Complete Online Marketer

The Relevance of Social Bookmarking

What started out as an attempt to systematize my personal social marketing strategy has evolved into a labor-intensive research project …laying bare my obsessive compulsive need to research the crap out of things.

The point of it all was to make the most of my bookmarking efforts by building a strong network of backlinks with relevant and popular websites/communities – anything to contribute to a stronger showing in the SERPs.

Because we all know that, “Search engines treat the links pointing at a page as a primary authority for what the target page is about.  So much so in fact, that pages …often rank solely on the power of the incoming links!” (Leslie Rhode, “Ranking On Page One,” The Net Effect, Vol. 1 Iss. 1, p.11).

I also wanted to wean myself from the plethora of bookmarking buttons I’ve accumulated on my toolbar – thereby automating the process as much as possible, and freeing up a few more pixels of viewing space.  (I actually have a whole row dedicated to bookmarking buttons!)

So, I began looking closer into bookmark managers like OnlyWire, SocialMarker, SocialPoster, Profilactic, etc., where I could simply create accounts with the bookmarking sites that they list, select only the ones I want, and have my page batch submitted, on a buck and a wing, as they say.

Only thing was, I wasn’t familiar with many of the individual sites listed with these services and since I’m looking for relevancy (ergo, strong backlinks), the only logical thing to do seemed to manually visit each site to determine what they were about.

Hence, the enigma that grew…

As I began to visit these individual sites, I learned that some of them were dead; some had undergone name changes and were operating under an entirely different name; some sites had explicit usage policies against Google bombing and self-promotion tactics; and in one case, the Terms and Services of the site clearly stated that they use nofollow for all external links.  (Hmm-mm… I wonder how often these batch bookmarking sites are monitored/updated..?)

I also came to the unsettling realization that “bookmarking” per se, means different things to different people.  In fact, the very name can imply anything from personal-use-only to publicly-shared-content-sites.  Thus confirming that all bookmarking sites are not created equal.

Who knew?

Before I knew it, not only was I identifying bookmarking sites for relevance, but I began segregating them by features – which ones accommodated content publishing, wikis (there’s a difference), aggregators, sharing, and especially, profiling – the pièces de résistance of social networking. (It’s not all about ‘bookmarking’ you know.)

Suddenly, my innocent (and incredibly monotonous) obsession had me investigating a whole new self-promotion routine that was about to take me through the gamut of the social lifestreaming phenomenon.  Meaning that, some sites went beyond bookmarking and were included on the basis of their interactive possibilities.

Thus, the making of “my list” – 168 social media sites …personally visited and confirmed relevant (or not) in one way or another.

Sure, there are considerably more social sites out there than what I’ve listed but I had to draw the line somewhere.  I have other compulsions to tend to.

And yes, I could have relied solely on the third-party lists I came across while doing this but, as I compared them against my own, I found that either too many sites were obsolete, or there was too little relevance and too much adult content and frankly, I’m not interested in those so they’re not part of my results.

Ultimately, I feel better creating my own list than relying on someone else’s outdated info.  This way, I know that each site on my list is current (Dec ‘08), relevant to me, and …ok, way too long.

Thankfully, I actually did this last year almost one year to the day (never imagining at the time that I’d be dumb enough to do it again).  And as luck would have it, that list turned out to be a useful metric in identifying usage and shelf-life.

So note two things:

1) Updated PR & Alexa values were documented December 2008.  Numbers in brackets indicate Dec 2007 rankings (sites without two sets of numbers were not included in last year’s list).  I thought it useful to be able to identify which services are growing/declining in popularity.

2) Sites that accommodate profiling (mostly networking sites) are identified by the letter ‘P’ after their name – to help reinforce that this is where you should be creating accounts.

Keep in mind that while some of the listed sites may seem irrelevant to certain niches, creative use of different types of social sites can contribute to the building of community and ultimately, a deep network of backlinks that’s critical to establishing a strong organic ranking in the SERPs.

Building community doesn’t have to mean exploiting people for personal gain.  You can use these sites for information and research (think product-creation), general social interaction (seek solutions or advice on things you’re working on, without soliciting), or any number of ways.

Treat others as you would have others treat you, and you’ll find yourself building a respectable reputation that comes with its own rewards.

I’m happy to offer this list to my readers because well, it would make me feel like I served a purpose after so many weeks of stealing the time it took to compile it.  Plus, nobility aside, I’m hoping for an appreciative show of comments to let me know I’m on the right track with my content…

Knowing that you found this list a useful resource would make its creation process vicariously fulfilling.  Feel free to leave your comments with any bookmarking-related insights you might have.

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