Social bookmarking has been around for as long as the Internet has existed. If you found a website or resource that you really liked and wanted others to know about it, you told your friends. The quickest way to tell them was to send them an email or post a message on a forum containing the link to that website so they could look at it and add it to their browser favorites list.

This marked it so it could be found again in the future. That was the old way to spread the word about the things that were new or exciting on the Internet. Now, there are some easier and much more effective social bookmarking tools you can use to get the word out about new things.

Social networking involves “tagging” a website of particular interest so that it can be easily accessed. The tag shows up in two places; one being the user’s profile or website, the second being the original homepage of the tagging bookmark. The tag can appear on a list of favorite websites posted on a blog or website, or it can be a special website designed specifically for these tags, called a bookmarking network. Examples of popular bookmarking networks are twitter, facebook, squidoo, flikr, and wetpaint.

Visitors to those sites can then rate the URL value according to how often a search occurs or that link is clicked on. Popular bookmarks remain at the top while less favorable links and spam are lost to new searches. Social bookmarking can be monitored for trends in the market and is used to introduce new and better products and ideas.

Many consumers, whether they realize it or not, use social bookmarking everyday to decide what products are worth investing in, where to shop, where to eat and other consumer decisions. This is because when they do a search online, the most popular searchable things that have had multiple tags come up first in the list. Tags can be a good way for consumers to gauge whether or not a product or company is legit by who manages the feeds and how often the website is tagged.

Here is a list of some great social bookmarking tools you can use today to boost your website visits and get the word out about new items of interest:

Twitter. Do you twitter? This seems like the most asked question recently by social networking people. This free social networking site works by people who become members and post short updates as they wish on anything in general. It’s advertised as a “service for family, friends and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick , frequent answers to the questions; What are you doing” (Twitter.com) The update feeds can then be posted on the person’s blogs, websites or anyplace else where they want people to know about what they’re doing and talking about. People often post their articles or other tidbits about their businesses with links included to get others to visit their website.

Facebook. This is an international social networking site whereby members sign up free and can post messages and updates whenever they wish. If they include links to their websites or other online items, members can go there to read more about them. Feeds are then available for adding to blogs or websites for real time updates. Facebook is growing in popularity among people who were typically participating in other social networking sites like MySpace, but its attracting more career- and business-oriented people.

Squidoo. This neat little social bookmarking site has nothing to do with sealife. In fact, not only is it a great way for people to interact and post updates, but it allows users to create simple websites called “lenses” for others to read about their special interests or topics. So if you are promoting a certain niche interest, an idea or something related to your business, you can create a page to promote this idea and include links back to your sites. Squidoo offers its members additional tools like forums to come up with ideas to promote their pages and highlights popular lenses all over the Internet.

Flikr. If you’re into sharing more than words and like to include images as part of your networking efforts, then you may like Flikr. This social bookmarking site allows users to post images for others to review. Users can also talk about their experiences by joining either private or public groups. So families can use Flikr to share personal photos, or public groups can share images and talk about things of interest. Each photo is assigned a tag which can be placed on user’s websites and blogs. Flikr rates images according to how many times they’ve been viewed and this list is posted on the community section for all to see.

Wetpaint. This is a Wiki format social bookmarking site that allows members to create a website about anything they are interested in or want to promote. It’s a similar concept to Squidoo, except that it is expanded to include the ability to integrate popular feeds into both your Wetpaint site and your blogs or other websites seamlessly. Wetpaint is supported by not only all the major search engines, but also by all primary news feeds and searches conducted by Internet users. This opens up the possibility that someone who may just be doing a general search will land on your Wetpaint site.

There are so many great tools out there that you can use to get the word out about your ideas and share your blogs and websites more effectively. In just a few minutes, you can be signed up and hooked into the best of what the Internet has to offer. Be sure to check out the above social bookmarking sites to get the most out of these services and increase your website’s searchability.



By: Jeremy Gislason

If you’re looking for a way to get rich from home and you want to run or already run your own Internet business, one of the best tools you can make use of is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking is a method of social networking to increase your flow of targeted traffic to your website(s). It has been made possible by the Internet.

Social networking is nothing new. It is a method of finding more qualified prospects for your business. In the business world before and outside of the Internet, networking involves joining groups such as a local racquetball club or anything that revolves around something that interests you, and then making friends and making yourself and your services known within those groups over time. By interacting in a friendly way with people with mutually shared interests, you build trust and a reputation for expertise in your professional area. As people within the groups become convinced that they might need or want your services, they come to you willingly for help; these same people are also far more likely to give you referrals, which along with repeat sales are the lifeblood of all business owners.

With social bookmarking, you blog or you or write articles and get these articles published at online content sites; then you bookmark your blog entries, articles you write for your website(s), and articles you publish at content sites at bookmarking websites. There is quite an abundance of these and their number continues to grow as their value becomes better known and they come more and more into demand.

The bookmarking websites are places where you share content that you find useful, well-written, or informative. These sites facilitate linking back to the original content and most of them also facilitate commentary. These sites are designed to give people all over the Net access to quality information in a targeted, organized way; consequently they virtually all have categories under which you index your content. You can bookmark any content that you like, but in this case it goes without saying that the content you are bookmarking is your own.

The idea is to create social “buzz” about yourself through your content at these networking bookmark sites and get people to access the links to your content, blogs, and website(s). By indexing your content using placement under appropriate site categories and adding keyword tags, you begin to draw the attention of people who might be interested in your offerings. You can greatly enhance your visibility by taking part in the socializing aspects of these bookmarking sites, by which you make online friends and add and get subscribers to your bookmarks and content. These people don’t buy a subscription, but they do become automatic regular followers of your posts, getting them “hooked” on you and greatly upping the chances that they will eventually become a customer.

Targeted traffic is vastly more valuable than traffic you get from the “shotgun approach”. It is a great waste of time to offer your services to just anybody when you could instead find people who already probably have some degree of interest in what you offer. In business, time is money, and when you waste time you lose money. But by constantly writing on a topic such as “how to get rich working from home” and socially bookmarking and networking with your content online, you become known, trusted, and seen as relevant to a certain group of people.

One of the most effective social bookmarking and networking websites is StumbleUpon. This is both a networking site and a web browser plug-in where you download the StumbleUpon toolbar to your desktop and it becomes part of your web browser. You find different websites when you click the “Stumble!” button on the toolbar. The website chooses which new page to show based on your ratings of previous pages, ratings by your online site friends, and by the ratings of other Internet users who have similar interests using a “thumbs-up/thumbs-down” display system. It also has one-click blogging built into it. The ramifications for your business should be obvious.

Another great site is Yahoo! Answers. Here you create a profile and then answer people’s questions on specific topics. (You can also ask them.) Eventually you can become a Trusted Reporter for frequently sharing valuable answers, which greatly increases your profile at the site. You can post links to your website(s) in your answers and your profile, and post parts from your articles as answers. Yahoo! Answers is more frequently used all the time because people feel they are getting “friendly” and “earthy” advice from people with real experiences, making it a perfect fit for a social networker.

For targeting youthful prospects (teens and adults under 25), the fast-rising BEBO is perfect. BEBO is modeled on and similar to Facebook and early in 2008 was named the top performing Website of its kind in a report published in ‘Computing Which?’. The editor commented, “No matter what age you are or what interests you have, there is a social networking site out there for you.”

Yes, in fact, there is–and you as an Internet marketer want to take advantage of all the opportunities made possible with social bookmarking and networking.



By: Chang Wee Teo

Social bookmarking has been around for as long as the Internet has existed. If you found a website or resource that you really liked and wanted others to know about it, you told your friends. The quickest way to tell them was to send them an email or post a message on a forum containing the link to that website so they could look at it and add it to their browser favorites list.

This marked it so it could be found again in the future. That was the old way to spread the word about the things that were new or exciting on the Internet. Now, there are some easier and much more effective social bookmarking tools you can use to get the word out about new things.

Social networking involves “tagging” a website of particular interest so that it can be easily accessed. The tag shows up in two places; one being the user’s profile or website, the second being the original homepage of the tagging bookmark. The tag can appear on a list of favorite websites posted on a blog or website, or it can be a special website designed specifically for these tags, called a bookmarking network. Examples of popular bookmarking networks are twitter, facebook, squidoo, flikr, and wetpaint.

Visitors to those sites can then rate the URL value according to how often a search occurs or that link is clicked on. Popular bookmarks remain at the top while less favorable links and spam are lost to new searches. Social bookmarking can be monitored for trends in the market and is used to introduce new and better products and ideas.

Many consumers, whether they realize it or not, use social bookmarking everyday to decide what products are worth investing in, where to shop, where to eat and other consumer decisions. This is because when they do a search online, the most popular searchable things that have had multiple tags come up first in the list. Tags can be a good way for consumers to gauge whether or not a product or company is legit by who manages the feeds and how often the website is tagged.

Here is a list of some great social bookmarking tools you can use today to boost your website visits and get the word out about new items of interest:

Twitter. Do you twitter? This seems like the most asked question recently by social networking people. This free social networking site works by people who become members and post short updates as they wish on anything in general. It’s advertised as a “service for family, friends and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick , frequent answers to the questions; What are you doing” (Twitter.com) The update feeds can then be posted on the person’s blogs, websites or anyplace else where they want people to know about what they’re doing and talking about. People often post their articles or other tidbits about their businesses with links included to get others to visit their website.

Facebook. This is an international social networking site whereby members sign up free and can post messages and updates whenever they wish. If they include links to their websites or other online items, members can go there to read more about them. Feeds are then available for adding to blogs or websites for real time updates. Facebook is growing in popularity among people who were typically participating in other social networking sites like MySpace, but its attracting more career- and business-oriented people.

Squidoo. This neat little social bookmarking site has nothing to do with sealife. In fact, not only is it a great way for people to interact and post updates, but it allows users to create simple websites called “lenses” for others to read about their special interests or topics. So if you are promoting a certain niche interest, an idea or something related to your business, you can create a page to promote this idea and include links back to your sites. Squidoo offers its members additional tools like forums to come up with ideas to promote their pages and highlights popular lenses all over the Internet.

Flikr. If you’re into sharing more than words and like to include images as part of your networking efforts, then you may like Flikr. This social bookmarking site allows users to post images for others to review. Users can also talk about their experiences by joining either private or public groups. So families can use Flikr to share personal photos, or public groups can share images and talk about things of interest. Each photo is assigned a tag which can be placed on user’s websites and blogs. Flikr rates images according to how many times they’ve been viewed and this list is posted on the community section for all to see.

Wetpaint. This is a Wiki format social bookmarking site that allows members to create a website about anything they are interested in or want to promote. It’s a similar concept to Squidoo, except that it is expanded to include the ability to integrate popular feeds into both your Wetpaint site and your blogs or other websites seamlessly. Wetpaint is supported by not only all the major search engines, but also by all primary news feeds and searches conducted by Internet users. This opens up the possibility that someone who may just be doing a general search will land on your Wetpaint site.

There are so many great tools out there that you can use to get the word out about your ideas and share your blogs and websites more effectively. In just a few minutes, you can be signed up and hooked into the best of what the Internet has to offer. Be sure to check out the above social bookmarking sites to get the most out of these services and increase your website’s searchability.



By: Jeremy Gislason