Using Social Bookmarking to Promote Your Cause

Chances are, if you’ve been online for any length of time, you’ve heard about social bookmarking. This is just one of many ways you can use the internet to promote your cause, and it’s relatively simple to get that started.

First, let’s look at how to use social bookmarking; then we will take a closer look at how to use it to benefit your projects.

There are hundreds of social bookmarking websites out there, but most people stick to the most popular ones – such as Delicious, StumbleUpon, BlinkList, Google Bookmarks, Simpy, Diigo, and many others. While it can be useful to have hundreds of links, you’ll find that the vast majority of traffic comes from these top sites.

What is Social Bookmarking?

Have you ever saved a webpage to your browser’s “favorites menu,” so you can look at it again later? Social bookmarking is essentially the same thing, but your saved pages are saved in your own online account in the social bookmarking website. If you chose to, you can make your saved bookmarks (favorites) publicly viewable. Others can see which websites you thought were worth looking at or referring to and they can check them out, too. Social bookmarking websites usually allow you to become friends of other members who share similar interests to you, so that you can more easily share the websites you recommend. If your friends also like them, then they may save those same pages, so that their friends can see them . . . it’s a rapidly expanding circle of exposure.

If you go to a social bookmarking website such as StumbleUpon, you can choose either a category, or a person, to look at. Let’s say you know that Fox100 is someone who always finds great, informative sites on your favorite topic. You can add this person as a friend, so that you can see what he votes for and shares. Others can also add you as a friend, and of course, the more friends you have, the more people will see your bookmarks.

Alternatively, you can go to a specific category, such as “Humor,” and find out what other people shared or voted for in that category. Most sites let you vote on selections, up or down, which has an impact on how much traffic that link will get.

Using Social Bookmarking for Your Project

What does all this mean for you? Well, you can bookmark your own content, or have someone else do it, to gain more traffic. If you write a blog on your current projects, then each post can be bookmarked socially, which makes it available to many more eyes than just your current blog readers. The same process works for press releases, videos, and just about anything you can put online.

The better the content on a page, the more likely it is to get shared. You probably won’t want to bookmark a bad website or one that seems primarily composed of ads, and even if you do, no one else will.

One’s first thought may be to run off and create lots of Social Bookmarking accounts, to bookmark their own websites. Well, you aren’t the first person to think of this, and unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. In fact, so many people have tried this tactic in the past, that it is now looked at as spam and is frowned on by most Social Bookmarking websites. It is also very time consuming. There are services available to help you get your website listed in Social Bookmarking websites, but there again, some of these violate the terms and conditions of the social bookmarking websites and are spam tools in themselves.

There are a few reputable companies that provide this service in a more ethical fashion. One which I recommend is Social Media Science.

There are also free websites that allow you to add a link, as well as a description and some tags to help people search for the topic, so that the website can then  submit your link this to a large number of social bookmarking sites that you’ve already signed up for.  But again, if you use this to bookmark your own websites, you may come across as a spammer.

On the other hand, there is nothing preventing you from bookmarking other websites in your field which promote the same ideas and causes that you promote.  And this is an excellent use of Social Bookmarking websites.  In fact, you will probably find that you begin to make yourself and your own website more broadly known as a result, even indirectly.  People may visit your social bookmarking account profiles more often and see your website’s link or your organizations information in your profile section.  Other website owners who appreciate your bookmarking their websites may decide to bookmark your website in return.

Social bookmarking, when used correctly, can mean the difference between getting virtually no traffic and letting thousands of people know about your organization.  It’s a very powerful tool, and best of all, it’s completely free.