Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably already know that social media has exploded over the last couple of years. The rate of growth seems exponential, and the user demographics for social media has expanded from internet geeks and bored students to just about every type of user you can think of.
In fact, my mother-in-law is so hooked on Facebook that if she doesn’t get her daily dose of it, she starts having major withdrawal symptoms including (but not limited to): moodiness, shaking, tremors, nausea, cold sweet, seizures, bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose, and occasional death.
For a blogger, social media and social bookmarking sites are a Godsend. They are like instant free advertisement that establishes more trust and credibility than a PPC ad could ever hope to. They also build authority which no amount of money can buy.
With Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Mixx, Sphinn, Reddit, Technorati, and many other sites available for sharing, it is hard to know which one to focus on.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter seem to require a lot of interaction with other users to get the most value out of them while it seems like other sites like Stumble Upon works best when you just do your own thing and hope the quality of your content helps you build traffic.
Rather than trying to make your blog or articles popular on multiple sites, sometimes focusing on one or two can be far more effective.
The best way to choose which site to focus on is to consider your demographics and topics. In general, I think Twitter is always a good choice because the Tweetmeme button is so easy to use, and Twitter seems to spread in a viral fashion more frequently than the other sharing sites (although it doesn’t bring as much traffic as say, a short stretch on the front page of Digg).
Social Media Trader wrote an awesome article detailing the types of articles that became popular on Digg, Stumble, Delicious, Reddit, and Propeller. I noticed that Delicious is ideal for How To articles, whereas Reddit is far more popular for news and politics.
Search Engine Journal also has a list of 125 Social Bookmarking Sites with a short description of each one. This is a very valuable resource for finding social bookmarking sites that fit your topics.
Get The Most From Your Social Bookmarking Promotion
If you really want to make yourself successful with social bookmarking, “spray and pray” is very unlikely to get you on the front page of anything or spread like wildfire. Most users are partial to just one or two bookmarking sites so asking for too much will get you none.
Focus on one or two bookmarking sites that are appropriate for your niche and Twitter or Facebook. Encourage your readers to bookmark you on those sites.
Finally, if you write an article that is off topic from your normal genre (or you randomly start getting traffic from), make a button for the bookmarking site you want to be shared on for that individual page.
Overall, there are a ton of ways for social media and social bookmarking to increase the traffic to your blog. Don’t get too caught up in the frenzy though; instead, pick and choose where you want to be successful, and you’ll have a much better shot of reaching your goals and improving your traffic.
Related posts:
- Props to Twitter – How Twitter has become the face of social networking marketing
- Do You Harness the #PowerOfTwitter with Twitter #Hashtag Optimization?
- 5 Twitter Newbie Mistakes To Avoid
- 7 Steps To Building A Following And Following The Right People On Twitter
- One Simple Way to Protect and Build Your Brand Name Online
Twitted by websiteweekend Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
[...] This post was Twitted by websiteweekend [...]
Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 12:52 AM
Yeah, it’s hard to know what to focus on.
I’ve been tied up with client work last week or so, and it’s killing my posting schedule. Never mind dealing with learning a new social media service.
In the long run the effort does pay off. Alexa finally updated the linking in to my site. Went from 4 to 180 backlinks. Just took some time.
There’s a big opportunity to do extensive and meaningful review on which bookmarking services to use, and why to use them. I bet there potential markets buried in that information.
Blake Waddill Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 12:54 AM
I was reading Seth Godin the other day, and he said there is tons of information out there… It’s the information about information that we need more of. Perfect example.
My Alexa Jumped too, must have been a big update. I love a lot of work to do to catch up with you though.
My post schedule got way off. Between moving and Thanksgiving, I’ve been hard pressed to even get online. Got lots of new stuff to write about though!
I’ll be by in the morning to see whats new with WIAW.
zeesu Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 4:31 AM
like u said it is very good to focus on one or two social bookmarking site and try to build traffic on it.Overall social bookmarking sites are awesome as they help in seo,trust and traffic
Dana @ Online Knowledge Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 6:49 AM
I do not use any of social media network for my blog until now. So, i may try delicious because there are many how to in my blog.
Blake Waddill Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 9:39 AM
Delicious would be perfect for your blog. You have a ton of very easy to follow how to articles. They would be very helpful for people looking tutorials on how to setup their blog.
Tad Chef Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Overall, I couldn’t agree more, you have summarized my thoughts very well. You make a few mistakes though. These sites are not about social bookmarking. Only Delicious is social bookmarking, while SU is social discovery, Digg is social news and Twitter is social networking.
Don’t approach them as bookmarking if they aren’t bout it. You’re bound to fail.
Also most of these sites are almost dead by now. Digg, Delicious and SU were big years ago.
These days I’d suggest to use Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook etc.
Blake Waddill Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 9:36 AM
Twitter and Facebook are definitely on the rise, no doubt about it. I haven’t tried Tumblr yet (don’t want to spread too thin). I don’t think that means the others are dead though.
A trip to the front page of Digg can still send you thousands of viewers in just a couple of hours. The majority of those readers will be new.
I read your article about SU and found it to be very interesting. While it might not necessarily work the way it should, it does still send traffic if random people stumble you.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 9:26 AM
So many social activities, so little time. I’ve experimented with about 12-15 of these sites and based on my experience (with a little help from Google Analytics), here’s what I found:
- SU was incredible at first. It brought me more visitors than all others combined during my first three months! In the last month, SU has dropped back to the rest of the pack.
- Digg and Reddit have consistently brought me about the same amount of visitors every month.
- Since I made the effort to increase my followers, Twitter has led all of these social sites and trails only direct and organic search.
uberVU - social comments Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by propsblog: Social Bookmarking Pointers To Take Your Site To The Top – http://propsblog.com/social-bookmarking-pointers-to-keep-your-site-on-track/...
Ms. Freeman Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 2:56 PM
I think that is where I have been going wrong. I am focusing my attention on so many social sites that not one of them is getting adequate attention.
I think I need to schedule a day and time for each site and stick to it. I fell like I bounce from one site to the other but don’t complete a single thought on one.
Blake Waddill Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 8:08 PM
That’s a great idea. It’s easy to get caught chasing links all over the place and never getting any traction. I’ve spent most of my time promoting and building my Twitter account.
I think I’ll start building my Sphinn or SU next, but I’m not sure which yet. Either way, like you said, giving one enough attention is the key imo.
Tamahome Jenkins Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 11:06 PM
There’s some excellent info here. I focus on Twitter mostly, but I also submit my posts to Stumbleupon and use su.pr. I figure every little bit helps, it only takes a few extra seconds anyway. It’d be interesting to see how SU determines how they stumble. It seems almost too random.
Blake Waddill Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 2:44 PM
You might want to check out that article I linked about SU. He has some interesting information about how random SU is.
Tamahome Jenkins Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 2:41 PM
I was finally able to read that article last night, and I completely agree with all of Tad’s complaints. Stumbleupon is too flaky to be your primary means of social bookmarking. But for 5 seconds of my life, I do get ~100 stumbles, so I can’t complain too much. ;)
Tad Chef Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 2:31 PM
Btw. Blake, are you on Twitter? Can’t find your Twitter name here on the blog. Mine is @onreact_com
Penny Stocks Says:
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 PM
my site is getting good visitors from Twitter and Facebook since last few weeks i have started Social marketing for the same.
I was using SU and Digg before but now i am much into Twitter and FB
sakthikumaran Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 9:49 AM
Social bookmarks sites are really good for traffic for our sites. especially twitter is great. thanks for sharing this post with us.
Nicholas Cardot Says:
January 8th, 2010 at 8:28 PM
Thanks for this post. I agree with you completely! People who aren’t getting involved in social bookmarking and social media sites really are missing out.
I also agree that it’s much better to go after only a few sites rather than to go after a whole bunch. It’s better to only have a few, well designed, prominent looking icons at the bottom of a post than to have 60 tiny ones that won’t get used.
In fact, earlier today I launched my first ever plugin for WordPress that duplicates the six social icons that I use at the bottom of my posts over at Site Sketch 101.
Blake Waddill Reply:
January 21st, 2010 at 12:22 AM
Nick,
I checked out your plugin a couple of days ago. It looks sexy :) I’ve always loved the look of your site, so it’s cool seeing you sharing the wealth.
I’m always shocked when I see 20-30 share this icons at the bottom of a post. It seems like most of the “whale blogs” are either using some form of “share this” or are like yours (Shoemoney and Mashable are great examples of that).
Deepika Says:
January 10th, 2010 at 8:36 AM
Very nice post friend. Social bookmarking places an important role in blogging. I like twitter, facebook, friendfeed,reddit,stumbleupon and digg.
I get traffic from these sites. I like it very much and i also share other blog articles in that sites.
Tech Maish Says:
January 15th, 2010 at 12:58 AM
Digg is really good for traffic, but we have to write quality content so that readers can vote us on digg.
It is the quality which will give us benefit.
Blake Waddill Reply:
January 21st, 2010 at 12:04 AM
Digg requires quality, some following/influence, and a ton of luck from what I’ve seen.
Williams Says:
February 1st, 2010 at 4:19 AM
Definetly, site gets more benefit from social bookmarks, as they get traffic + bookmarks = money.