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Many newer marketers do not understand how social bookmarking works. You’re familiar with the big sites like Delicious and Digg. You may have even heard of some of the others like StumbleUpon. There are at least ten credible bookmarking sites with high page rank. You’ve probably heard other marketers say that they get massive amounts of traffic from these sites. Well, that is true…you can get a large number of unique visitors in a very short period of time provided you’ve laid the proper groundwork first. But…Yes, there’s always a but… In this case, it is a very large one. The traffic you get may look great on your stats, but unless you have thought things through, made some important decisions, and taken some necessary steps before setting this traffic loose on your site, you will be disappointed in the results. More about that later…First, let’s talk about bookmarking basics. You can get very nice high page rank backlinks from participating in a social bookmarking site. One way to find out if your niche is appropriate for the site is to search Google for your keywords or tags. If you see other sites listed from the property, then you’ve found one that is a good fit for your niche. Then, you should join the community. Look around and learn how it works. This is not a set it and forget type of activity. Here is where many marketers drop the ball. Nearly all of the bookmarking communities have some sort of “Most Popular” list. From this list, you can discover two things. The first is the type of bookmarks that get the most attention. The second is the other members of the community who have the most clout in the form of friends and followers. I’d recommend you check out the profiles of these influential members. It will take work on your part. The work involves not only the setting up of your account, but you will need to continue using the property once you begin to get the benefits you hope for. Much like starting a blog, you cannot throw your bookmarking account up and expect any type of results without building a relationship within the community. Your profile is important in any type of Web 2.0 activity. It serves the same function as your signature file in article marketing or forum posting. Take the time to craft your profile using the keywords you want attention for. At this point, you want to have a very clear picture of what you wish to accomplish with social bookmarking. If you just want traffic numbers, that is fine, you won’t need to do any more thinking then. However, if you want the traffic to actually buy from you, then you need to select the type of keywords or tags that bring you motivated and targeted traffic. Otherwise, you may knock yourself out to get lovely big numbers of visitors, but absolutely no buying action. It is also possible that the wrong type of traffic can backfire on you within the community. If the huge numbers come based on your tags, and they only get a sales pitch without the information they expected from your tags, you have damaged your credibility and lost their trust. Often times, they will never follow your recommendations again. How to you get them to follow your bookmarks in the first place? Now, we come to the knock yourself out part. Oh come on, you knew it was coming, right? These sites are called social for a reason. You have to participate and build relationships. So, you will want to take part in the forums and discussions. Commenting and voting draws attention to you and begins to build your credibility in the community. Like any forum, building your reputation is what will entice others to check out your profile and what your website is offering. By all means, bookmark your site, but don’t just stop there: bookmark the sites of other members that you are trying to establish a relationship with. If you work on the relationship building, you can begin to add other members as friends and receive votes from them for your own site. Now, a word about how much work is involved to get results. Start small with one or two sites at the beginning, unless you have good outsourcers in place. For your social bookmarking efforts to produce the result you want, they will take quite a bit of time from other aspects of your business. |
| Last Updated on Monday, 05 January 2009 10:56 |
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