Three Paths to Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking used to be big, then it died back a little bit, but these days it’s back in the focus of websites’ SEO companies and small businesses everywhere. What is it? Pretty simply, it’s when you create a set of bookmarks about a subject and then stick it out on some public forum for people to vote on and comment about.

Back in the day, the big players were Digg and Reddit. They’re still around today, as are StumbleUpon and Delicious, their second-tier competitors. But the big news today is about Pinterest — and about the swarm of niche-specific social bookmarking sites like design:related, kirtsy, and others. Together, they represent the three main ways of using social bookmarking.

Old School
The originals still work just like they always did: you get accounts on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and each time you have a new piece of content you want eyes on, you put links up to that content on each of your bookmarking accounts. The more bookmarks you build up, the better of a reputation you get on each site, and the more likely it is that someone will pay attention.

Picture Perfect
Using the likes of Pinterest and Instagram can be more difficult for a small business, because they’re entirely picture-related. If you can’t find something visual — and not just ‘a picture’, but something memorable, eye-catching, and provocative — you may not be able to use these social bookmarking sites. On the other hand, they have such immense traffic and sway over the social sphere that it might just be worth it to put in the effort and make the graphics you need.

The Eclectic Slide
Not every industry has it’s own niche social bookmarking sites — but you’d be amazed. Restaurants. Theatres. Music. Web design. Architecture. Almost anything that causes people’s hearts to stir or their opinions to come bubbling out of their mouths has at least one niche social bookmarking site on the Internet somewhere. These might not be as good of a way to get in touch with your crowd, but it’s a great way to get in touch with your competition.