Internet Marketing School

Social Bookmarking in Internet Marketing as a whole doesn’t have a written rulebook. Each social bookmarking site, as mentioned in the last post, will have its own unwritten conventions which will generally be self policed by the community. It pays to learn these, but there are some general do’s and don’ts for pretty much any social bookmarking site you wish to join.

DO…

…read broadly and submit regularly. Social bookmarking sites work because of the sheer variety of amazing stuff that people submit. Don’t just limit yourself to one area. If you love extreme ironing as a hobby, then submit extreme ironing sites. You’ll be amazed at who else you can connect with because of your breadth.

…submit to the right category. For people to benefit from your submissions, it certainly helps if they can find it. It may be an idea to contact the site administrators if you want to add a category but before you do, think whether it would be something that people would look for, or whether you might be better off using one that already exists.

…tag, tag, tag. We discussed it last week, but tagging is what makes the whole process of social bookmarking that much more social and accessible. Do it!

…talk to others personally. On some of the social bookmarking sites I am a member of, I get generic messages from other members just so that they can make contact. They are so mechanical, is is pretty obvious they haven’t bothered to pay much attention to who I am. You have far more chance of actually making a connection if you take the time to find out who that person is, what their interests are and address them personally.

…be a regular visitor and submitter. Everyone knows that it’s no going just joining a site, visiting once or twice and then complaining that it isn’t working for you.

…give. A lot. Vote for other people’s posts, submit their articles, become their friends, recommend them, send appropriate recommendations to them. It is the old adage of give in order to receive.

…write a review or synopsis where you can. Not only does this show you have actually read the article, but it is great for your own reference in the future. This is especially important if you are the first to stumble a page!

…try and find new stuff. Almost every post from Problogger is already going to have been found because thousands of people go there. How about enriching the community with something they might not have already spotted?

DON’T…

…just post your own stuff. It isn’t going to take long before people just start to ignore you. Many social bookmarking sites see it as bad form if you simply submit your own articles or information. Not to say you can’t do it at all, but find out what the site conventions are and make sure it is proportionately balanced with the rest of your participation.

…use automatic submission services. Since when was a robot ‘social’?

…overload yourself with sites. Choose several which are appropriate for what you want to achieve i.e. the right kind of people or interests, and stick with them. Spreading yourself too thing won’t help you achieve great results.

…spam. ‘Nuff said.

…expect overnight results. Social bookmarking is something which takes time. The people who have 30,000+ stumbles on StumbleUpon didn’t just sit at the computer one weekend and stumble every single site they came across.

…be shy. People won’t interact with or notice you unless you go and talk to them.

…submit rubbish. Social bookmarking sites become a valuable resource, often providing better results than search engines, because the information bookmarked is of great quality. Don’t mess that up. We already have one flawed Google algorithm.

…be dismissive of newbies. You were a newbie once and I bet you had some great quality stuff to submit. You have no idea whether the next newbie to say hi might have some unbelievable content to contribute. It’s worth giving people a chance.

…befriend everyone just to get your numbers up. If they aren’t the kind of person you would want to go and talk to at a cocktail party, why add them as a friend?

These are just a few guidelines for the social bookmarking sphere. I would love to hear any more…

This valuable article was contributed by Nancy Williams (United Kingdom), the Managing Director of Tiger Two Ltd, (ie. http://www.tigertwo.co.uk).

Published on the IMS community blog portal by the Internet Marketing School team.