Social Bookmarking – What is Social Bookmarking

May 4, 2009

Social bookmarking has become very popular on the internet especially in recent years. Social bookmarking is a method used by Internet users to store and share web pages they find valuable. Social bookmarking has many applications. It has become popular with Web Design Companies, Internet Marketing Consultants, Website & Blog Owners as well as among a vast group of Internet users.

The concept is quite simple; you simply save links to web pages or blog posts that you want to access later or want to share with other Internet users. It is similar to using bookmarks in Firefox or favourites in Internet explorer. However the links are saves online and you can choose to make it public in order to share with other Internet users.

Instead of the website editor maintaining and editing the content on the website, the content is published by the users themselves. Social bookmarking websites like Digg rely on user generated content just like other social networking websites. User generated content is the basis for most social networking websites, Blogs , Forums and even article directories. Social bookmarking websites however are quite different to other such websites that promote user generated content. On social bookmarking website, instead of publishing full stories, we only submit the title, and a brief description of the story (content) which is then published with a directly link to the webpage or blog post with the original content.

How to Use Social Bookmarking Websites

Writing original content can be time consuming. Social bookmarking websites allow us leverage existing website content as opposed t o having to write new ones. They allow us to promote existing web pages or blog posts which were either written by us or published elsewhere on the Internet. We do not actually write new content for the social bookmarking website but use to promote existing content. We continue to publish content on our blogs or websites n the usual way and use social bookmarking services for additional exposure by submitting the story together with a link, title and description.

Most social bookmarking websites offer common features. They are free to use but require login to the website in order to use. Registration is easy and free, which can be done easily in a few simple steps. Users can choose whether their bookmark is public or private. Public bookmarks are more widely used and have wider applications. Public bookmarks allow us to share our links with other Internet users. Private bookmarks on the other hand are not available to others and can only be accessed by us. Public bookmarks have added benefits as other Internet users are able to vote on public bookmarks. Votes improve the visibility of the bookmarks within the site as the content ranks higher. Top voted articles are also featured on the homepage which can increase the popularity of the content manifold and generate massive traffic to the original webpage.

Top Social Bookmarking Websites

Digg

There are many social bookmarking websites. Digg is arguably one of the most popular and influential for promoting content.

When Digg was first launched, its focus was primarily on technology related articles. However with time, Digg has expanded to include a wide range of topics. Today Digg supports many categories including Technology, Sports, Science, Entertainment, Gaming and Videos.

Other social bookmarking sites can be equally effective to leverage and promote website content on the Internet. Many of them are successful with over hundreds of thousands of users each.

Some of the leading social bookmarking websites are listed below:

Name	Users	Alexa Rank	Google PR
Digg	27 Million		7
Delicious	300k + (US)	2180	8
Yahoo Buzz	5 million +	N/a	7
Reddit	1.4 Million +	441	7
Blogmark.Net	14..4K (US)	29744	6
Stumble Upon	1.1 Million (US)	N/a	8