Social Bookmarking for Business

Social bookmarking is a cool concept that allows you to save bookmarks to websites you find interesting or useful. It’s a great idea from a personal standpoint because you can access your favourite bookmarks from any computer. But how can social bookmarking help your business?

Okay, I must admit – it definitely has taken me a bit to figure out how to explain this simply (like I wish someone could have explained to me)! But here it goes.

If you would like:

• Increased Traffic To Your Site
• A quicker way to access new business resources, and/or
• Another way to strengthen business relationships

Then subscribing to popular social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, Digg or Stumble Upon is worth considering.

Social bookmarking differs from search engines in that other people are ranking and tagging your content. So you don’t need to be a Google “whiz” with keywords or rely on their bots to drive traffic to your site. But you DO need to submit great content in terms of links, articles, photos and videos.

Increased Traffic To Your Site – Just how well does social bookmarking drive traffic to your site? Well put it this way. If your submission makes it to the first page of a site like Del.icio.us or Digg your server may not be able to even handle the traffic!! An interesting problem to have if at the moment your web traffic is less than stellar!

Social bookmarking sites also track the links each user accesses. You can use this information to understand the demographics of those who visit your site. This data will show if you are reaching your target market. This information may also reveal new markets that are interested in your business.

The reasons these sites drive traffic to your site are because you have committed to taking the following steps:

• You are creating bookmarks of your own site when you sign up as a start!

• You are encouraging others to bookmark certain pages on your site or your blog

• You are building your new bookmarking community and sharing bookmarks with these contacts.

Effect – Targeted New Traffic to Your Site
Cost – $0 but a time investment to work it

A Quicker Way to Access New Business Resources – (and some fun personal ones too). With new information appearing on the internet at an exponential rate, it can be mind boggling to try and keep up. But with bookmarking sites you can use your community and RSS Feeds to stay on top of those sites and information that is relevant to you. Add them to your bookmarks and then when you need them they are there.

Strengthen Business Relationships – Think about that next big client you are wooing right now, or perhaps some that you are dealing with at the moment. You can start looking for valuable information for them too and use this to show your interest in them and their company. Overall, it’s an extra tool you can use to build better business relationships.

To Get Started:

Sign up for at least one major site – I find del.icio.us very easy to use, but am also researching StumbleUpon and Digg. Each one is a bit like learning a new program, so starting with one and building one community at a time is probably all you have time for.

• Make sure to submit content from your site, or blog

• Start to build your network and share bookmarks

• Promote your affiliation with your bookmarking sites and

• Encourage people to add you to their network and add your web site, web page or blog to their bookmarks (or on some sites like Digg, vote on it).

• Start seeking out relevant bookmarks that can help you and your business

And of course, if you found this post valuable or interesting, please share this page with your favourite social bookmarking site.

Source: Hubspot