The word is out that social bookmarking is the thing, that
special flavor of the month (or year or decade?), but only
by taking it in small steps have I been able to figure out
some of its ins and outs.
The long and short of social booking is, it is a way to save
your Favorites folder (or portions thereof) online. This
means no matter where in the world you happen to be,
as long as you've got a connection to the internet,
you just log into your social bookmarking account and
voila! at your fingertips are all of the important urls you
might find yourself needing - but without access to -
since your computer is sitting home and you're not.
Now that is a good idea! Saves uploading a bunch of
urls to your domain, or remembering to send them to
your Aunt Sally before you visit, on the off chance you'll
need to remember that special something while you're
away.
(By the by, it's also a quick way to actually use your
home computer. I don't know about you, but my Favorites
folder is virtually useless at this point.)
But, there's even more to social bookmarking then easy
access. You can also share this information with others.
Your friends, family, co-workers, subscribers, whoever,
can easily see what you've been uncovering on the
web and decide, at that point, if it's something so useful
and/or interesting that they, too, would like to access it
easily through their own social bookmarking account.
The logical step from there (since I'm assuming that you
are reading this because you, too, are interested in
new ways to market on the net) is to find a way to tie
bookmarking to your service and/or website.
If this is all new to you, too, head here:
http://del.icio.us/
This is a very popular social bookmarking service.
You'll see numerous urls listed on their main page,
and since we're just getting the hang of this (assuming
you don't already have an account and are way ahead
of my learning curve level), let's practice :)
Beside each of these web page entries are the faint
words "save this."
Put your mouse over the "save this" and click.
If you have an existing del.icio.us account, it will take
you to the log in page for your account (for you
smart ones!). If you don't have an account yet, you'll
be given the opportunity to create one now.
After creating your account and logging in, you'll see
an area on your screen where the url you've chosen
to bookmark is awaiting your description and/or notes
and/or tags.
For our purpose, initially bookmarking our first entry,
you need not worry about this too much at this time.
Give it a description and/or tag that will make sense to
you. You can delete it later.
Hit the save button and voila! You've got the beginnings
of your social bookmarking!
At this point, under your "settings" area (upper right
hand of screen in del.icio.us) you can do any number
of things. Importing your current Favorites folder (or
portions thereof) is available. Explore!
Now that you're on the road to social bookmarking
comes the fun part... telling others what you're doing.
If you have a website, you can easily add (assuming
you do your own webmastering or know the rudiments
of copying and pasting) a "save this page" to any and
all of your important webpages within your site. Use the
"help" link, then read "For Publishers" under the Feeds
and Tools section. That's where you'll find the code.
In addition, you'll want to share you're newly found method
of communication with others. Get your family, friends,
subscribers, mailing list involved in bookmarking your
small chunk (del.icio.us listing) of the social bookmarking
web.
Then, make use of it! Don't just load it up with junk.
If you're a writer and find interesting writer's resources
add them to your account. If you're a news junkie and
track particular newsworthy items, post those!
As you get more and more familiar with social bookmarking,
you'll understand the importance of "tagging" your
information correctly. According to del.icio.us, your
page goes on the front page (I've yet to see any of
mine though) and also is filed away under sub-indexing
using those all-important tags.
=============================
A LAYMAN'S EXPLANATION OF TAGS:
If you're just bookmarking stuff online for yourself, no
worries, but tags are critical to your marketing social
bookmarking success.
Tags are sort of like mini meta desciptions. Tags cannot
be inserted into a regular html page (don't bother trying
to put them on your website, they won't do anything but
take up space).
Tags are basically equal to metas and content. However,
tags are used in blogs and rss feeds. They are the trigger
words for online feeds to categorize (more or less) what
it is you're writing about and posting. Obviously tying
your words to popular tags will be very important.
http://del.icio.us/tag/ is a huge list of popular and not
so popular currently used tags. My advice would be to
be sure you've got the Google toolbar installed. As you
click on some tags, check the page ranking (little green
bar) on your Google toolbar. That will help you see how
popular (or not) that particular "tag" is... and remember
you don't have to "follow the crowd." You can choose
tags "not so popular." Then, when others pick up on
those tags, you're already ahead of the game :)
In the future, give your tags some very serious thought!
Your tags will brand your own posted entries.
===============================
I'll admit, I've only just scratched the surface so far.
I don't claim to be an expert (that's obvious), but I
do know that with further education and implementation,
social bookmarking as a marketing tool is definitely worth
the effort.
And... like all new things takes a bit of fumbling around
before we get it right.
So ahead! Get started! See where it leads you - the
next brainstorm idea is only a few minutes (okay
maybe hours or days) away! :)
======================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Theresa Cahill is the owner of My Wizard Ads. Her
job is to make your online advertising experience
as effective and effortless as possible.
mywizardads.com
To see how I'm fumbling along... My Del.icio.us
Reference: social booking [http://technorati.com/tag/social+booking]
by Theresa Cahill
Copyright 2006 - All Rights Reserved
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