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Social Bookmarking Automation Tools...Worth It? Yes Or No

by Steven Wagenheim
11 replies
Okay, I've been doing some research into social bookmarking tools to
automate the process and be able to submit to a mass number of sites.

What I am finding is, the ones that are getting the best reviews are also
darn expensive, in some cases hundreds of dollars.

I have no problem shelling out that kind of scratch if it's going to be worth
it, but my gut tells me that the majority of these sites are crap anyway (very
little traffic) and the return, as in actual traffic to your site, is going to be
minuscule at best. I've done the submitter thing in other mediums years ago
and thus that is what I am basing my assumptions on.

But what's the real truth.

Are these tools worth it?

Anyone actually have any experience with them?

Or are we just better off going to the top sites manually?
#automation #bookmarking #social #toolsworth
  • Profile picture of the author Jeff B
    Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of social bookmarking sites. Sure, they can generate traffic to your site, but what's that traffic going to do once they get to your site? I've found that most will briefly check it out and then hit the back button and go right back to the social bookmarking site that they came from and look for more sites to go browse (this is especially true for Digg).

    How many buyers or visitors that are going to make you money somehow are actually coming to your site from social bookmarking sites? If the answer to this question is a number that makes it worthwhile for you to invest in some costly submission software, then do it. If the traffic that's ending up on your site from these sites isn't making you much money, I'd scrap the process altogether unless you're just doing it for backlinks.

    A lot of people just think about the traffic numbers that might come from social bookmarking sites, when the most important thing is what is that traffic going to do once it reaches your site? Are they going to stick around and buy something or click on an ad, etc.? Or are they going to spend a few minutes eating up your bandwidth only to go right back to the site that they came from.

    Only you can be the true judge of whether it's worth it to you or not, but consider the value each visitor brings to you as part of your decision process.

    Just something to think about based on my own experiences. Mileage will vary.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kurt
      Originally Posted by Jeff B View Post



      How many buyers or visitors that are going to make you money somehow are actually coming to your site from social bookmarking sites? If the answer to this question is a number that makes it worthwhile for you to invest in some costly submission software, then do it. If the traffic that's ending up on your site from these sites isn't making you much money, I'd scrap the process altogether unless you're just doing it for backlinks.
      Actually, backlinks is the #1 reason to use social bookmarking.

      Steven,

      If you're just bookmarking a site or a couple of sites, then Big Mike's SocialBot will do. If you are more hard core, then Bookmarkingdemon is the better choice...Although, I'd wait until Bookmarkingdemon comes out with the final version. They are updating now and all recent versions have been beta.

      In my experience, creative (greyhat) SB and use of RSS pheeds are the best ways to create links for SEO purposes.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeff B
        Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

        Actually, backlinks is the #1 reason to use social bookmarking.
        Ok, it makes sense then. I was mainly thinking about it for traffic from the sites. I don't do much SEO, I mainly rely on other methods for traffic. I've only really tested social bookmarking for the traffic and it wasn't the kind of traffic I need so I ditched it. I say submit away if it's going to help your SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Trieu
    which is the best social bookmarking software?
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Molano
    Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

    Okay, I've been doing some research into social bookmarking tools to
    automate the process and be able to submit to a mass number of sites.

    What I am finding is, the ones that are getting the best reviews are also
    darn expensive, in some cases hundreds of dollars.

    I have no problem shelling out that kind of scratch if it's going to be worth
    it, but my gut tells me that the majority of these sites are crap anyway (very
    little traffic) and the return, as in actual traffic to your site, is going to be
    minuscule at best. I've done the submitter thing in other mediums years ago
    and thus that is what I am basing my assumptions on.

    But what's the real truth.

    Are these tools worth it?

    Anyone actually have any experience with them?

    Or are we just better off going to the top sites manually?
    Yes for backlinks, no for traffic.

    Social Bookmarking sites are all about getting backlinks to increase the position of a page in the search engines for a specific keyword.

    The traffic they give themselves (even the big ones like Digg) is pretty much useless.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Here's my opinion.

    You can auto bookmark all of your own stuff for free with plugins for wordpress.

    It's even more effective if you get others to bookmark your stuff, which is what bookmarking was all about.

    If you're desperate to get started or you're in an ultra competitive niche then maybe adding these little extras into your marketing mix might make a difference or give you an edge over people not doing much, but they're not something I would advise people to give a lot of attention to or spend much money on.

    If you want to do it, just automate it and forget about it or pay someone else to think about it for you while you focus on things that will make a big difference to your business.

    The reason so many people put time and effort into things like this is that they don't have a clear profit plan and so they do anything that they think 'might' make a difference.

    In my opinion if you don't have any idea of the outcome of a particular action - don't spend much time on it, especially if there are things you can do that you do know will help grow your business.

    Bookmarking is again something that the effects of are largely outside your control. Google could stop giving them credit and your efforts would disappear, or the bookmarking sites could change the way they work and cripple your results.

    Do it if you think you need to, but in a way that doesn't use much time or effort on your part, and preferably not in a way that you're just bookmarking your own stuff and that's it.

    Andy
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Glenn72
    I just did a search and found this thread.

    I'm curious if there are any decent affordable programs or sites that will allow to to bookmark multiple pages from multiple user accounts at set intervals, like one per hour or so?

    I remember reading about Ed Dale's Immediate Edge which apparently has some software included that does this, but that's no longer running it seems.
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  • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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    • Profile picture of the author marcanthony
      It's worth doing because it only takes a few minutes to do. And if you are bookmarking content from a niche site that is appealing to the masses, I guarantee that you will collect a few new subscribers.

      My friend has a site with tons of Dreamweaver tutorials and he gets a lot of traffic from Digg.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bryan Zimmerman
      Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

      Steven,

      I've been using Social Bookmarking for around 3 years successfully for back links and traffic. Targeted traffic based on using the right tags and keywords to specific niches. It's not all crap traffic nor is it all of my traffic - like everything, it's one piece of a larger puzzle.

      Yes, we have an automated SB program and whether you've got 1 page or tens of thousands it's effective. It has been for years (and I think ours was the first program of it's type - maybe). But, ours is primarily whitehat/slightly greyhat compared to programs like Demon.

      My ongoing goal with this particular program, as with most of our products, is to automate an otherwise redundant task. I'm not about to spend hundreds of man-hours a year maintaining link lists and manually submitting them - that's obviously nuts and the ROI isn't worth it.

      However, by removing the redundancy via automation, you end up with a significantly improved ROI, because you're spending very little time maintaining it.

      I'm not interested in bookmarking every single page or going through proxies to hide IP addresses and so forth - I just want to be able to bookmark my best quality content pages, index pages and so forth. I want to bookmark links that will be sustainable over the years and not get me banned.

      The biggest hurdle is sign up to all the accounts (unless you outsource it or have staff to do it for you like we do). Once that's done, the rest is a breeze and as I said, it fits well into a larger traffic generation plan.

      Is there a way to only submit to a few directories a day without having to start a new profile? If I have already signed up for say 50 of the sites and want to start bookmarking a new article is there a way I can use that same profile and only have it go to say 3 of the sites instead of all 50? Or do I just have to start a whole new profile?
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  • Profile picture of the author James Schramko
    I have a feeling that mass submitted identical backlinks at the same time to multiple sites will retrospectively be undone.

    It would be wise to keep automation to a quality controlled level for the long term as BigMike suggests.
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  • Profile picture of the author csm
    Has anyone tried RSS Bookmarker from Mass-Automation or know anything about it? It looks interest, albeit a bit pricey. I like that it is a web-based script and not a desktop application.

    I also cannot find on their site whether you can set up any social bookmarking site of your choosing, or if they have a static list.

    Susan
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