect. Incidently this like what Jeff Walker talks about in Social Proof. I hope the light bulbs are already going off for you. If it’s not, here’s how social bookmarking could help your online business and warning – this might be considered ‘black hat’ for some, so proceed at your own risk. Also, this is experimental and I don’t promise tons or any traffic at all. However, it doesn’t hurt to test it out since it doesn’t cost you a thing except a few minutes of your time.
1. Bookmark your own site(s) blogs or podcasts. Then share that with other people, get your friends to signup and bookmark your sites too then just sit back and see if your links get passed around at all. *Sidenote* I just entered one of my sites into De.licio.us and found two other people have already bookmarked it.
2. Bookmark a few sites that interests you or your market – not necessarily your sites. In a few days sometimes maybe hours, check your bookmarks. Sometimes you will see some sites being picked up by others in great numbers. This is a good way to do market research as they act like indicators. Find out which sites or web pages a particular market gravitates to. You can study their content, if it’s a blog, you can study the comments, questions and concerns and then include them in your own site, newsletter, blog, ebook or whatever.
3. This is a great way to find out who your loyal supporters are – some of these people have websites or lists with a good following relevant to your market. Since they already bookmarked you, chances are they like your content, your work, products and… you! That makes approaching them to be an affiliate, to advertise or to conduct a telecall is much easier than an unsolicited email (think cold calling).
As I’m writing this more and more ideas start pouring and I’m getting quite excited to start a few social bookmarking experiments. So much to share and test. If you’d like to get the results of my social bookmarking tests,
1. Signup for either one (or all) of the social bookmarking services mentioned* and bookmark http://www.techbasedmarketing.com why? Because I’d like to test out the social effect of this online technology and obviously with a larger number, the more information I can reap. So, bookmark http://www.TechBasedMarketing.com tell others about your bookmark page. Share with your list or put it on your blog.
2. Make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter if you haven’t already
That’s it and I’ll keep you updated when I have new information on social bookmarking among other things.
Still Having Trouble Understanding Social bookmarking?
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Social bookmarking sites.
Note these will take you to my public bookmarks (except Yahoo!) so you can also see what other sites I’m watching 
Furl
