How To Succeed with Social Bookmarking
Hello Everyone:
I am the owner of a social bookmarking website, and since creating the website, I have learned the ins and outs of how these websites work, what kinds of content becomes popular, what types of content gets attention from the search engines, etc. While successful social networking gurus will already know this information, I certainly didn't, and judging by the content typically submitted to Digg, Reddit, and my own site, Seekyt, most people really have no clue what social bookmarking can do for them. Or at least they have no clue how to properly utilize it.
First of all, the number one rule for success on social bookmarking sites is:
Do not merely join, submit links, and leave.
While you can be successful with this method after a period of time, the path to making the front page, every time, is paved through interaction, friendships, quality content, and a good relationship with the website. To be successful with social bookmarking, you must make friends, write comments, vote for submissions, interact with other users, submit good, quality content (funny or breaking news usually goes over well), and frequently return to the bookmarking website and repeat the process. If you really scour any of the big social bookmarking sites, you will see that the same people make the front page over and over again. They put in the hard work in the early stages of joining the site, and now every bookmark they submit gets hundreds of votes. They are not the only people with access to great information - they simply know how to promote themselves properly. Don't spend all of your time trying to be friends with only the "top users" either. Make friends with as many people as possible, vote for their stuff when they ask you to, and they will return the favors. I see it happen everyday.
Rule Number Two:
Do Not Submit Spam, Try To Cheat, or otherwise get around the system.
On the bigger social bookmarking sites, you probably won't get caught, lets be honest. However, on smaller sites, such as my own site, with all of the features I can offer which larger sites simply cannot offer, spamming and cheating the site is a serious offense. So serious, in fact, that I will probably never allow certain users of my site to make the front page (or let it happen again). For instance, it only takes three votes to get to the front page of my site. Out of 1,000 submissions and 100 members so far, less than 100 have made the front page, and many times, I actually voted for some of the content myself. However, I get very irked when I figure out that someone has created several accounts on my website, figured out they can't vote twice from the same IP, then create a different account with a different IP address to vote their stuff to the front page. They might think they are sneaky, and since I have left the content on the page, they probably think they got away with it. Trust me, regardless if you are on my site, or a big site such as Delicious, you are not going to get away with anything like that. Not to mention, when all of your content is useless or violates the TOS of the site, it is going to be very difficult to make friends and follow rule number one. I really hate seeing 100's of "iphone programmer" bookmarks from the same member over and over again, and the rest of my site hates it as well. That particular member now has no chance. So, even if you are going to promote an affiliate link once in a while, simply make sure to even it out with great submissions from other sources as well. On my site, funny or interesting stuff is put into a rotating "featured" news box, and it's usually days or weeks until there is something else to take its place.
Rule number three:
Don't leave your fate up to the popular sites only.
While you will inevitably receive thousands of views if you make it to the front page of Digg, you won't last long on that front page, and the value you receive is gone in a matter of hours. Many smaller bookmarking sites offer valuable incentives that large sites don't, such as revenue sharing, easy access to the front page, automatically building links on other sites, dofollow links, etc., or in the case of my site, all of the above. There are tons of smaller bookmarking sites you can use and be quite successful with. Just remember to follow the first two rules. I have received several emails from site members I personally know that tell me they get way more views per submission than when they get lost in the sea of Diggs. This is just food for thought, and not meant to be self promotion. Your submissions can and will last for days or weeks on the front page of a smaller site.
These are simple, easy to follow steps, that will help you build many successful profiles of bookmarks, straight from someone who owns one of these sites.
By the way, I'm really happy to have finally joined the warrior forum and look forward to learning a bunch from everyone!
I am the owner of a social bookmarking website, and since creating the website, I have learned the ins and outs of how these websites work, what kinds of content becomes popular, what types of content gets attention from the search engines, etc. While successful social networking gurus will already know this information, I certainly didn't, and judging by the content typically submitted to Digg, Reddit, and my own site, Seekyt, most people really have no clue what social bookmarking can do for them. Or at least they have no clue how to properly utilize it.
First of all, the number one rule for success on social bookmarking sites is:
Do not merely join, submit links, and leave.
While you can be successful with this method after a period of time, the path to making the front page, every time, is paved through interaction, friendships, quality content, and a good relationship with the website. To be successful with social bookmarking, you must make friends, write comments, vote for submissions, interact with other users, submit good, quality content (funny or breaking news usually goes over well), and frequently return to the bookmarking website and repeat the process. If you really scour any of the big social bookmarking sites, you will see that the same people make the front page over and over again. They put in the hard work in the early stages of joining the site, and now every bookmark they submit gets hundreds of votes. They are not the only people with access to great information - they simply know how to promote themselves properly. Don't spend all of your time trying to be friends with only the "top users" either. Make friends with as many people as possible, vote for their stuff when they ask you to, and they will return the favors. I see it happen everyday.
Rule Number Two:
Do Not Submit Spam, Try To Cheat, or otherwise get around the system.
On the bigger social bookmarking sites, you probably won't get caught, lets be honest. However, on smaller sites, such as my own site, with all of the features I can offer which larger sites simply cannot offer, spamming and cheating the site is a serious offense. So serious, in fact, that I will probably never allow certain users of my site to make the front page (or let it happen again). For instance, it only takes three votes to get to the front page of my site. Out of 1,000 submissions and 100 members so far, less than 100 have made the front page, and many times, I actually voted for some of the content myself. However, I get very irked when I figure out that someone has created several accounts on my website, figured out they can't vote twice from the same IP, then create a different account with a different IP address to vote their stuff to the front page. They might think they are sneaky, and since I have left the content on the page, they probably think they got away with it. Trust me, regardless if you are on my site, or a big site such as Delicious, you are not going to get away with anything like that. Not to mention, when all of your content is useless or violates the TOS of the site, it is going to be very difficult to make friends and follow rule number one. I really hate seeing 100's of "iphone programmer" bookmarks from the same member over and over again, and the rest of my site hates it as well. That particular member now has no chance. So, even if you are going to promote an affiliate link once in a while, simply make sure to even it out with great submissions from other sources as well. On my site, funny or interesting stuff is put into a rotating "featured" news box, and it's usually days or weeks until there is something else to take its place.
Rule number three:
Don't leave your fate up to the popular sites only.
While you will inevitably receive thousands of views if you make it to the front page of Digg, you won't last long on that front page, and the value you receive is gone in a matter of hours. Many smaller bookmarking sites offer valuable incentives that large sites don't, such as revenue sharing, easy access to the front page, automatically building links on other sites, dofollow links, etc., or in the case of my site, all of the above. There are tons of smaller bookmarking sites you can use and be quite successful with. Just remember to follow the first two rules. I have received several emails from site members I personally know that tell me they get way more views per submission than when they get lost in the sea of Diggs. This is just food for thought, and not meant to be self promotion. Your submissions can and will last for days or weeks on the front page of a smaller site.
These are simple, easy to follow steps, that will help you build many successful profiles of bookmarks, straight from someone who owns one of these sites.
By the way, I'm really happy to have finally joined the warrior forum and look forward to learning a bunch from everyone!
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