Social Bookmarking - the New Way of Internet Marketing!
Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008
Like Search Engines, Social Bookmarking has become an increasingly popular way of navigation and to market websites. And so it should, the big black hole we call the Internet are depending on its users to find their way around. SE and SB sites are the two main ways to navigate and structure the World Wide Web and its content. But now that the Internet also has become a billion dollar industry, these elements are in constant threat of being abused and god forbid, spammed!
“By abusing the benefits of this open information sharing, you are weakening the credibility of SB. This will not even result in more traffic to your website. In order to make that happen you need something else, called good relevant content!”
Social Bookmarking Vs. The Search Engines
There are hundreds of Social Bookmarking websites on the Internet today. Del.icio.us, Digg.com and Connotea to name a few. This development could be seen as a result of how navigation on the web more and more is relying on search engines. They have simply been given the responsibility of giving the world wide web a little bit of structure and search - ability. They look, find, scan and rank websites, according to algorithms, using programmed robots. It's made things a whole lot easier to find. It's the best we got! Or is it? Well, as a matter of fact there is another way to go about finding relevant information. A way that lies in the hands of men, not spiders and robots! A way that has made it possible for anyone to share their Internet experince! It's called Social Bookmarking.
A New Way of Internet Marketing
With Del.icio.us in 2003 social bookmarking emerged quickly after collapsing when the dot.com bubble burst. Now, only five years later many more has started and the social bookmarking is reaching for new horizons. When it all started the concept focused around a community in which links and tips of websites could be shared to all or specific groups or members. Now it has evolved, as more and more businesses online has realized the potential and marketing possibilities of social bookmarking.
Don't Spam Social Bookmarking sites!
When entering an online news magazine, blog or forum today you'll most certainly have the options to tag the content, to bookmark it on one of several social bookmarking sites. This was not offered a couple of years ago and while it's great, since it makes sharing information on the Internet a whole lot easier, it can also be seen as a warning sign. The reason why social bookmarking has grown so popular is because this way of Internet navigation is trusted to contain good relevant links and tags. It's made by real live people. And as more and more people are using social bookmarking, even more are realizing its marketing potential. We have now reached a delicate point, a situation needed to be handled with caution. Social bookmarking advertises every day, every time somebody tags a website and comments its content. That's marketing, in a nut shell. And it's nothing wrong with using bookmarking as a marketing tool. If you have a website you should definitely increase awareness using SB. But don't overdo it! Don't spam the bookmarking sites with tags of your website. This will help no one. By abusing the benefits of this open information sharing, you are weakening the credibility of SB. This will not even result in more traffic to your website. In order to make that happen a website need something else, other than aggressive marketing, called good relevant content!
